I’ll raise my hand for a little piece of pie
by Mr. Sheehy
One of the fun activities of our weekend was a pie auction at church to raise funds for a pastors’ retreat that the church helps put on every fall. Instead of a silent auction, which is how many of these things are done, we had a fun-loving gentleman from church act as the auctioneer. The highlight may have been when he goaded someone into bidding against him for a particular pie and then left the other guy hanging – with a $125 pie.
Anyway, we explained the auction action to Eldest ahead of time and she was plenty excited to see it all. Sunday morning over breakfast, she asked me about it:
“Are you going to raise your hand for pie, Daddy?”
A pause for a smile – “No – probably not.”
“I’ll raise my hand for a little piece of pie.”
Grampa was determined to take home Mommy’s pie, which was made with special ingredients to which he is not allergic, and I kept teasing him that I’d try to drive up the price on him. He laughed and warned me, “You better be careful – you might get that pie.”
In the end, I didn’t have the guts to drive him up, but I should have. He ended up having to bid himself up to get to the amount he wanted to donate to the retreat. What I would have done, if I’d had a head for thinking, was have found out how high he was going to go and had Eldest raise her hand against him and win the pie. That would have been fun.
But I didn’t think of it in time. Thinking back on this, I suspect that if I’d thought more ahead of time about making it all fun for Eldest, I likely would have thought of it. Sometimes part of loving someone – whether it be a spouse, child, or student – is to think of that person ahead of time. To plan for that person, to make my efforts special.
May I remember to plan for those I love.
As a bonus today I thought I’d share a fairly amateur poem, which I conceived while driving home from the grocery story with the bag of apples my wife used to make that famous pie.
As always, thanks for reading.
The Difference
Given an hour, an appetite, and a bag of apples,
I might eat two.
But given the hour, the appetite,
and an apple pie,
Generosity might convince me
to save a slice for you.
A Teacher's Writes 
I don’t know what I find more heartwarming about this post:
1) The fact that Grandpa was not only determined to take that pie home, but that he wasn’t doing it at the cheapest price possible.
2) That you wished you would have thought to make the moment a bit more exciting and memorable for your daughter, and regret your lack of foresight.
3) The sentiment expressed in that poem.
Really, I don’t know which one touches my heart more.
Thank you for sharing!
Nice auction and poem Mr. Sheehy! Tommorow our community in my village will make an action party too, for collect some fund for our fire fighter equipments.