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Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Ho-Made Pies.

Okay, so Im done doing nothing, and now I'm on a top secret mission.

I'm not at liberty to disclose the nitty gritty, but I can say that it involves cram-jamming my brain full of new vocabulary. I had no idea my little pea-brain could hold so darn many new words. I think I've got upwards of 600 new vocabulary rattling around in my head!

I KNOW! Whodathunk!

It's tenuous, at best, and the endeavor has occluded me from propagating my ideas for you here in my dummy diaries, nevertheless, if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, I cannot tell a canard. I will not prevaricate. My innate proclivity to wax and wane in a desultory manner still burns within me and, as Gad as my witness, I will continue to posit my inchoate tales mercurially. I am a reonteur, after all.


Allow me to start reconteuring at the very beginning. Which for me was in a hundred-year-old house on Tait Lane in Mt. Carmel Utah.


I don't know if that's where things . . . ahem . . . technically began, but that's where my grandma was born (out of wedlock) in the front bedroom off the parlor. She was born there, yes. And her mother was born there too, yes. But neither one of them stayed there. They moved to California and built a different life. Away from the little provincial town where all of the their family was going on their merry way.


They became city folk and then they married city folk and then their kids became city folk and married city folk.


All the while the house on Tait Lane just stood there, knowing who it was and what it was standing for. Probably waiting, like Shel Silverstein's Giving Tree, for all of it's inhabitants to come back. Probably wishing too that, while it was standing there waiting, it's walls could talk.


Oh, the beautiful rumors those walls could spread if only they could talk . . .


I'm not trying to make you feel sorry for the house on Tait lane. It wasn't completely silent and unoccupied. It was passed on to my grandma, who used it as a summer home for her children and her children's children.


(That's where I came in.)


But all of this was long before Mt. Carmel became home of the famous HO-MADE pies. In fact I didn't know nothing about the HO-MADE pies until I came across this billboard on my way into town last summer.

My first thought was that it was a typo. Or like maybe they started painting the letters and then realized that they couldn't fit the whole word on the sign so they had to abbreviate.


And then I thought that even if they meant to do it, there was no way on earth these peeps could possibly understand the connotations of such a sign out in the real world.


Not to be rude, but there ain't a lotta gangsta rappers in Mt. Carmel, UT.


Well, I did some digging, peeps, and I finally got to the bottom of it, so please lend me your ear.


So I was at my uncle Marty's funeral on Saturday, right?


There I was shmoozing with my gram . . .


And my fam . . .

btw, is it just me or does my dad's brother look like Clint Eastwood?


I was eating. And talking. And running into people from the olden dayz . . . like Colleen, who owned the only motel in Orderville, and who used to let all the orderville kids try to drown me in her pool.


Here I am telling her, HA, look at me! Still alive! and then I happen to mention to her that I want to meet the ho who makes the famous pies.


You coulda heard a pin drop in that kitchen because lo and behold, the ho was standing right in front of me at that very moment. And guess what? We're related.


The ho is my 2nd cousin.


Can you believe it!


She said she used to be in lub with my dad. Not to be rude, but that's when I knew she was the real deal.

Bless her heart.


You wanna see her? Huh? Huh? Huh?


This is Karen. Coulda been my ma, if my pa hadn't become a city folk.


Karen invited me to come into the actual kitchen where the ho-made pies are baked. Then she gave me an apple pie fresh out of the oven.


For the record, guess how much these pies cost if Karen wasn't ever in lub with your dad?


$20.


So, as the story goes, the H0-made pie idea was just phonetics for a long long time. They pie makers figured that the first "m" is silent anyways so why bother sayin' it. Then the modern era dawned and people started coming from miles around to raise an eyebrow about the name.


So instead of getting all high and mighty and hoity toity and haughty and prudent and austere and sagacious, they decided to run with it.


Thus the sign was born. But now they have a newer sign. A prettier ho, with mo cleavage. And mo leg.



Even though the whole premise seems a bit ribald and invidious, I kinda get it after seeing the competition across the street:



Anyways, it made me think of the time when I moved to Utah and suddenly started baking pies.


Do you think it's in the genes?




19 comments:

The Songer said...

hahahahaha! I loved this post.. i was laughing so much that i had to explain to everyone why! And it wasn't because of the similarity in the last picture..... or the way you nonchalantly threw the word Ho around! .... okay it was that! hahaha! and still laughing!

Okay spill.. why are you learning vocabulary?

Thanks for getting to the bottom of this matter...... and sharing.

Ps. You and famous people! You are destined for greatness!!

The Songer said...

Pss.... I love Song #1... in the past few days it has slowly grown on me and today i sat own to learn the fingering on ukulele and then cleaned me kitchen to it!!

springrose said...

You saying that in the kitchen right when the "ho" was there is so funny! Sounds like something I would say or do!!! Glad you got to the bottom of it for all of us. Saves me trying to convince my Hub next time we drive to AZ to stop to find out. And it makes a better story that your relation is the one making the pies!!!!

Welcome to the Garden of Egan said...

You sorta look like that Ho-model!
What a fun trip down memory lane!
Awesome to meet your almost-mom!

Becca said...

I'm not quite seeing it. Maybe if Karen would put on the red... um, what is that exactly? Sleeved bathing suit with apron accent?

Small worlds are the strangest worlds of all.

Stephen said...

Very funny and entertaining!

Valerie said...

I've been waiting for this post! Now we know the mystery behind the name...
And there is a slight resemblance in that last picture. :)
Totally gonna be checkin' this place out the next time I'm down that way.

springrose said...

I just had to add another comment. That cut out of the "ho-made" lady looks like she is wearing a apron and a shirt but nothing but her skivvies under the apron. Were they just trying to go complete opposite of the old lady cut out?

Barbaloot said...

Your family stories are super interesting---I love it.

Yes, your uncle looks like Clint Eastwood.

And how many times did you go to a thesaurus for this post? :)

TisforTonya said...

Loves: new vocabulary - you word nerd you!!! getting to the bottom of mysteries - that sign makes me laugh every time we're driving out that way (at least annually) & relatives that scream "go ahead, make my day"

Vern said...

Is this really a post about pies and not some elaborate scheme to mock my limited vocabulary? There's like 28 words in this post I don't know.

Unknown said...

I love that they just 'went' with the "Ho" thing! I've got pix of my daughter and sisters in front of that sign. I'll see them this weekend. Can't wait to unravel the mystery!

Susan said...

It's so totally in the genes, because your cleavage looks just like that. HAHAHAHAHA.

Emily Anne Leyland said...

LOVE THIS POST! Will you email me about how the trip went...if you know what I mean hahaha ;-)

Martha said...

I want some apple pie. Jimmy wants some pumpkin pie.

Kazzy said...

If I had a get up like that I might bake more pies too. Or do other stuff. LOL

Annette Lyon said...

I feel like we've come full circle with the Ho-Made pies!

Martha said...

Since Marika hasn't posted this yet, I guess I will. Check her out:

http://www.staradvertiser.com/features/featuresstories/20110202_Little_foodie.html

Full page in the paper!

Dolly said...

Precisely the explanation I had conjured in my cranial compartment when I first saw the post about Mt. Carmel a few months ago.

So illustrious were my delusions that I projected the notion in which you would become a character in the tale.

(So I'm not a GRE writing candidate obviously, but you make it amusing for me to try to converse with you in your own style.) Hee hee, thanks for the laughs.

I have been having an amazing week in Hawaii and if my imagination continues on this prophetic path-- great things are to come!