For the second year in a row, I left Forkland without one of its fancy pies. Lindsay wasn’t happy, and neither was I.
We were bereft.
“Why did you bring only $40?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I thought I might take my checkbook with me but I forgot,” I replied.
“That would have been bad,” she said, knowing full well that a blank check might tempt me into a bidding war.
Maybe I only brought $40 because the angel on my right shoulder knows me better than I know myself. Maybe the thought of a checkbook was swept from my mind. Maybe I am a cheapskate at heart.
We agreed right then and there to forgo bringing a checkbook next year. Instead we would bring $100 cash to the next Old Fashioned Pie Supper and Spaghetti Dinner. It’s for a good cause, after all. We could go to a store and buy a dozen pies for $100, but none of them would be a pie with meaning.
The evening was a good time once again. This was the second time she and I went, and this time we brought our son.
Forkland is quickly becoming one of my favorite places in Casey County, even though the community center is technically in Boyle County. It’s a pretty area, with its dozens of forks and branches, to the north of the knobs in Casey. The people there are kindhearted and welcoming. They endure my dumb questions about ATMs and credit card machines. Forkland has neither, I have learned. They don’t even have cell phone service at the center, which I guess is just fine. There’s no need to bury your face in your phone because being in the present moment is highly entertaining.
There wasn’t live music or some kind of race or sporting event going on. Instead the auction was just fun to watch. My son and Lindsay were bobbing their heads to the rhythm of Col. Joe Lamkin’s auctioneering.
“40 now 50, 40 now 50, 40 now 50, 40 now 50, 50 now 60”—and so forth until the final—“SOLD for a hundred dollar bid.”
As we left, my son declared it was one of the best times of his life. I believe he is prone to enthusiasm. He has traveled all over, and experienced many things that would have blown my mind when I was a child, but here he was, overjoyed by the auction. His job was to track the prices the pies were fetching and write them down on a sheet the center provided, so that I could do some math afterward for the story that ran last week.
That weekend was jam-packed with activities, and I’m sorry I didn’t get to spend more time doing things. Spring is nice that way. Spring doesn’t ease you into the bustle; it hurls you into the middle of it. After a quiet but warm winter, here we are now in a cool and busy spring.
Even though we left Forkland pie-less, we did still have pies. Earlier that day we were at the South Fork Spring Consignment Auction and got some of the world famous fried pies from the Mennonite ladies in their tent. They were just $2.50 each, but we got eight, for a total of $20. Perhaps I should be concerned for my pie budget.
When we got back from Forkland, we all had a cold fried pie, even though it was after 9 p.m.