Marsha, my beautiful young trophy wife, and I attended the Second Annual Free Turkey Dinner at the St. George town office.
The tradition goes way back to last Thanksgiving when the First Annual dinner was optimistically held at the schoolhouse. The schoolhouse easily seats 300 people, but because only a fraction of that bothered to attend the first annual event, this year we were treated in the much smaller town office.
Unlike my last birthday party, the Second Annual St. George Free Turkey Dinner was a success.
You have heard me say many times that I don’t heap my dinner plate. I take a tiny bit of each thing I like but usually do go back for seconds. This time I took just enough the first time to leave room for two pieces of pie.
The apple pie was so good that I lifted the plate and looked for the name sticker on the bottom, thinking that here was someone worth getting to know. But the pie’s author chose to remain anonymous.
When Marsha said how good everything was, I had to point out that even a French chef would be hard pressed to ruin a roast turkey. That goes for the cooks in any country. For years, any time I’d travel abroad I’d buy a roast chicken and live on it for two days. Peel off the sauce and spice encrusted skin and a roast bird is a roast bird in any country’s kitchen.
We have no secrets, so you should know that I walked into the town office with a chip on my shoulder. I figured there would be a donation bucket into which I would have been obligated to drop a 20.
You know what I’m talking about. Wouldn’t you rather donate 50 that you wanted to donate than come to a place where they advertise free food and then hit you with the old donation bucket that would squeeze you for 20?
Seeing no donation bucket, I was pleased with the way the dinner was run.
Congratulations and thank you to the cheerful and efficient staff. Next year we’ll be glad to donate another turkey, so don’t be afraid to ask for contributions a week ahead of time.
My brother Jim didn’t go, saying he had pressing matters to attend to at home.
But our friend Dale Pierson filled two take-out cartons with turkey dinner and asked me to deliver them up unto my brother on the way home. He said to be sure to tell him that one box contained a piece of pie that replaced the one Dale’s grandfather Dwyer snatched a long time ago.
When I delivered the plates, I asked him what Dale was talking about.
He said that 60 or so years ago he was at a grange supper sitting across the table from Mr. Frieder, our typing and bookkeeping teacher, and an elderly Clarence Dwyer.
Mr. Frieder asked my brother if he’d like to have his pie as he didn’t eat pie. And he shoved his pie across the table at my brother. Dale’s grandfather Clarence said, “There doesn’t seem to be enough pie to go around. I’ll take this one.”
And he scoffled up the pie that Mr. Frieder had given to my brother. For over 60 years, my brother has not been able to think of the Dwyer/Pierson family without bemoaning the loss of that pie.
This kind of thing couldn’t happen in a city. It is only in the back hills of Tennessee or along the coast of Maine where a man would be unable to sleep at night for over 60 years just because someone reached across the table at a public supper and took his pie.
The humble Farmer can be heard Friday nights at 7 on WHPW (97.3 FM) and visited at his website:
Send questions/comments to the editors.
