Snow Ghost Pie tastes as good today as it did when Grandma baked it back in '33

This story was allegedly told to Hershey's in 1972 and used for an advertisement. It's... strange.

I remember when I was a boy, we had this handyman who shovelled our snow in the winter.

Now he wasn't your ordinary handyman, no sir. He was a cunning old devil. He was in direct contact with leprechauns, witches... trolls... and ghosts.

We kids didn't know whether to be scared of the handyman, or laugh at him. Mostly I guess we were scared.

Sigh.

Now one day I got snowed in from school and I hung around while my grandmother did her baking. Round noontime she poured the creamy chocolate middle into a pie crust, and when the smell of that chocolate hit me, I swear I nearly fainted from hunger.

She stuck it out on the windowsill to cool and I saw the handyman stop shovelling snow and give that pie a long, slow look. Then I saw his nose twitch as he got a whiff of the chocolate and sort of got pulled toward the pie like it was magic.

My grandmother was no fool and she said, "Hands off that pie. It's for dinner."

Well the handyman and I hung around the pie awhile. It had a golden crust and fluffy whipped cream on top but what really got to us was the chocolate middle. It was the kind of middle that melts in your mouth and warms you from the inside out.

I really can't hear "melts in your mouth" without thinking "not in your hands," which was a well-established slogan for M&M's even in the 70's. Seems an odd choice for Hershey's to use.

Oh, right, we were learning about the handyman and his cunning pie theft plan.

The handyman stared at the pie and looked like he could stand it any longer. He leaned over me, real tall, and he said, "Sonny, I know a snow ghost who lives in a snowbank who has to have a piece of that pie."

I was about to ask what kind of ghost lives in a snowbank and eats pie when Grandma whipped her pie right out from under our noses and hid it away.

Grandma's the only one in this story with an ounce of sense.

The handyman grabbed me and whispered, "Lissen, when your grandma ain't lookin' get a big piece of that pie for the snow ghost, because snow ghosts are mighty big ghosts."

I said I couldn't do that.

He said, "If y'do, the snow ghost will fix it so it keeps on snowin' and you'll get outta school."

I said I still couldn't do it.

He said, "If you don't do it for me, the snow ghost'll come out of his snowbank and ask you himself."

I said I'd do it.

Well, when bribery doesn't get you stolen pie, intimidation apparently does the trick. What a jerk.

Sure enough, Grandma thought I'd stolen the piece of pie for myself. She wouldn't believe it was for a ghost. She made me open my mouth wide, and she looked inside to see if there was any chocolate in there. And then she said she believed me. But she said she didn't believe in the snow ghost, not on your life.

Funny thing is, it snowed for a whole week after that and I got out of so much school I got bored.

And next time Grandma made her chocolate pie, she made the whipped cream on top look just like a snow ghost. And when she served it at dinner, there was already a big piece missing.

Only Grandma and I knew why.

To this day, when my wife makes Grandma's recipe for Snow Ghost Pie, we leave a piece for the ghost.

Just in case.

Just in case you thought the storyteller wasn't scarred for life or anything...

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