sustained applause; this was the legendary Bill Travis, six feet five inches tall, gangling,
voracious. Travis was a mechanic at the local Amoco station down by the railyard, a
likeable fellow if there ever was one.;
It was common knowledge around town that there was more involved in the Great
Gretna Pie-Eat than a mere five dollars – at least, for Bill Travis there was. There were
two reasons for this. First, people always came by the station to congratulate Bill after he
won the contest, and most everyone who came to congratulate stayed to get his gas-tank
filled. And the two garage-bays were sometimes booked up for a solid month after the
contest. Folks would come in to get a muffler replaced or their wheel-bearings greased,
and would sit in the theatre chairs ranged along one wall (Jerry Mating, who owned the
Amoco, had salvaged them from the old Gem Theatre when it was torn down in 1957),
drinking Cokes and Moxies from out of the machine and gassing with Bill about the
contest as he changed sparkplugs or rolled around on a crawlie-wheelie under someone’s
International Harvester pickup, looking for holes in the exhaust system. Bill always
seemed willing to talk, which was one of the reasons he was so well-liked in Gretna.
There was some dispute around town as to whether Jerry Maling gave Bill a flat bonus
for the extra business his yearly feat (or yearly eat, if you prefer) brought in, or if he got
an out-and-out raise. Whatever way it was, there could be no doubt that Travis did much
better than most small-town wrench jokeys. He had a nice-looking two-storey ranch out
on the Sabbatus Road, and certain snide people referred to it as ‘the house that pies built’.
That was probably an exaggeration, but Bill had it coming another way … which brings us
to the second reason there was more in it for Travis than just five dollars.
The pie-eat was a hot wagering event in Gretna. Perhaps most people only came to
laugh, but a goodly minority also came to lay their money down. Contestants were
observed and discussed by these betters as ardently as thoroughbreds are observed and
discussed by racing touts. The wagerers accosted contestants’ friends, relatives, even mere
acquaintances. They pried out any and all details concerning the contestants’ eating habits.
There was always a lot of discussion about that year’s official pie – apple was considered a
‘heavy’ pie, apricot a ‘light’ one (although a contestant had to resign himself to a day or
two of the trots after downing three or four apricot pies). That year’s official pie,
blueberry, was considered a happy medium. Betters, of course, were particularly
interested in their man’s stomach for blueberry dishes. How did he do on blueberry
buckle? Did he favour blueberry jam over strawberry preserve? Had he been known to
sprinkle blueberries on his breakfast cereal, or was he strictly a bananas-and-cream sort of
fellow?
There were other questions of some moment. Was he a fast eater who slowed down or
a slow eater who started to speed up as things got serious or just a good steady all-around
trencher-man? How many hot dogs could he put away while watching a Babe Ruth
League game down at the St Dom’s baseball field? Was he much of a beer-drinker, and, if
so, how many bottles did he usually put away in the course of an evening? Was he a
belcher? It was believed that a good belcher was a bit tougher to beat over the long haul.
All of this and other information was sifted, the odds laid, the bets made. How much
money actually changed hands during the week or so following pie-night I have no way of
knowing, but if you held a gun to my head and forced me to guess, I’d put it at close to a
thousand dollars – that probably sounds like a pretty paltry figure, but it was a lot of
money to be passing around in such a small town fifteen years ago.
And because the contest was honest and a strict time-limit of ten minutes was
observed, no one objected to a competitor betting on himself, and Bill Travis did so every
year. Talk was, as he nodded, smiling, to his audience on that summer night in 1960, that
he had bet a substantial amount on himself again, and that the best he had been able to do
this year was one-for-five odds. If you’re not the betting type, let me explain it this way:
he’d have to put two hundred and fifty dollars at risk to win fifty. Not a good deal at all,
but it was the price of success – and as he stood there, soaking up the applause and
smiling easy, he didn’t look too worried about it.
‘And the defending champion,’ Mayor Charbonneau trumpeted, ‘Gretna’s own Bill
Travis!’
‘Hoo, Bill!’
‘How many you goin’ through tonight, Bill?’
‘You goin’ for ten, Billy-boy?’
‘I got a two-spot on you, Bill! Don’t let me down, boy!’
‘Save me one of those pies, Trav!’
Nodding and smiling with all proper modesty, Bill Travis allowed the Mayor to tie his
bib around his neck. Then he sat down at the far right end of the table, near the place
where Mayor Charbonneau would stand during the contest. From right to left, then, the
eaters were Bill Travis, David ‘Lard Ass’ Hogan, Bob Cormier, principal John Wiggins,
and Calvin Spier holding down the stool on the far left.
Mayor Charbonneau introduced Sylvia Dodge, who was even more of a contest figure
than Bill Travis himself. She had been President of the Gretna Ladies’ Auxiliary for years
beyond telling (since the First Manassas, according to some town wits), and it was she
who oversaw the baking of each year’s pies, strictly subjecting each to her own rigorous
quality control, which included a weigh-in ceremony on Mr Bancichek’s butcher’s scales
down at the Freedom Market -this to make sure that each pie weighed within an ounce of
the others.
Sylvia smiled regally down at the crowd, her blue hair twinkling under the hot glow of
the light-bulbs. She made a short speech about how glad she was that so much of the
town had turned out to celebrate their hardy pioneer forebears, the people who made this
country great, for it was great, not only on the grassroots level where Mayor Charbonneau
would be leading the local Republicans to the hallowed seats of town government again
in November, but on the national level where the team of Nixon and Lodge would take
the torch of freedom from Our Great and Beloved General and hold it high for –
Calvin Spier’s belly rumbled noisily – Goinnnngg! There was laughter and even some
applause. Sylvia Dodge, who knew perfectly well that Calvin was both a Democrat and a
Catholic (either would have been forgivable alone, but the two combined, never),
managed to blush, smile, and look furious all at the same time. She cleared her throat and
wound up with a ringing exhortation to every boy and girl in the audience, telling them to
always hold the red, white, and blue high, both in their hands and in their hearts, and to
remember that smoking was a dirty, evil habit which made you cough. The boys and girls
in the audience, most of whom would be wearing peace medallions and smoking not
Camels but marijuana in another eight years, shuffled their feet and waited for the action
to begin.
‘Less talk, more eatin’!’ someone in the back row called, and there was another burst of
applause – it was heartier this time.
Mayor Charbonneau handed Sylvia a stopwatch and a silver police whistle, which she
would blow at the end of the ten minutes of all-out pie-eating. Mayor Charbonneau would
then step forward and hold up the hand of the winner.
‘Are you ready??’ Hizzoner’s voice rolled triumphantly through the Great Day PA and
off down Main Street.
The five pie-eaters declared they were ready.
‘Are you SET??’ Hizzoner enquired further.
The eaters growled that they were indeed set. Downstreet, a boy set off a rattling skein
of firecrackers.
Mayor Charbonneau raised one pudgy hand and then dropped it ‘GO!!!’
Five heads dropped into five pie-plates. The sound was like five large feet stamping
firmly into mud. Wet chomping noises rose on the mild night air and then were blotted
out as the betters and partisans in the crowd began to cheer on their favourites. And no
more than the first pie had been demolished before most people realised that a possible
upset was in the making.
Lard Ass Hogan, a seven-to-one underdog because of his age and inexperience, was
eating like a boy possessed. His jaws machine-gunned up crust (the contest rules required
that only the top crust of the pie be eaten, not the bottom), and when that had disappeared,
a huge sucking sound issued from between his lips. It was like the sound of an industrial