Did you know that the word Muse used to be synonymous with liar? When I learned this, it became a truth that fit right into place; one of those things that I believe I knew all along, but never had the ability (or, perhaps, the desire) to put it into words. But it makes a hell of a lot of sense, when you think about it. The Muses were the inspiration for all sorts of artists, and while art often is a reflection of life, it certainly isn’t a literal one.
I just got home from a weekend trip to St. Louis to visit my family for the holidays. For some reason, my mom’s family calls this event Cherry Pie, and the lies at this year’s Cherry Pie started long before the event began. My dad asked my mom where the Cherry Pie term came from, and since I hadn’t any idea either, I was gratified when she sent a message to her brothers and sisters to see if they had a clue. The Muses were working overtime when this set of e-mails began.
My aunt Cathy had a very specific explanation. She described a Jostedt family gift exchange many years ago where the names were written down and drawn out of a pie tin to see who would be giving a gift to whom. She held that someone at that long-forgotten gathering, probably my grandpa, had quipped, “What is this, cherry pie?” And so a tradition was born. This fits the facts as we know them, and the vision of Dan Jostedt cracking wise at a family function is hardly difficult to believe.
It is also, apparently, completely untrue, at least according to my aunt Trisha’s message. She seems to recall that she referred to Cherry Pie in passing with a friend of hers who was unacquainted with our family, and this friend knew exactly what she was talking about. While she doesn’t have a specific theory on how the tradition started, she is certain that Cathy is wrong.
One of my uncles, Mike, got into the act next, asserting his role as the patriarch of the family (a scary thought, as all of us would attest). He claimed that the phrase “cherry pie” is an old Swedish and Irish expression that means, “The more insurance you buy, the longer you live”. It is important, I think, to note that Mike is an insurance agent.
Finally, in desperation, someone forwarded the message to my great-aunt Peg. Her message ended, appropriately, with “When you talk to Mike, tell him he is wrong, wrong, wrong.” Before mocking her eldest nephew, she described the Christmas of 1944, when she was a sophomore at Webster College. She and her friends decided to exchange gifts, and one of these friends, Mary, told them that they were participating in a Cherry Pie. Nobody questioned the strange title at the time, and in fact never did question it until now. The same group, according to Peg, still exchanges gifts every year, and she asked one of the participants, Mary Louise, how it came to be known as a Cherry Pie. Neither of them can remember. Peg explained that she brought the tradition to the Jostedt family, and the rest of us are offshoots. This, too, is an absolutely plausible explanation. She remembered the first year the event took place, even several of the participants’ names. These details tend to lend credence to her account.
I don’t believe any of my relatives. Experience has taught me that taking what any of them say at face value is a dangerous proposition. I believe this to be my grandfather’s fault. I was fairly young when he died, and so I don’t remember him all that well. That is, I have many memories of him, but they are a child’s memories. I’ll always know him as an 11 year old knows his grandpa. A big man, with a booming laugh that woke me up in the mornings we would visit him. I was with him the day President Reagan was shot. He told my brother and me, “You’ll always remember where you were at this moment.” He was almost right. I don’t remember exactly where we were, but I remember what he told me.
I remember the scent of his cigars, the haze of the smoke filling my grandparents’ living room on the nights my family would arrive at their house. It was about 200 miles from Springfield to St. Charles Missouri, and we usually made the trip at night—probably because it made my brother and I more likely to sleep and leave my poor parents alone during the drive. I used to sit and listen to him in a kind of sleepy daze, the minutes seeming to stretch into hours as I drifted in and out of sleep. I believe he may have been at his happiest when he was telling stories. I didn’t know most of the people he talked about; don’t remember the details of most of his tales. But I do remember how he told them. The way his face became more animated, the way he paced himself. He could spend an hour telling you about a 15-minute conversation he had, and you wouldn’t notice the way the time passed. One story spilled into another, until at the end of it you felt you knew all the parties involved personally.
His stories were like those made-for-TV movies, the ones that are “inspired by real events”. One of his favorite lines when he was caught exaggerating matters was, “Another good story shot in the head by an eyewitness.” But he almost always said it with a smile, as if he knew that his embellishments would become part of the story in the end. He was right, too. My family tells stories all the time, but one of our favorite topics is the stories he would tell. We’re foggy on some of the details, but he taught us that the details aren’t as important as you might think. Mike told one this year that I’ll never forget.
Grandpa wrote an article for the St. Louis Globe Democrat in the 1950s called “My Greatest Sports Thrill”. In it, he relates the story of seeing an appearance by Babe Ruth at Sportsman’s Park. Babe was long-since retired by then, and his health was failing. Uncle Mike, then a toddler, was there too. Grandpa’s article described how Babe was barely able to walk around the stadium, but despite his obvious agony he stopped for every kid who wanted to talk to him, exchanged a few words, and then trudged on. Finally, he started to walk down the exit ramp when a man came running up to him with a ball he had hit in the World Series and asked him to sign it for his son. Ruth groped for a pen, but couldn’t make his fingers close around it. He tried to force a smile, but was unable even to do that. Finally, he gasped, “I’ll….I’ll have to catch your boy the next time around, okay kid?” The man went back to his seat with tears running down his cheeks and related what he had seen to those seated around him, including my grandfather. Grandpa wrote that what he heard and saw that day reminded him that Babe was truly a champion, and while what he did that day would never show up in the record books, his courage inspired everyone who was there.
The story goes that after reading this article, Mike was incredibly excited and went to my grandfather to talk to him about it.
“Wow, dad,” he asked, “did that really happen?”
Grandpa smiled. “That’s a great story, isn’t it Mike?”
“Yeah, it sure was! Was I really with you to see the Babe?”
“Mike, what was your favorite part of the story?”
My uncle wouldn’t let it go. “Come on, Dad, I have to know. Did it really happen that way?”
There was a pause. “Mike,” my grandpa smiled, “if it had happened, it would have happened exactly like that.”
Of course, that’s what Mike says. The only thing I know for sure is that the article is real—I have a photocopy of it in front of me right now. But I don’t doubt this one too much, because while my family makes a lot of things up, we rarely embellish the stories Grandpa told. We don’t need to.
I suppose all sons and daughters model their parents to a greater or lesser extent, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a whole family inspired by a liar the way we are by my grandfather. My family isn’t full of artists, though some of us sing well enough and a few of my cousins sculpt and paint. A few of us write from time to time, but none of us make a living at it. We are insurance agents and computer programmers and entrepreneurs and massage therapists, and all of us are storytellers.
I don’t know how smart Grandpa was, or how good at his job he was, or what kind of a father he was. I don’t know a lot about him, but I do know how he told a story. That is his legacy to me, and it’s more than enough for me to love him.
By the way, that thing about the meaning of the word Muse. You’re welcome to use it yourself, but don’t be surprised if someone points out that it’s not true. It sure made for a better story, though, didn’t it?
14 January 2003