Hey Batter Batter Batter!

An apple a day, so they say…  Even so, I would eat them.  I love them.  Every Labor Day or sometime after that, I drive up past Michies Tavern, past Monticello, through Spring Valley, up the mountain, through the mist, past the vineyard and I pick apples the way Virginians have for probably better than two centuries.  Rain or shine, you’ll find me there on top of that mountain eating sweet winesaps, tart granny smiths, romas, and a few Asian pears.  And I cart my carefully selected bounty home where I can it, dry it freeze it, bake it, sauce it and revel in it.  Yes!  You can play with your food in my kitchen.

But it was not always so.

We had two apple trees in our back yard.  It was our job as young ones to pick the apples, sort them, wash them,  and bring them in to mother in the kitchen.  I imagine she was doing much the same thing I do, but with no pleasure.  It was a job.  She hated it.  I have no idea why.  I only know it was many years later she learned to cook and actually enjoy it.  Her hatred was a cancer that spread to us so much so, that the chore of picking apples was our most dreaded and hated activity.  We met it head on with crying, complaining and reticence until Dad pushed us out into the yard and told us not to return until the bushel baskets were overflowing!

We three picked the lower branches clean in silence.  Only two baskets.  It would take the entire Saturday.  No Superfriends.  No bike riding.  No ball games with our friends.  I got the ladder and climbed one tree.  I tossed a few red ones to Dan.  He easily caught them and dropped them into the basket.  I threw harder.  It wasn’t fair being stuck up here with all this fruit on Saturday!  “Hey”, he shouted up, “take it easy”!  I shook the branch and a few apples fell on him.  I tossed a few to Lin.  He dropped them.  He couldn’t catch.  “Get him a mitt” I called down.  “Naah.  He should practice batting.”  Dan said.  And I started throwing apples down to my brother Lin who swung at every one.  Some were shattered into applesauce.  Others were merely bruised and tossed into the basket.  And many he missed.  Dan retrieved them and put them in the basket.  Pretty soon, I was pitching directly to Dan’s mitt and Lin’s bat, and oh, the evil chore had been turned to a glorious game of apple ball just like that!  Dan climbed the second tree and I came down to take my turn catching.  Two trees were picked clean in half a Saturday with our game and we found our release to freedom!

Mother canned applesauce that year.  I heard her comment to Dad that the fruit was very soft and badly bruised.  He simply told her we would pick earlier next  year.