Jack’s Nest was a roadhouse a few miles outside of Farmville, Virginia, which I frequented while teaching at Hampden-Sydney College, fourth oldest college in the United States. At that time (1980-81), it was still an all-male institution of about 800 students. The owner of Jack’s Nest was a black man named Pernell, but everyone called him Jack. The clientel was almost 100% white.
On one occasion, Jack announced that a corn-eating contest would be held at the Nest. This was deeply interesting to me, because I love corn on the cob. I entered, along with 8 or 9 local guys.
On the big night, all of the contestants sat facing one another on opposite sides of a couple of tables that had been set up end-to-end, and the corn was brought in and dumped onto the middle of the table in a huge, steaming stack. As I began to butter, salt, and pepper an ear of corn, a bell rang, and all the other guys tore into the pile of cobs and began gnawing off the piping hot kernels like a pack of vicious dogs.
Assuming that dogs eat corn on the cob. I think that our dogs would.
In any case, it was incredible how fast those guys could reduce an ear to a smoldering husk, but the process was clearly painful, even with a good measure of alcoholic preparation.
Before too long, I may have begun to understand that the goal was to eat as much corn as possible within a given time limit. But in my heart I was still in it for the long haul: greatest ultimate consumption. So, having absorbed the lesson of the hare and the tortoise, I calmly continued to eat my first ear.
As I began to butter and season my second ear of corn, I began to appreciate the point of the contest more fully. Now, you might think I would say to myself, “Oh, gosh, I’ve misunderstood. I’d better join in the fun and do as the others.”
But I have found that, in life, one must be true to one’s inner core of values, and I quietly reasoned to myself, “Wow. This is a great opportunity to eat a lot of free corn on the cob.” Loyal to my authentic self, I continued to munch at a leisurely pace.
Unfortunately, the crowd which had tightly gathered around the table began to notice that, unlike the other competitors, I wasn’t trying to maximize speedy intake by burning off the roof of my mouth. Incredibly, to them, and also unacceptably, I was simply eating some corn.
They started to turn on me with a scattering of gibes and curses—pretty common in conversation at some barrooms—but these criticisms gradually increased in pace and volume, until at last I felt that more drunks were shouting at me than were urging on the other competitors. In time, one or two guys in the crowd began to scream over my shoulders, “Eat corn, you fag!”
Not my greatest moment, perhaps, but not theirs either, I think.
When the allotted time for the contest had passed, and everyone had moved over to the bar for celebratory, consoling, or medicinally cold bottles of Old Milwaukee, I sat alone at the table, finishing off my fourth or fifth ear of corn.
Sic transit gloria.