P.T.A. Pie Shame: A Slice of Island Life
Hidden beneath the surface of the picturesque town of Friday Harbor lies a tale of lost community. The challenge of garnering enough homemade pies for the P.T.A. Pie Booth at the San Juan County Fair proves a tragic reminder of an island divided. This concept of “otherness” and how it affects small communities is as multilayered as the flakiest pie crust found in our few donated pies. If you are reading this and it’s not the last day of the Fair, there’s still time for redemption! Go bake a pie and bring it to the Homemade Pie Booth! I’ve been doing pie penance since an online altercation, which made the most trivial request take on epic proportions. Baking an extra fruit pie and freezing it to thaw and donate during the Fair is my best effort to rebuild the community. Our rural Fair deserves to have homemade pies as a staple in the food court and a tradition everyone can celebrate.
The demographics of our rural island offer the first clue to unraveling the mystery of the missing community bakers. The middle class is effectively being priced out of the housing market despite the abundance of jobs. In the past, living expenses and available housing were not as big of obstacles for young families to hurdle. Now incoming families need to have a certain level of resources to navigate island living, creating a fractured community of the haves and have nots, the long time islanders versus the new residents who are either scrambling to make ends meet or hobnobbing with other like minds. It doesn’t leave much time for baking pies for the county fair. The influx of new residents, motivated by their vision of a tightly-knit community, leads to emotional as well as financial investments. When confronted with the petty realities of small-town living, these newcomers often respond with denial and exclusion to protect their dream.
What began as my seemingly benign request for homemade pies beneath the social media call for donations from the P.T.A. became a heard online argument, exposing the underlying human desire for recognition and belonging. The comments and responses illustrate the deep-seated animosity and resentments bubbling beneath the surface of our “close-knit community”. The pie shaming began almost immediately with a chirpy response from a local elementary school mother asking what pies I was planning on baking. I replied that my donated pie baking days were over but I supported the booth by buying pie and directing others to sample their wares. As a long-time volunteer and superintendent of the Zucchini 500, I have always extolled the virtues of the Homemade Pie Booth to fair goers and funded several hungry local kids’ pie treats. Being diabetic, I limit myself to one piece of pie and was disappointed last year when it was clearly store bought. I firmly believe the charm of the P.T.A. pie booth is, as the hand-painted wooden sign has advertised for decades, ‘HOMEMADE PIES”. Pie baking is a tricky endeavor and it’s always a crap shoot on the quality of homemade pie you will get on any given day, but that feels like a carnival game in and of itself. Throughout history, our island community thrived on gatherings that celebrated togetherness and the San Juan County Fair is the grandest celebration of all. The Fair serves as a melting pot that showcases diverse experiences, resilience and a community united. If a beloved icon such as the P.T.A. pie booth is in jeopardy, it is the canary in the coal mine and indicates deeper fissures in the foundation of our rural island.
Screenshots capture the extent of the online cruelty that erupted during the conversation thread underneath the donation request, portraying a community consumed by vitriol. What was intended to be a friendly request devolved into a battlefield of insults and personal attacks, further fracturing an already fragile environment. I was accused of making the donation post all about bullying and death and was told I was hateful and ruined everything. My exact words were initially, “No more store-bought pies, please.” It’s true that I did share our experiences with the local and private schools on the island during our son’s education, and it did involve bullying and feeling like outsiders in a small town. Despite being stalwart classroom volunteers and heading up our own creative arts program offering free classes to local kids, we got little support and felt unseen. So when a P.T.A. mom admonished me to be grateful we raised our son twenty-seven years ago, I choked a bit and shared what our experience had actually been. As for the death remark, when the same mom bemoaned how challenging it is living on the island with all the expenses and multiple children, I mentioned I did not have an only child, as his sister had died. I’ve always disliked only child stigma and assumptions. I suggested that pie shaming wasn’t the best tactic to get people to bake and donate pies, but she was adamant in her belief that I was “other” and she was confident in her judgment that I was just someone who complained but did nothing to help. The tragedy of the P.T.A. pie booth donation thread serves as a somber reminder of the importance of genuine connection, empathy and kindness in preserving the essence of a community. I sent the author of the initial post a heartfelt apology directly for causing her request to blow up.
My fellow Fair Board members are rallying behind the pie donation pleas and offering incentives like cute pins that say, “Do you want a piece of me?” with every online sign up, and I appreciate their sense of humor. The P.T.A. has opened an account at a local bank and is encouraging people to donate money to hire someone to bake pies. I have seen locals online balk at signing up because of their own sense of inadequacy in baking, which is understandable as I am a fair-to middling baker myself. In this world of Instagram perfection and highly curated depictions of daily island life, my rustic pies are barely suitable. Usually what they lack in finesse, they make for in flavor but not always. Baking is a fickle craft.
As the flour settles, it reveals how Friday harbor is a microcosm of the human experience with all its complexity, contradictions and potential for both kindness and cruelty. Until then, let’s raise our rolling pins and dare to bake quirky pies and donate them to a worthy cause. As we navigate our community changes and strive for inclusivity, it’s crucial to remember that each person’s contribution, no matter how imperfect, can enrich our collective experience.
