I work in special education, and engage my fellow workers in barbeque debates without end. Listening to them, I exist in disbelief. It's like barbeque war. Only "they" make the greatest barbeque ever and only "they" know of the greatest barbeque place of all time. They would rather stop breathing than concede defeat. It wasn't an idle threat. I up and left in a whirlwind to find the truth. I never imagined that a pit master blowtorches ribs within earshot of the Gateway to the West or that a rib shack in the Home of Lincoln sneaks apples into their century old secret sauce or I'd be personally escorted into the deep workings of one of the most chomping smokehouses in America. But somewhere in there a car wreck detoured me, a lightning blast sent me scurrying, and a baseball game screwed up my plans. The preachings of a barbeque evangelist left me in a death grip, and I schmoozed with a Bear in the middle of Missouri. One second I'm watching TV and the next I'm whispering in the ear of an Idol. Oh what fun to watch naughty rotund guys work their craft And somehow that dastardly man known as The Fever threw a curveball down the middle of all this. Damn him. Somewhere an Uncle Joe, right this second, unhunkered and on fire, slips a secret ingredient into his sauce that even the CIA won't discover. So come, help me find the secret, because it's the journey more than the destination.