This concerns something that has both bothered and amused me for over thirty years now , and it happened right about this same time of year .
Here in Texas ( and I'm pretty sure the entire south ) people come together in times of tragedy . It makes no difference who died or how , or even if anyone died at all , it's only the tragedy part that counts .

Now it's the day after , now is when you sit down and try to deal with what's happened and you can only face little bits and pieces of it because the enormity of it would crush you and the shock starts to set in . We know that people in this condition can sit for days , not taking care of themselves and rarely eating if at all .

Now is the time for your friends and family to stop by and see how you're doing , to help out with all those little things that suddenly don't seem worth it , but mostly to bring food because you're not going to feel like cooking .

Here comes the rant part . Here in the south we are blessed with a truly incredible number of native pecan trees. In the late fall hundreds of millions of pounds of them come crashing to earth in a month long hailstorm of free food . In the boondocks everyone and their second cousin is making pecan pies .
People here are nice , when something bad happens to a loved one they don't want to start calling around to other friends to see what they're going to do to help ,it would seem like you're pressuring them and that would be rude .
About thirty years ago something bad happened in my family involving my stepfather who was raised around here and had lots and lots of friends , every single fiddlewinking one of which brought a pecan pie , most of them brought another one after a day or two . For three weeks that was pretty much all there was to eat , dozens of pecan pies . Don't get wrong , I appreciate it , I really do , it's a wonderful thing . But for Gods sake suck it up , call down the road and see what everyone else is is planning on doing .

About a decade before that I found myself on a beach for nearly a month in the Caribbean , it was in the middle of nowhere and all I had was what was in my pockets and a machete . To this day I can't stand the sight of coconuts . The only reason I didn't go completely crazy is after two weeks or so I discovered that eels are more edible than I thought they were .

So when bad things happen do go a little out of your way to help , but put a little thought into it , it's possible you could be the biggest hero in the world with nothing more than a bologna sandwich .

Your Right! I will be leaving soon to go to Pub 25 in Newtown to have a few beers with some of my brother Firefighter's in Newtown...they also went through hell yesterday.

Well, maybe you're tired of them, but I've only been in the south for a little over ten years, and I cannot get ENOUGH of homemade pecan pie. One of the most fattening things on the planet, but damn, son, they're just so GOOD!!

Sometimes, when things are just so awful and sad, little things like pies and casseroles are like a hug, from the cook to you.