I love pie.   Peach.  Pumpkin.  Cherry.  Strawberry. Rhubarb.  Banana cream.  I can eat pie on a pretty dish, or directly out of the pan with a fork.  Or no fork, just mouth, plunged inside the gooey goodness, licking the pie tin clean.

The vagina is sometimes referred to as pie. I heard this in Junior High School, just before I discovered the wonders of my own pie. At the same time, I was  troubled by another Pi -- the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.  And that's when I met Soupy Sales. In 1964, Soupy was my hero.

Soupy Sales was a one-man television show.  He gave his puppets funny voices, improvised skits, danced, sang, and got pelted with more than 25,000 pies.   We kids ate him up, pie and all. Did I tell you I loved pie?

From coast to coast, my generation danced the Soupy Shuffle. We all raced home from school to catch the Soupy Sales show on channel 5.

Our parents and teachers regarded his off-color humor as a corrupting influence.   Soupy's show was cancelled after he instructed his audience of kids to steal from their daddys' wallets green papers with pictures of men with beards.  His popularity soared and he was back on the air.

In August of 1964, my parents took me to New York City to visit Aunt Audrey, Uncle Harry and my cousin Claudia.  I stayed with them while my parents traveled to Israel.

I liked Soupy well enough, but Claudia was obsessed.

One day after her parents left for work, Claudia and I took the bus to ABC  on East 67th.

"Aren't you afraid you'll get caught playing hooky?" I asked.

"I've done this before," as she showed me her forged note.

When we got to ABC, Claudia grabbed her spot opposite the building's entrance, near a metal pole capped with a big sign that read NO STANDING ANYTIME.  Fifty pubescent girls and a few boys stood for hours in front of those double doors to get a glimpse of their idol who was due to emerge at any time.

Although the weather was like a sauna, the doorman would not allow us to wait inside the spacious air-conditioned lobby.  There was no breeze, shade, or place to sit -- except on the sidewalk or on top of parked cars until the owners chased us off.   One girl had shimmied up the sign pole in front of the entrance and was unaware that everyone could see up her skirt.

Awaiting fans made up songs and played transistor radios to pass the time.  We listened to Martha and the Vandallas' Dancing in the Street.  Claudia sang Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me and got a round of applause.

Innocent girls learned how to apply makeup, smoke and drink.   They talked of boys and of "doing it."  They hadn't yet, but I had.

I was schvitzing and my hair was frizzing.  My legs were bare and a trail of ants had climbed over the curb and were making their way towards us.  I suggested to Claudia that we grab some cold sodas or popsicles, but my cousin refused to abandon her station.

After a long long time, Soupy walked through the glass doors.  The girls screamed and surged towards him.  I have to admit he looked pretty sensational in his tweed hat and seersucker jacket.  He wore an ascot.  I had never seen an ascot before, or had heard of the word.

Soupy held a cigarette in his hand -- a Montclair.  All the girls who smoked smoked Montclairs.   He was debonair.  He was dreamy.

Soupy told the doorman to let all of us inside the lobby.  Relief at last, but no drinking fountain or bathrooms.

Soupy towered over his fans.  Brownies and Instamatics flashed from the crowd.   Our pin-up posed with his arm around each girl.  I did not have a camera.

I leaned against a cool marble pillar with the length of my overheated body.  I pressed my sweaty back against it, and then slowly rotated around and round.  I rolled my sunburnt face against the smooth icy surface, contemplating my life, fearful of my future.  As Mr.  Sales signed autographs and posed, I continued to rotate and orbit the stone column while I snapped, popped and inflated my Double bubble.

When he finished working the crowd, he walked over to me and asked if I wanted an autograph too.

“No thank you,” I said, not knowing what to do with my wad of gum, so I removed it, and held it in my hand.

“Do you know who I am?”

I told him I watch his show every day after school in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, behind my back, with thumb and forefinger, I rolled the malleable gum into a ball and pressed it into a cleft carved in the fluted column.

“Would you like to come tomorrow and watch me tape the show?”

I thought of that ice cream man in California who invited me for a ride in his Good Humor truck.  I was six years old at the time.  Soupy was no ordinary stranger, and he didn't drive an ice cream truck.  There was something about this television celebrity that reminded me of the Good Humor man -- maybe it was his blue eyes.

I also thought of the fact that I had missed three periods and hadn't yet told my parents, or that boy in California.

So I said, “Well, um, on one condition only.  I couldn't possibly go without my bringing my cousin Claudia,” and pointed to her at the opposite end of the lobby.   Claudia had a pretty face and a skeletal figure.

I was so distracted I forgot to remove the chewing gum embedded in the pillar's carved groove. I image the gum is still there, petrified and fused to the marble column.

Claudia was so excited about having her name added to the admittance list, she couldn't eat for the rest of the day – but come to think of it, I don't recall ever seeing her eat more than a thimbleful of anything.

That night, Claudia slathered her face with Clearasil and wrapped her long black hair in foam rollers.  The next morning she backcombed, fluffed and sprayed her hair, and applied mascara and frosted pink lipstick.

I wore no make-up, and had packed shorts sets and the pleated cotton skirt I had made in Home Ec with Mrs. Hockinburger at Pacoima Junior High -- which was getting tighter.   My cousin's clothes were too small for me.

Claudia put on her taffeta dress, the one her parents had bought for her upcoming sweet sixteen, and asked me,  "Does this make me look fat?"

As Claudia stood in front of the mirror all dolled up, her father's key opened the front door.

Claudia was grounded for cutting school, so I went alone to ABC.

I sat in a director's chair and watched Soupy tape his show.  He gave me a glossy 8x10 and autographed it for me.  I told him what had happened to Claudia, and he said he would do something about it.

That year, Claudia became President of the Soupy Sales Fan Club, New York City chapter, and she got married.

She sent me a picture of herself with Soupy and her husband.  She looked thinner than I remembered her.

In the sixth month of her marriage, at the age of 16, Claudia died.   A year later her parents divorced. The following year they both died.

I gave birth to a baby girl.

Last year I came across that photo of Soupy.  I  wondered if he remembered my cousin, so I googled him.  I learned he had a Facebook profile in which he wrote that he was available for gigs.  I was impressed with his work ethic so I clicked "Become a Fan. "

Next, I looked him up on Twitter and bingo, there he was again.  I added myself as a Follower to his tweets.  I was shy about tweeting him back, so I just followed, trying to work up the courage, which I knew I would never have after his last posting which read:

"In the end, ­kiddos, your Uncle Soupy just wants what everybody wants:  to not die alone.  That, and a rusty trombone from Phyllis  McGuire."

I recently learned Soupy Sales died on October 22nd, 2009.  He was 83.