What a Difference a Pie Can Make

That strawberry pie changed my life. I had dated Jedi Evans, Prince Charming himself, since June. He drove a cobalt blue Corvette and lived in “The Big House” on Park Circle. Chestnut hair, huge brown eyes, and muscles galore, he was a catch. “Jedi” was short for Heber Jedidiah Evans, Jr. Jedidiah meant beloved of the Lord. I was pretty crazy about him, too. So was every other girl in North Charleston and some in surrounding towns too.

The Fourth of July was just ahead on the calendar. Jedi had invited me to spend the day with his mother and four sisters at their Folly Beach house overlooking the ocean. Mother decided I should take something good to eat. Something different, something associated with the Fourth of July. Not banana pudding. Not chicken bog. Not fried chicken. We racked our brains. No good ideas came. We needed help.

One night Jedi took me to Shoney’s Big Boy to have dessert together. It was a hard decision between the hot fudge brownie and the strawberry pie. My mouth craved the dreamy chocolate over chewy brownie. I was ready to say, “I’ll have the chocolate fudge brownie,” when Jedi jerked me back to reality with, “My absolute favorite dessert is strawberry pie with whipped cream topping.” My mind was made up. I would make a strawberry pie in my lap as we rode across the marsh in the cobalt blue Corvette on the Fourth of July. He said a rather crazy thing as we enjoyed the pie together. How would you like to come here and share strawberry pie with me for a long time?” I only wanted to find the recipe in time for the Fourth of July.

Making up my mind about the pie was easier than finding a recipe. Mother and I searched every recipe book at our house and every neighbor’s house on our street and the next. She wanted the recipe bad. Could it be that her daughter might really have a chance with Jedi Evans, the dreamboat of every girl in North Charleston? Where was that recipe? Again, we needed help. Tilly Dunston over on Braddock Avenue came up with the award-winning solution. We would use a cherry pie recipe and substitute strawberries. The three of us made a test pie. That was it, the same sweet, yet tart, fruity taste as the Big Boy special. Homemade whipped cream on top. It was sure to be a hit.

My next task was to find a sexy bathing suit and a stylish shorts set. Again, Mother wanted to be a part of the project. We tried Anne’s, the Navy Exchange, and Bobbie Brooks. No luck. Finally we went to the Bandbox at Pinehaven Shopping Center. We definitely were desperate. Their prices had always precluded my shopping there. Truthfully, I sewed practically all my clothes. Jedi and I came from different worlds. This holiday was becoming quite an adventure, maybe the beginning of a new lifestyle.

Our dates were regular now, almost every night. He kept saying screwy things like, “Do you think there is any chance for us?” Good heavens, how was a girl supposed to answer that? All that came to me was, “I’m not sure.” He went on, “Well, Linda Koester asked me that once and I said, ‘I don’t know about you Linda, but lots of people say there’s no hope for me.’” I was glad to laugh and change the subject. What kind of nutty conversation was that?

Predictably, the Fourth of July arrived. I sat with the strawberry pie on my lime green shorts set. Lime green was my best color. Second best was teal, the color of my sexy two-piece bathing suit. His mother and sisters raved about the strawberry pie. Somewhat of a catastrophe happened on the roof top deck when I turned over my favorite tanning lotion, baby oil laced with iodine. The deck was covered by a white tarp. Now it had reddish brown stripes radiating from my beach towel. His mother casually offered, “Oh don’t give it another thought. We were planning to paint the tarp later this summer.” In her voice was the ring of my own mother’s voice. Strange. On the way home Jedi said, “Your pie was quite a hit. I hope you will make it again and again for me.” Hadn’t he said something like that before? “Oh sure, I’ll be glad to.”

Before I closed the front door, he shoved a small box in my hand. “Just sell it or give it away or something if you don’t want it. I have asked you and asked you to marry me, and you just don’t get it." I opened the box, stared in disbelief, and looked up to see a cobalt flash leave the driveway in the twilight. In the box was a fiery diamond, bigger than anything I had ever seen. What was I going to do now?

Jedi graduated from The Citadel in August. On September 6, 1969, I met him at the altar of the Summerall Chapel. Surely, I was Cinderella. My prince had come, the one who loved strawberry pie.