I took a break from deciphering the exacting and tedious problems of the world. It is confusing, and it gives me a headache. Instead, I turned my thoughts towards Thanksgiving. I happen to be a pie purist, and have long sought the perfect pie. Thanksgiving is a time of pie, and the harvest season should bring out the best, but sadly, many pies are wolves in sheep’s clothing. The commercial enterprise of pie making has turned a respected art into a fast food. I can go to the local stores and buy any pie I want for a few dollars. What I bring home is a chemical laden devil that passes for a pie,but for sure, will give me indigestion.

As I sat back, I pondered my conversion. I recalled reading one time in my youth in a magazine somewhere about this pie loving cowboy. In fact he made a list of the attributes of the perfect pie. What’s more he spent many a dollar and drove many a mile in search of that single ‘perfect pie.” His standards we exact. His taste rich in exquisite fineness. I found myself at the time, captivated by that fine article. Here was a man who knew his stuff. I remember well his criteria for perfect pies: No tin period. A pie baked in a tin or aluminum pie pan smacked of commercial enterprise. That also included tin-can ingredients; not acceptable, not worth sticking a fork in.The crust had to be made of red turkey wheat, milled to a fine flour and bleached white as new fallen snow. The oil in the crust had to be a fine lard or bear grease, rendered smooth and silky in a Dutch oven over a hard wood fire. You could not use the sissy stuff cakes and cookies were made of. The lard had to be blended in the right proportions with the flour as to make the crust flake like a sheet of mica when baked. It had to be moisture proof so as to not let the filling soak through to the bottom. It had to have the right texture, not tough or chewy, but a melt in your mouth …send you to heaven texture. The filling could be one of many, but apple was his favorite. The filling had to be made out of home processed cane sugar with a dab of spring honey and a touch of black walnut essence.The filling had to be right. It had to stay in the pie and ooze out only a half inch when sliced. It had to be made with firm fruit. Mountain grown apples, crisp as cold morning air, and never over cooked. The perfect pie always without exception, came from a oven fired with hard woods. It had to be baked golden brown with the filling bubbling out of slits in the top and giving off an aroma that elevated the senses to ecstasy.Ah yes, this cowboy new his pies. I recalled his parting words: “I myself,” he wrote, “haven’t yet found the perfect pie. I’m old now and my search is over. To those of you who continue in this noble effort a bit of advice. Once you bite into the perfect pie it will be made known unto you as if you struck gold. The feeling that comes is pure elation, a manly intelligence devoid of fraud. It is a truth made known in its own right, for right it is and can only be downright good. As for cookies and cakes, they’re nothing but lust.”

I have traveled the same road, the search for truth is like finding and eating the perfect pie. I look at the efforts of my sweet wife who sadly, has filled the garbage bin with empty cans of pie filling. Her efforts while commendable, still result in pies filled with fraud and sin, hardly worth sticking a fork in. As I ruminate about the perfect pie, I find myself wishing…have I set my sights to high? Probably, because a perfect pie must come from a perfect world, but my hope is to find that one perfect pie maker in this one…and indubitably after taking the first bite…get translated out of here on a glorious beam of ecstasy.