Thoughts during the apocalypse, Part 19.

Air traffic on Saturday, April 12.

When I woke up this morning, I heard a strange buzzing noise from outside my house -- something that was strangely familiar, yet seemingly alien at the same time, as if I hadn't heard it in a long time.

So I went outside to investigate, which was disconcerting to the visitors to my backyard that apparently have figured out that the resident human has been staying inside more than usual. Three squirrels, one bunny and the lumbering woodchuck all scattered for the four winds once they heard the porch door opening, and spotted the burly guy with the adidas shorts emerging from it.

About halfway between the door and the gate to the pond's edge, I figured out what the noise was -- airplanes. And lots of them.

Not the usual jets gliding their way to Logan Airport, about 5,000 to 7,000 feet up, mind you; there have been fewer of those since the start of the coronavirus pandemic about a month ago and the concurrent reduction in flights by the major carriers, but there are still enough of those in the air that the recognizable drone of decelerating jet engines hasn't become simply a memory yet.

But what I have noticed to be lacking were the sound of smaller, propeller-driven aircraft. Private pilots have apparently been grounded like the rest of us during the crisis, most of them heeding the stay-at-home suggestion and not taking their Cessnas and Piper Cubs up for recreational travel. My town has an airport (it's referred to as 1B9 on the maps) and it usually does a brisk business in non-commercial flights. The one paved runway is not long enough to accommodate jets, but there are plenty of single-engine and twin-engine planes that call Mansfield Municipal Airport their home.

Apparently, Saturday was a day when travel restrictions were to be damned all over New England.

The photo that accompanies this post is a screen-capture shot of my flight-tracking software. Usually good for tracking the long lines of commercial jets that are heading in and out of Logan, T.F. Green Airport in Providence of Bradley International between Hartford and Springfield, the software can also track private aircraft that fly out of the many smaller airports that dot the landscape as long as their pilots file flight plans.

As you can see, around 1 in the afternoon (OK, I slept late. Aren't we all doing that lately?), the skies were filled with small aircraft, both propeller-driven and executive jets, as well as a few commercial jets -- much fewer than I would expect to see at midday of a normal weekend. The big dot in the middle is roughly where I was, not far from Mansfield Muni, and the yellow dots are other small airports in the region.

Busy day. Very busy day. I hope they all brought hand sanitizer.

Other thoughts on another day spent without need to leave the property:

** I didn't take pictures of this, but I took the time later in the day to make a personal delicacy on my barbecue grill.

Williston, Fla., crossroads of a thousand lives.

As a means of explanation, I used to venture with my parents down to the small town of Williston, Fla., every year to visit my mother's parents, at least until I was in high school. Williston was a very tiny town about halfway between Jacksonville and Tampa, and just 25 miles from the University of Florida in Gainesville. But travel to Williston in the 1960s was really like going to one of the farthest ends of the earth away from civilization. The town had been bypassed by Interstate 75 right about at that time and almost immediately became isolated from the social advances that were taking place elsewhere in the nation.

Yes, when I was first old enough to wander the community by myself to occupy my time, the tiny movie theater, restaurants and shopping concerns all had separate entrances for white people, and separate entrances for "coloreds." And since I was from Massachusetts and had no idea whatsoever what that was all about, it was certainly educational.

That all disappeared (at least legally) once the Civil Rights Act of 1964 came into law, and Williston grudgingly came into the 20th century -- although it could be argued that some remnants of segregationist culture have yet to disappear as we enter the third decade of the 21st, not just there, but as we have seen of late, all the way to the White House.

Frog's Pad, on U.S. 27 just outside Williston, Fla.

Anyway, Williston retained one characteristic from its segregated past well into the 1970s. White folks lived on the northwest side of the railroad tracks, while African-American families lived on the southeast side. U.S. 27 took a sharp bend to the south (and on to Ocala, which later became prime territory for the breeding of thoroughbred horses) after the tracks, and just a few hundred yards on the southern side of the city limits was a small roadside stand called "Frog's Pad" -- a little convenience store that had a large, round structure attached to its southern side, with a constantly smoking smokestack rising from the middle. This was where the most amazing barbecue pork or beef were always constantly slow-cooking.

My father and I would always slip away from the Chambers domicile and drive the few miles to Frog's for those delectable sandwiches, soaked in a tangy hot sauce. Understand, my father was a Sicilian from Massachusetts, who had snatched Will Chambers' daughter away from the safety of Dixie in 1945 when he was a Chief Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy and she was a young secretary working in the Jacksonville Navy Yard. So he was pretty much a fish out of water where polite redneck culture was concerned -- but boy, did he take to that southern barbecue, and his son did as well.

Pork BBQ sandwich from Frog's.

Even years after I stopped going to Florida, and long after my grandparents had passed, I would find ways to return to Williston for the sole purpose of getting a pork sandwich at Frog's. The Patriots made it easy for me when they would play the Jaguars or Buccaneers -- 100 miles of travel down there is like a trip to Attleboro and back up here. It wasn't quite that easy when the Patriots were playing the Dolphins, but I would somehow find the time to make the 600-mile round trip, just for a pork sandwich.

You must also understand that the barbecue you get up here isn't at all like that barbecue. Frog's was more of the Carolina style, more reliant upon shredded pork or beef doused with thin-consistency, spicy sauces, whereas the ribs you might get at a local restaurant are more of the Kansas City style, drenched in thick, sugary sauce.

So I set about trying to duplicate the taste myself. After several years and several different sauces, I found a very close approximation in the spicy sauce made by Stubb's of Austin, Texas (available at most local supermarkets). I don't have the patience to buy a smoker and let a cut of meat cook slowly all day, but I eventually happened upon a process that would come close to the flavor I cherish from my past, without the air fare, hotel stay and rental car expenses.

And here it is, in seven easy steps:

Ingredients: Four pork cutlets, two bottles of Stubb's spicy BBQ sauce, bulkie rolls.

First step: Marinate the pork chops by submerging them in one bottle of BBQ sauce for at least two hours.

Second step: Grill the chops over medium-high flame for 20 minutes, turning every five minutes. Use the marinate to brush the chops at every turn.

Third step: Line a medium-sized bowl with aluminum foil. Cut two chops into small sections and chop them up in a food chopper so that they are almost ground to pebble size. Transfer from the chopper to the foil-covered bowl and add more BBQ sauce. Crimp the foil to enclose the pork and sauce with a steam outlet at the top. Repeat with the other two chops.

Fourth step: Return the foil-covered pork to the grill. Cook for another 10 minutes over medium-high heat to infuse the sauce with the chopped-up pork.

Fifth step: Prepare two buns by separating and using a spoon to flatten the centers of the tops and bottoms. This enables you to get more pork into the bun and hold it in place.

Sixth step: Using caution, open the foil to reveal thoroughly cooked pork. Scoop generously into prepared bun and add more BBQ sauce to taste. Scoop unused pork into Ziploc bag for reheating later.

Seventh step: Enjoy.

** Once again, I'm almost too full to move. It's a busy day Monday with the meeting of the Patriots Hall of Fame Nominating Committee and then the recording of a new podcast, so I will bid you adieu for now, and dream of taking the turn off U.S. 27 and catching a whiff of the flavor-filled smoke rising from the smoker in back of Frog's.