Cherry Pie

Today as I was walking down to Jigg Wood's Service Station for a bottle of pop Binnie Butcher saw me and invited me in for a slice cherry pie.  Binnie is always cooking and baking and her cherry pie is the best in the world.  That is my opinion and I'm not changing it so don't even try talking about your mother's pie or your grandma's pie or anyone else.  The reason Binnie's pie is the best is because of the cherries.  Binnie will even say that.  She has told me that many times over the years and I believe her.  Her cherries come from a cherry tree in her back yard that Binnie's mother planted when her mother was 8 years old.  Binnie is 92 so you do the math.  Binnie's tree isn't the very same one her mother planted but from a seed from a cherry from the tree Binnie's mother planted.  The original tree got old and quit producing so much and got hit by lighting and the trunk split and finally it just gave up on cherries and died.  I can remember the remnants of the original tree when I was kid.  The original tree was near the back of Binnie's house near the shed.  At that time there was one or maybe two branches on what was left of a trunk with a few leaves in the spring.  It seemed each year there were fewer and fewer leaves and finally none at all.  The old first tree finally died and gradually decomposed.  No one ever mentioned the dead tree and within a few years it was completely gone.  By that time the replacement tree was near by and thriving so Binnie's mother had plenty of cherries.  Now Binnie's cherry tree is getting old and there are dead and dying branches.  Binnie doesn't climb in the cherry tree anymore and asks me to help her pick the cherries when they are ripe.  Every year there are fewer cherries but still enough for Binnie and me to harvest and for Binnie to can during the summer.  Last summer we picked about 2 quarts.  After Binnie culled out the bad ones and the ones the ants and bees nibbled on Binnie told me she canned only 3 pints.  Binnie was disappointed and I told her to hold out hope because surely next summer would be better.   And then, in the dead of winter, when no one remembers summer or cherries,  Binnie will open a jar of her mothers's cherries and  make the best cherry pie in the world.  I just hope the tree keeps producing cherries for as long as Binnie can make her pies.  It's going to be close.