An Apple A Day

Hey guys, there's a new poll up. I was thinking of having it sort of like an Oz poll, where you had to pick which of the Oz characters' wishes you wanted for yourself, such as brains, courage, heart, a home. Is there another one? I can't think of it if there is. Oh well maybe next time.

By the way, the old poll surprised me. It came down to, I think 6 for oranges and only 2 for apples. Now I chose apples, not that you would catch me munching away on apples all the time, I just don't happen to care much for oranges. I love apple pie and in general a good, crunchy, juicy apple is quite delectable. I think you can even detect a good apple just by looking at it, but, an orange fools you. Even if you peel an apple and find a brown spot you can just slice that out and still enjoy the rest of it, but just yesterday I caught Rich gagging on a few bad orange slices, because you can't tell til you put it in your mouth! I don't know, maybe part of it (the inclination for oranges) is our own natural leariness (leeriness) towards the tempting apple, which was a factor in our own expulsion from paradise? Or maybe everyone is thinking of colds and since this is a big cold season everyones' body craves vitamin c, which is abundant in oranges? Or maybe y'all are just sick of apples cause they're everywhere? Now if the question was "apples or grapefruit", you can be sure my answer would have been the latter, but that wasn't the question was it now? Oh well.

Now that I've thought more about it, I've had fond memories with apples. I make delicious apple pies, if I do say so myself, and pretty good apple cobbler. And don't forget the pickin' parties! When we were children we had a few years of good old apple picking in upstate New York. Sometimes it would be a troop of us, caravanning (literally, 'cause everyone owned one) through the winding roads of the 87, past the gorgeous fiery foliage of October skies. When we finally hit our destination, all of us kids would come running out of our cars, watching the adults gather and open the trunk doors, pulling out the food. We'd all either sit in the back, or stand around as the air would bite our faces, eating rice and adobo, or Aunty Tess' egg omelet sandwich. Popping open cans of soda, or the big bottles of Sunkist, gulping it down, in the silence of people eating, only the susurrous* wind as it rustled through the blazing leaves. Our own little tailgating party. Sometimes it would be fewer, just my family and Aunty Susie's. But we'd end the day with a big basket of apples, mostly macintosh (and though I own one, it's my least favorite of the apples). It would be on mom's shoulders to eat them, though I did nibble on a few. Later years, (now) the chill in the autumn air reminds me of our weekend trips up, past farms with their cows grazing the field, their foggy breaths coming out in puffs, to go apple picking.

I've never gone orange picking.

*Susurrous means: full of whispering sounds

Me.