Celebration Pie: Redwood City, California 1969

You don't wake up from your pie dreaming nap until the light outside is setting on the front of the house and you do your version of a run to the kitchen. A switch of the stove light casts a golden glow over that orange pie, you can hear it sing, its beauty amazing. Excited, you forget that you mean to keep that pie to yourself and you pull out three plates. You search for the perfect pie cutting knife and server and find them. Gently the knife passes through the first slice, the texture worked. Onto the plate and the next piece is cut, the crust dense, but it did crisp on the edge, a good thing. As you cut the third slice you begin to wonder if you really do see some green color reaching up a bit from the crust to the filling, a stripe of green, all the way through. 

You gingerly look into the living room to declare pie served and find the boys on a break, lying on the couch pillows they'd piled on the floor. Ashtrays overflowing, the smell of beer and smoke weighed on the room. You ask David to come get their pieces and about the green. Did he see it too? He peered, he touched, he didn't think so. You eat pie. It still looks green to you, but you stuff that notion and are pleased to eat your first piece sitting on the family room couch, having lowered yourself precariously, keeping a strong eye on the pie. You gobble it up, too fast. You eat the second piece slowly, making every bit last. The pumpkin flavor, its creamy texture disabused your fears. David wasn't worried. You hope for the best and enjoy both slices of celebration pie.