By STEPHEN LEWIS
Posted: Sunday, July 13, 2008 7:56 am

What an utter disappointment! I’m embarrassed for me, for you, and the entire city of Murfreesboro. In case you missed it, Murfreesboro’s representative in an international hot dog eating contest on July 4th finished dismally in the contest. It was so bad the caption under his picture in the paper didn’t even say where he finished. Only that he fell off the pace early and finished toward the back of the pack. That sounds a lot like where Big Brown finished in the Belmont Stakes which was dead last.

Now I don’t know Dr. Juris Shibayama, that’s his name by the way, but I don’t remember seeing any Confederate generals named Shibayama on my recent visit to the Stones River Battlefield so I’m guessing he’s a transplant to Murfreesboro. I mean if his name had been Murfree, or Maney, or Bragg we could assume a native but with Shib...forget it. I’m too tired of typing that. Anyway, the guy must live here now so he represents us all.

Out of the 20 competitors the winner ate 64 hot dogs. Even I have to admit that’s pretty good. You figure if the total goes down by a couple or three dogs between every competitor then our guy may have eaten 20 or so hot dogs at the most. Heck, me and my buddy Calvin eat that many a piece at a normal cookout. Then we may swing by Toot’s afterwards for some nachos and a plate of chicken fingers.

Let’s take a look at July 4th. My family planned a trip to the lake. I got up and had a couple chocolate Pop-tarts for breakfast and grabbed a slice of bologna on the way out the door so I wouldn’t get hungry and make a pig of myself in front of a lot of out-of-state family. Oh, and a peanut butter granola bar but that doesn’t count because I consider that a health food anyway. Kind of like frozen yogurt and fried okra.

We got to the lake around 11, the lunching hour, and I could feel my stomach starting to rumble. Nothing gets my stomach churning like the smell of lighter fluid igniting a wet bag of charcoal left over from the last cookout. I’m like Pavlov’s dogs slobbering all over the picnic table waiting for the first piece of undercooked meat to come off the grill.

Now to this Shib guy’s credit he did have to eat those hot dogs in 10 minutes. But the hot dogs were already done so it’s not like he had to wait or anything. The only thing holding me up was my cousin Ronnie who obviously thought one package of hot dogs and a dozen hamburgers would be enough to go around for everybody on the first run. Normally it would be, so long as I’m not involved in the first run. If I am it can get pretty dicey.

Not wanting to be rude, I only had two hamburgers, with everything, and two hot dogs, with cheese, sauerkraut and some macaroni salad, on that first go round. Others apparently wanted to eat so I waited patiently, snacking on some cantaloupe while Ronnie quickly got the next batch started.

Isn’t it great how cantaloupe doesn’t fill you up at all because I was able to eat a half of one in the time it took to knock the moo off of the next batch of hamburgers. After that second batch everyone had a chance to eat so then it becomes a free-for-all. No more feeling bad about getting fourths before someone has had firsts. No more guilt from my wife because I haven’t made sure our kids have eaten. I mean my gosh, it’s not like they’re being bottle-fed. Show them how to get in a line!

After the burgers were gone we broke out the big guns: pork loin sliced and soaked in a marinade salty enough to cure a country ham. You take a slice of this and put it on a hamburger bun with a slice of cheese and two slices of tomato and cover it in mayonnaise, and you’ve got a 30 percent blockage only moments away. Put a slice of bacon on it (yes we cook bacon at our cookouts) and that shoots up to a 60 percent blockage. Two of those bad boys and you’ll remember why you married your wife. Don’t ask me what that means I have no clue I’m just slobbering all over my keyboard wishing it was still July 4th.

And then the coup de gras. The Polish Kielbasa sausage. The best part of this is the fact that by now everyone else is so full you can pretty much enjoy this by yourself. On a side note can I please give a shout out to the man or woman who first domesticated the pig? That was a true moment of genius. Right up there with Gutenberg’s printing press and Gates’ Microsoft. And don’t forget the pig. Never has an animal smelled so horrible in life but so delicious in death. If some of our Jewish and Muslim friends had tried a bite of one of those pork loin sandwiches they’d be wearing crosses around their necks. Nothing could convert someone to Christianity faster than one of my 60-percenters!

But alas the holiday had to come to an end and so did the eating. With a couple of dogs for the road and the rest of the polish sausage we made our way home. After all I had to save some room for my dad’s homemade ice cream that we only get once a year. Perhaps next year I will volunteer to represent Murfreesboro in the international hot dog eating contest. I think I’ll wait a while before I have any more hot dogs though. At least until I can figure out what’s causing these pains in my chest.