For the Love of Pie

Normally I don’t like to fess up to much, this being the Internet and all.  The fact is I don’t really know you people and by stating I vote this way or I worship that way, doesn’t make sense considering that a few of you may have some fancy electronic skills that could theoretically track my IPS number (if that is what you call it) and then suddenly show up at my door.  Once I open my door you could ask for a million different things, you could be in want of money, or you might be looking for love…or worse case scenario, you have a hankering for some pie.  Thus, I post the following with a smidgeon of trepidation. 

Now I know it is all the vogue to hunt semi-tame animals in a practice called canned hunting.  It is the type of hunting Dick Cheney was doing right before he shot his friend in the face.  Basically, it is modeled from the cliché, shooting fish in a barrel.  If the birds are stunted developmentally and can’t fly, plus released at the same time in a small space, chances are that you are going to hit one of them just by shooting in their general direction – assuming of course, that your friend’s face doesn’t get in the way.  Overall, this type of hunting isn’t about skill it’s about killing and I for one would receive little satisfaction from it. 

You see, I’m the genuine article, a girl who can not only hunt but honors what I have killed by either cooking it up or making some sort of garment out of its hide.  Therefore, with Thanksgiving over the horizon, when I want a heaping plate of pumpkin pie I first have to hunt for the pumpkin because canned pumpkin just feels too much like cheating. 

As I am sure you are aware, Jack-O-Lanterns are prevalent during Halloween.  Of course, after everyone has said ‘boo’ for the night and gone to their beds in sugar comas, people tend to forget the pumpkins they carved with such care only the week or two prior.  Sometimes folks keep them around before throwing them in the trash.  Lots of people want to see how long their pumpkins will last before they implode from inner rot.  In my part of the country, it isn’t unheard of to see both a rotting Jack-O-Lantern and a fresh Christmas tree decorating the same house.  Yet, there are times, more than you can imagine, when carved pumpkins take to the wild and return to their feral state.  These are the pumpkins I’m interested in because these are the pumpkins I hunt. 

I used to go out pumpkin hunting with my Grandpa.  Every Thanksgiving we would find a suitable specimen, shoot it, and then tie it to top of his truck in order to take it through the woods to Grandma’s house where she would skin it and then make a pie.  Those were such happy times.  Getting up early, dressing up in hunting gear, to then spend hours perched in a tree icy wind whipping in my face waiting for a Jack-O-Lantern to come rolling by.  You had to be very, very quiet so you could shoot the pumpkin just right.  Depending on the angle you could easily make it explode (which was cool to watch but counterproductive in the pie department) or you might just knick it injuring it which would result in a slow sad death. 

Now that my grandparents are hunting pumpkins and making pies in heaven, it is up to me to carry on the tradition.  Last year I camped out deep in the woods all alone.  With visions of the Blair Witch playing in my head, I debated several times if I should just leave and debase the memory of my grandparents by serving a Thanksgiving pumpkin pie made from ingredients poured from a can, but just as I was about to pack up I saw it.  At first, it was blurry in the distance, just a mish-mash of colors.  I didn’t know for some time if it was a person or tiger.  I kept my cool though, waiting for it to roll closer.  I don’t know if you can tell, but I was near a stream and I think the Jack-O-Lantern had come for some water. 

By the look of him, I realized that he wasn’t carved but may have been some horrible science experiment gone terribly wrong.  The top of his head was all feathery and I surmised that he may have been the lovechild of a pumpkin and turkey – a marriage of two autumn holidays.  As fate would have it, my cell phone rang and he looked up and I knew if I didn’t shoot him then and there he would roll away – very possibly to end up as custard for someone else’s pie.  For an odd moment the two of us just starred at each other, he thinking he was blending into the late fall brush, me agonizing if I could kill something with such big eyes.  In the end, my hunger got the best of me and he ended up as dessert on Thanksgiving Day. 

This year I plan to go out again.  It has been a beautiful fall and I plan to see many pumpkins living off the land.  You might criticize me for hunting a helpless symbol of a holiday soon to be passed, but let’s face it, it is a pumpkin and I doubt seriously that they could survive after the first snowfall.  Instead, I hope you consider the art of hunting, killing, and then eating what your skill has produced.  Every Thanksgiving there is a satisfaction when the pie is produced and I puff up my chest and announce to everyone within earshot – “This pie is homemade!”