Junious Smith III: A 'family' reunion of epic proportions included kangaroo jerky

By Junious Smith III

Kangaroo jerky is surprisingly good.

Granted, it's tougher than a frozen Slim Jim, but the texture and taste was similar to regular beef jerky. If nobody said anything, myself, Noah Clark, Zach Frailey and Bryan Hanks would've all thought we were enjoying generic food.

But I’ve gotten ahead of myself — there's a reason this moment occurred and I'll start from the beginning.

For months, Bryan and I had been plotting a trip to Mt. Pleasant, Pa. to surprise Zach and take him to a Pittsburgh Pirates game. We spent time conversing with his wife, Ashley, to ensure this happened without a hitch.

She had a bag packed for him, we covered expenses for the weekend and received an even better surprise when Noah was able to get off of work to join us. Suddenly, this was looking like a former journalism reunion (we all used to work together at the newspaper in Kinston) and a way to cheer up a friend going through tough times.

Over the past year, Zach has been dealing with cancer and has done his best to put the disease in its place. Bryan approached me about the idea back in March of taking Zach out to at least help put a smile on his face during a tough time, but we couldn’t get legs under it until May.

Then, the focus shifted toward making sure everything coincided with his schedule while making sure he had no idea what was to come.

July 20 just happened to work out.

Bryan and I first traveled to Harrisonburg, Va., to pick up Noah before parking on a side street close to Zach’s house. We could’ve ended the trip with his shocked smile and it would’ve been a success, but after checking into our hotel in Pittsburgh, we made it to beautiful PNC Park to watch the Pirates take on the Philadelphia Phillies in the Keystone Series.

The seats were phenomenal, the food was great (pierogies, crab fries, pulled pork served in a batting helmet and numerous other ballpark delights) and we happened to stumble upon the 40-year anniversary celebration of the team’s last World Series winner in 1979. Even better, the Pirates won the game 5-1 and we prepared for a second contest Sunday.

Although Philadelphia picked up a 2-1 victory over Pittsburgh in 11 innings in Sunday’s game, it was still a great weekend, with one of the highlights coming before Sunday’s game. As we tried to hit a brunch diner prior to the game, there was an hour-long wait, so we did some shopping and stumbled upon a meat market serving an assortment of products including alligator, camel and of course, kangaroo. Outside of hopping around for a bit, there wasn’t much of a shock factor there.

Either way, it was truly a privilege and honor to have this trip come into fruition. During my first three years in Kinston, Zach was an integral part toward success, whether it was covering the 2016 NBA Draft, happenings at City Hall, starting up the Jones Senior football bandwagon in 2015 (any time a team has 14 players at its first practice, you send good energy and they won six games that year), along with everything in between.

Shoutout to Noah for being able to make the trip and provide an additional positive vibe. Shoutout to Ashley for helping to keep the plan concealed. Shoutout to Bryan for being the real MVP and driving from Pittsburgh and back this weekend (we made it back around 4 a.m. Monday morning), along with being the StubHub God for great tickets for two games.

And of course, shoutout to Zach for being such a wonderful person and kicking cancer's backside.

Now, I want to put in an order for some kangaroo jerky.