JAM PIE

My father would regale us with stories of his mother's "cheapness"; or as she called it: "thriftiness." We learned, as we grew older, that he exaggerated for effect. He told us her method for making lemonade: she'd fill a tub with water and tie a string around a lemon and pull it through the water. Her potato soup was done in a similar method: tie a string around a potato and drag it through the water.

My favorite story was about Granny's "Jam Pie"--he said that she "jammed" two crusts together--and called it a pie. There was very little filling in her pies. One day, my brother Kenny, who at the time DID NOT realize about our father's exaggeration, told Granny he'd like to taste her "Jam Pie" and she said, "Well, Kenny Gene, I've never made a jam pie." He told her that our father always told us about her Jam Pie. Fortunately, he didn't repeat the punch line to Granny!