I have several severe character defects that have been hard to live with. There, I’ve said it. They seem to spring forth from my soul, unbidden, and I have had to learn to handle them. They have gotten me into a lot of trouble over the years.

One of them is my natural optimism, which causes me to wake up happy. Almost every day, the moment that I wake up, I am smiling and happy. It is awful. It doesn’t always last all day, but it always is there when I wake up. It drove my wife nuts. I don’t try to be happy. It happens in my sleep somehow.

Yesterday I woke up thinking about pineapple upside down cake. I don’t know why. I didn’t remember having a dream about it. I was smiling, and remembering the pleasure of eating the last one I made, oh, probably around the year 1981, when Jenny and I lived in Little Rock. It was so happy making, that as I brushed my teeth, I decided that it was time to make another one.

I went online to find a general recipe for a pineapple upside down cake, and found a good recipe. I made a list, and as soon as I got dressed, I went to the store and bought the ingredients that I did not already have in my larder. Pineapple rings. Maraschino cherries. ( which I don’t like to eat in any other setting except for on top of pineapple upside down cake.) Sour cream. Organic cake flour.

Mornings at HEB are the best for people watching. If you get there early, it is not too crowded, and early morning is the best time to watch people. Unlike me, most of them do not wake up happy, and it is so interesting watching them trying to come to terms with the new day, wandering in a fog and shopping at the grocery store.

Much heartened, I took my ingredients home, and put them on the counter. I got some butter from the fridge, to let it come to room temperature. Later in the day I came back from a joblet that I had on my schedule, and assembled what I would need to make the cake. I had forgotten how complicated it is to make something like that from scratch, all the tools, and various bowls and mixers, and the steps in order of priority.

I followed the recipe, mostly, and after whipping the butter into fluff, adding the sugar, and the egg whites, and the sour cream, and the vanilla, and whipping it into fluffy marvelousness after each ingredient was added, I finally was able to add it to the cake flour and baking soda and baking powder, and blend it smooth. I prepared the pineapple rings and brown sugar in the glass baking dish, with the cherries in all the gaps, and dumped the cake mix on top of it, patted it down, and stuck it in the oven.

40 minutes later, the smell was irresistible, and I poked it with a toothpick and called it done, and set it on my island to cool. My friend Tiffany was visiting, so we sat down and watched White Christmas with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye on the TV. Amazingly enough, she had never seen White Christmas. I told her that she was the only person in America over 40 who had never seen White Christmas. I had not seen it in years, but could still sing all the songs.

After the movie, I flipped the cake over onto a plate, where it amazingly, fell right out of the inverted baking dish and nothing stuck. I cooked us dinner, and we had Pineapple Upside Down Cake for dessert. I even sent a piece home with Tiffany for her hubby.

As I took the first bite, I realized that this was life altering Pineapple Upside Down Cake. This was a cake that could end war. It was so delicious that I am pretty sure it could almost cure global warming. I smacked my lips so hard that it shook my brain.

I have a neighbor who, though he is a great guy, is often irascible and cranky, and I just knew that a piece of this cake would un-cranky him for at least a whole day, so I immediately took a piece over to him. He accepted my gift with a straight face, but later I looked out the window, and he was smiling as he worked in his yard. Powerful cake in action.

Today I went to hang a mailbox on the front of my friend Kathy’s house, and put up some house numbers for her, and I took her a piece of Pineapple Upside Down Cake. As I toiled out on her front porch, the EAT ME vibes coming from the cake forced her to have just a taste, as she put it away for supper, and when I finished my work, she was smiling to beat the band. It could have been because she was happy to have her cool new mailbox on her porch, and now she wouldn’t have to walk out her long sidewalk and up the rail-less steps to the street where her old mailbox was. Or, it could have been because now delivery people could see her address right there all clearly delineated on her front porch post. But I am betting it was the cake.

This cake could make lions lie down with lambs and not eat them. Eating just one bite was in itself, an epiphany. I had sneaked a second piece last night, after Tiffany left, and it was ambrosia. Literally nectar. With a glass of cold milk. I went to bed smiling so hard that my cheeks hurt.

This morning, after I cut the piece that I was taking to Kathy, there was one piece left. My buddy Rob has been feeling overwhelmed by his life lately, and he works near where I live, and I knew this Pineapple Upside Down Cake could transform his woes into wows, so took a picture of the last lonely piece of transformative epiphanic cake, and texted it to him.

Me: I been tryin hard to save you a piece of Pineapple Upside Down Cake but it is the stuff dreams are made of and people have wanted some. I can probably save you this last piece until tomorrow morning.

Rob: I get off work soon, see you (it) in a half hour.

Me: I am headin to Oak Hill for a job for a couple hours. Hep yousef.

Rob: Thanks

Me: It might be too good to share with your girls. (his daughters upon whom I dote)

Rob: That was great! Thank you very much. And no, the girls won’t be getting any.

And when I got home from hanging the mailbox, the plate was washed and in the drainer. I have good friends. They have manners.

Today I got an email from the Pope. He had read my story about my first experience with a Catholic Latin Good Friday Mass, and wanted to make amends, and could I come to the Holy Papal State for a conference on world peace? And by the way, could I bring the ingredients for a Pineapple Upside Down Cake, and make His Holiness one in the Vatican kitchen? Word gets around quick when there is a cake this powerful. Of course I sent him an email back and gracefully accepted his invitation. The cake could do it. It could be the catalyst for a new global paradigm. Pineapple Upside Down Cake is the new Henry Kissinger.

I heard President Biden was trying to call, but Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton, the republicans in firm, if unwanted, control of Texas, won’t let the President’s calls through into this state. Dang.

Be the change that you want to see!  

A fertile mind has no limits.