This post, from just one year ago, is the essence of Blast from the Past. Laid out on the bar in the Bunkhouse are all of the nonperishable things we needed to do the Cold Salad Tailgate for the Kentucky game. (Menu at bottom. It was great!) In a couple of weeks, Mr. Big Food will fall and fracture his hip. It will turn out to be a minor fracture, but he’ll still be in a wheel chair for three weeks. So that will be that for us & tailgates. Just when he’s more or less mobile, we’ll spend three weeks in Europe, another with our grandson, Christmas alone on the Farm, catchup in January and what’s this? There’s a Chinese flu that’s going to kill everyone? Better reevaluate the preps and stock up. And here we are a year later.

Long time readers may be wondering why I haven’t been talking about the Mississippi State A&S tailgates yet. New readers may be wondering what I’m taking about.

For the past three years, Mr. Big Food and I have not only cooked for the 120 or more who attend the Arts & Sciences tailgate, we were also in charge of set up and breakdown, and I had the distinct pleasure of being in charge of the A&S U-Haul trailer that’s home to all things tailgate. We got really really good at setting up tables and chairs, decorating the site, and keeping the trailer in impeccable shape– down to an art or a science depending on your perspective. And we tired of it. So this year we are only doing the cooking.

The dean of the college is now in charge of all the rest. He’s decided that there will no longer be a television set and satellite rig– so no need to run a generator at the tailgate site. That means no electricity.

The forecast for Saturday between noon and 3pm is hovering around 90 degrees, without heat index. (It’s 93 w/ a H.I. of 99 right now on the Farm.) You crowd 120 people under and around a tent in that kind of weather and it can get sort of warm.

But no electricity means no fans. Or does it?

Of course not!

The Jackery 240Wh Power Station connected to a box fan running on HI, and connected to the Jackery Solar Panel which passes electrons to the fan, should give us nearly eight hours of air movement– more than enough. Another fan connected to the Jackery 160Wh Power Station with no solar input will give us about 2.5 hrs. when the crowd is there.

Done and done from the Department of Redundancy Department.

Here’s the menu, by the way: