Downtown Durham.
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Category: music
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She spotted me trying to take their picture as we drove passed. -
My pie will be strawberry. But, it will not have a heart because I’m not putting a crust on top. And I didn’t save out berries to make a shape.
This pie is 44 years in the making.
When I was a sweet, young thing in Florence, South Carolina, I was a frequenter of the Venus Pancake House. It was open 24 hours a day, only closed on “significant holidays” like Xmas, New Year’s and, maybe, Thanksgiving. It was owned by a couple of Greek men. I was never sure what their relationship was. I don’t think they were brothers because they looked nothing alike. Maybe brothers-in-law. Maybe just friends. Pretty sure they weren’t sweethearts.
They had a $2.50 lunch special that was a meat and 2 with bread and your drink. I often got fried fish, double cole slaw, corn bread and unsweetened tea. When the little theater crowd went in after rehearsal, I got pancakes, eggs over medium, bacon and enough coffee to float me home.
Every once in a while, Steve would make a strawberry pie. I LOVED that pie. And, of course, he wouldn’t give me the recipe. He preferred to sell me slices. When he got around to making it.
Decades later, a beekeeper brought a variation to a potluck. Her’s was blueberry and she shared the recipe. I have made it several times with blueberries and it is absolutely delicious. But, I keep forgetting to make pie when I have strawberries at hand.
Today, my loving husband brought home fresh, local, pesticide-free, ripe-from-the-garden strawberries.
And I am making a pie.
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When I was little, my dad taught himself to play the guitar. When he was actually able to play songs, we would sing along with him. He played for decades and tended to choose old country music, Hank, Patsy, Waylon and Willie.
One of our favorite songs to sing with him was Butter Beans by Little Jimmy Dickens.
In the Episcopal church, the service on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is frequently when babies are christened. The service starts with no lights and no music and as it progresses. Candles are lit and music is added during the collection, which happens around the middle of the service. Eventually, everyone leaves the church to exuberant hymns with candles and lights everywhere, in anticipation of the joy of Easter.
For 3 or 4 years (if I recall correctly, I wasn’t always there) some of the members of my parents’ church were in a jazz band and they offered to do the Easter Saturday music, giving the choir a break from singing before all the action on Easter. The music was always good and the recessional was a kind of Dixieland parade into the parish hall where there was a party for the newly christened, their families and the rest of the congregation.
The year my youngest nephew was christened, they played Just a Closer Walk With Thee. Just the music; no voices. And my younger sister and I got tickled. In the middle of the service. We tried really hard to stifle the giggles. But, we weren’t as subtle as we hoped and our youngest sister, the mother of the candidate, leaned up and asked us what was so funny. And we told her. So, there were all the daughters of the rector snickering in the middle of the christening of his youngest grandchild. We did manage to pull ourselves together by the end of the hymn and finish the service behaving like adults.
Later, in the parish hall, my father sidled up to me and said. “What had you all giggling during the Offertory?”
And I said, “Because, they were playing ‘Butter Beans’ in church.”
The beginning of the service, before we all processed in, silently. Click through and listen. Then, tell me we were wrong.
He couldn’t.
I am the Audience 