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.

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.

Farm Heritage Days, Labadie, MO

The ad said, "Labadie Station Antique Tractor Farm Heritage Days, April 28 & 29, 2012. Antique and vintage tractors and implements of ALL makes, models and conditions to be displayed and demonstrated." Well, resistance was futile. These things, like old cars, make me happy; they were thoughtfully designed and made to last, pure love-letters of American engineering, and my dad built Case tractors on their assembly line. Sunday in the little town of Labadie I saw mostly FarmAlls, but some John Deeres and one Allis-Chalmers, and the gas-powered 8-inch diaphragm water pump (view it in action) and the 1870s freight wagon, plus I watched the blacksmith at his forge. What you see above is a 1953 FarmAll B, a two-seater. Also displayed were several FarmAll Cubs with single seats, and a stunning bright-yellow FarmAll, 1946. The bluegrass band was kickin' out some John Denver and Woody Guthrie despite the cloudy chilly day. The little girl was put in the 1957 FarmAll tractor seat by her grandaddy. Ain't she a punkin?