An Apple a Day...

"Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious." ~Bill Meyer

I cut a slice of apple and bite into it and it is so crunchy that the little dog- who is going deaf- comes marching in, looking at me expectantly. He too is an apple lover. I share, a tiny chunk for him and a big wedge for me. Isn't it marvelous how nature has us leave the core alone, seeds safe and undigested, in order to make more trees? How many tree's and then apples come from a single apple seed, we wonder together. It seems like if we ponder that we will learn something about abundance. 

I love fall and paper bags of apples from the local farm. A slice of apple with peanut butter on it is such a great lunch. I read yesterday that prior to prohibition more apples were made into cider than actually eaten. Cider then was always "hard" because they did not have refrigeration to keep it sweet. It was what "cider" was. The label "hard" cider is a more modern term. My Grandma Goff did not drink the "hard cider" cider; instead she made the best apple pie ever for her whole life.  She made it at least weekly, even throughout the summer at the beach cottage, until she was in her 80's. We always had apple pie made fresh on Saturdays. I would get to use her leftover pie crust to make and bake little cinnamon sugar pinwheels.  My Grandpa ate his apple pie with a slice of cheddar cheese. When Grandma made her "last pie" we were unaware it would be her last, so we ate it without any extra celebration. That is so true about so many things in life. You notice it when it is missing, not when you have it. We would have dressed in our best and ooh'd and ahhh'd had we known. Not a single selfie was ever taken with Grandma's magnificent pie, even a kodak or polaroid one. The pie lives in our hearts alone, perhaps an even more noble end.

Vera Nazarian said, "When bobbing for apples, an idealist endlessly reaches for the best apple, a pessimist settles for the first one within reach, while an optimist drains the barrel, fishes out all the apples and makes pie."  I would agree that my grandmother was mostly optimistic. 

I hope all the children in our cities when they are still little enough to notice everything and old enough to remember it all are taken on a journey to meet a tree that will give them an apple. It should be a standard part of education. The apple tree should be surrounded by tree friends and hay wagons and pumpkin patches and banjo-fiddle music. Square dancing. Start them off with fresh apples when they are little. 
From Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe: 
"Bean finds the best apple in our tree and hands it up to me. "You know what this tastes like when you first bite into it?" she asks. 
"No, what?"
"Blue sky."
"You're zoomed."
"You ever eat blue sky?"
"No," I admit.
"Try it sometime," she says. "It's apple-flavored." 

And that is perhaps the most eloquent nod towards the apple. May the apples you meet this fall remind you of wonderful things.

My Grandmother, Beatrice Goff made the apple pies for my grandfather, Laurence Goff