During the War, Mom and I spent a lot of time at home cooking. One day when I was about three, she was baking pies. I wanted to bake a pie, too. So she told me to wash my hands and she would help me. I did as told (washing palms only, of course) and assured her my hands were clean. She gave me a small piece of pie dough and a rolling pin. By the time I was finished, the dough had fallen on the floor a couple of times, was mangled by slightly clean hands until had taken on an ominous shade of gray. Undaunted by the mess and gray dough, Mom put some apples in the dough, already in a very small pie tin. We baked it and I designated it for "Daddy's lunch" the next day. I just found out, about 65 years later, that she secretly threw it out, after Dad praised me to the heavens and told me it was the best apple pie ever. To this day, I love baking pies, an art I learned from Mom, whose pies were the favorites of everyone among family and friends.

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