The summer before first grade, my oldest son came up with the notion that he wanted to experience a pie in the face. It was all his idea (maybe inspired by a conversation), but something he really wanted to do. We settled on doing it the last day of summer vacation and decided that it would be our way of saying goodbye to summer. We got disposable pie tins, loaded them up with whipped cream and drizzled strawberry syrup on them. Out on our driveway, the day before school started—on the count of three—he yelled, “Goodbye, summer,” and smashed it in his face. His hair was coated with white, soaked with the fluffy cream. Bright red strawberry sauce covered—and dripped from—his face. It was just the three of us: both my boys and me. He delighted in seeing his vision come to life as we celebrated a great summer and bid farewell to it. It was such a hit, we did it again the following year.
The next year he invited a couple of buddies and a neighbor over to enjoy the festivities. This time chocolate drizzled the creamy pies and we posted a sign that read Goodbye Summer Vacation. My three-year-old also took part. The same crew gathered the following year, with one more in tow. With another farewell sign in the driveway, we added s’mores to the menu and enjoyed a festive celebration of the last day of summer vacation. They all returned again the next year, but rather than just simple pies in the face, it became an all-out war, the boys good-naturedly chasing each other down the cul-de-sac, whipped cream flying through the street, little brother keeping up with the big boys, laughter filling the air. By the following year, when my son started middle school, a couple more boys joined the crowd, while one (a year older) didn’t return. Was it an age thing? Would they lose interest in the goofy tradition? Would middle school change it?
Apparently so.
By the next year, it was just my two boys and me again. No neighborhood gathering. No socializing with friends. It had a less raucous feel. They even insisted—for the first time—on moving things to the backyard so nobody would see. They didn’t chase each other around, but they laughed and giggled, dousing their own faces, as well as each other’s. We returned to the backyard again the next year, a smattering of cream spotted their clothes, faces clean except for a few white dribbles.
Gone were the days of being drenched in goo.
As high school began for my oldest, I resorted to a piece of store-bought pie, and we were again secluded in the backyard. The boys put their faces to it, tentatively licked it, barely taking a bite. No towering plates of froth. No flying cream. Measly bites from slices they cradled in their hands. The tradition as I knew it was dying, yet I was relieved that we’d breathed a hint of life into it for another year.
This year, second year of high school and last year of elementary, they were less than enthusiastic—even my 10-year-old resisted. “Just humor me,” I said. “We’ve gotta do pie in the face, even if it’s pie going in your face via you taking a bite.” I bribed them by saying I’d introduce them to McDonald’s pies, something they’d never had.
There was no goo, no fanfare, no poster, no hype. They stood next to the backyard fence clutching the warm, crispy pastries in their hands. “Goodbye, summer,” they murmured, followed by a quick photo op.
And so it goes, me clinging to a ritual and tradition that they’ve grown up with, yet, for all intents and purposes, have outgrown. Maybe it’s the home-spun nature of the original idea and the joy that went along with it that make me hold so tightly. Like a piece of artwork brought home from school, unique, bright and beautiful—how do you get rid of that?
Yet maybe if I can continue to be fluid—open to paring it down, tweaking and tailoring it—to reflect the space they’re in, it will still have some meaning, on some level, for all of us. I can hold it loosely, knowing deep down that it’s still a tradition at its core, even if it’s only a sliver of what we started with.
So goodbye, summer.
But not goodbye, tradition.
I’ll continue to change and grow with you to keep you in our family.
Kira Hagenbuch Monica 