Custard pie was the key to victory

Talk of Fourth of July celebrations at Crescent Bar (July 3) and George (July 4) and the annual Summerfest at Royal City July 5-10 reminds me of when a couple of friends and I decided to make the Granger Cherry Festival better in 1963.

Jim Bell, Robbie Robertson and I were seniors that year. Senior projects were not required for graduation, but we took on the Sunday portion of the Cherry Festival as a senior project.

After attending the festival every year from practically the year we were born, we were tired of the same old events. Instead of improving over the years, the festival seemed to be declining, especially on Sundays.

So we contacted the Lions Club and offered to introduce new Sunday events to the festival. The Lions agreed and, suddenly we were faced with the prospect of being hung by the tongue.

Jim, Robbie and I had not thought things out. We were just three know-it-all kids without a clue. We couldn't think of anything new, so we turned to some old standbys that hadn't been used in a long while.

We came up with a slate of old picnic games - sack races, three-legged races, wheel barrow races, camel races and so forth. The highlights were to be a greased pig race and a pie eating contest.

The afternoon was a success, mostly for grade school-aged kids and their cheering parents. They came in big numbers, and everything went well.

Until the greased pig race.

In our haste, we had neglected to secure a pig. We made an emergency substitution of a rooster. Neither of us had ever caught one. So it made sense.

My own experiences with the big Rhode Island Red in our chicken coop told me this would work. That rooster wasn't only uncatchable. He fought us. I always had to battle him with a big stick while my sister Jenny gathered eggs.

Yes, a rooster would work.

I got the rooster that was donated to the cause and positioned myself in front of a hundred or so of the meanest-looking kids and let him go. The kids nearly ran me over.

Within a minute I had to get between the kids and the rooster. He was not a fighter. He wasn't even much of a runner.

The rooster was so shook up by the onslaught that only a psychiatrist could have helped. His crow had turned to a low-grade cluck, and his comb was sagging over the side of his head.

The kids stopped and let the rooster saunter off to sanity, but they were not happy. Fortunately, I was able to convince them that the grand finale, the pie eating contest, would be fun enough, even if most of them would be spectators.

We had a big supply of pies that were about four inches in diameter. We chose about 12 contestants of middle school age.

We sounded "begin," and the race was on. Just as I predicted, all of the kids had fun. Pie spilled and splattered all over the place and caked on contestant faces, shirts and pants as the judges kept count.

Most of the contestants made it through five pies. Then they started to drop off. Mike Davis, who lived in the neighborhood and participated in our sandlot games, made it nearly to the end. He walked away moaning and rubbing his tummy.

My brother Rich, three years my junior, made it to the final two. He and the other boy, whose name I no longer remember, went at it pie-for-pie up to 14.

At that point, it appeared Rich would fade into anonymity. He was slowing down and looking at No. 15 with disdain.

But Rich grabbed No. 15, started eating and, suddenly, the miracle of miracles occurred.

Rich erupted, vomiting pie all over the place. He devoured 16 and 17 and won. I couldn't wait to ask him how he had managed to throw up in such a timely manner.

"Well," he said, "I was okay with the pumpkin and cream pies. Then somebody slipped me a custard, and I don't like custard."