Piety

Autumn brings church-sponsored come-one-come-all suppers of chicken, ham, roast pork, pork sausage (at Catawissa Union Protestant Church, $3 a pound to take home), and beef, advertised in the Events section of the local paper. I never like to take photos of food at these plentiful church suppers because it gives me away as an intellectual, but absolutely had to photograph this dessert table to show you, no matter what anyone thought. (The secret of life is: Nobody's thinking about you. Nobody's looking at you. They're all too busy worrying about themselves.)

Yet how to choose? Pumpkin, seasonal, one of the pleasures of late fall? Lemon, 'cause I get it so rarely? Berry pie, because the summer drought meant no berries in the meadow this season? Cherry, because it's always great? Peach, because you never know what you might be missing? Apple, because that's American? Exotic entry, Amish Pineapple pie? Coconut, or chocolate silk, or pecan pie? Custard? How about a slice of each? How about Union Pacific lays some railroad track out to my house and delivers me pie every day by the boxcar full? The only thing they didn't have was Concord grape pie, a New England regional specialty I liked to make from the purple grapes I and my friends liberated from abandoned grape arbors in upstate New York. I make a good one when I want to do the work.

On my deathbed I just know the pies of my life will pass before me.

If this photo does not make you want to go to church suppers than nothing will.

Where the People Are

I enjoy studying the highly detailed United States Department of the Interior Geological survey 1:24,000 topographic maps of my area of rural Missouri, where towns are tiny and most of the map area is green, indicating forests--and sprinkled on the maps, often in the middle of geological noplaces, are little black squares with crosses on top, along with the name of a church. The maps do show street names, and creek and park names. But in terms of buildings, only churches and schools get their individual names on these official U.S. maps. City halls and post offices aren't named or noted: only churches and schools, as if this were 1850 or something. I asked a friend what he thought of this and he said, "Churches and schools are on maps because that's where the people are who will help you." This is Catawissa Union Protestant Church, built about 1914. Summer is the best time to photograph churches.

Bethel Methodist Church, Labadie, MO

Built in 1868 in the Greek Revival Style. In 1993 this building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Taken on one of those marvelously unsettled late spring days.

St. John's Church, Mount Hope, MO

This gorgeous April day I found St. John's E&R Church of Christ, a 1905 country church along Highway 47. Although it's labeled "Mt. Hope, MO" it's technically in today's St. Clair in Franklin County. Behind it is Mount Hope Cemetery with a great vista, and some of the gravestones facing the vista (nice). The church looks fragile but it has a ramp so it must be in use. The windows are covered with wood painted a beautiful soft green. The unlovely outhouse is separate, as it is in all good classic wooden country churches.