Apples For Life Howard Olivier

Howard Olivier

My first apple memories, age seven, are with my Dad. We’d go shopping at the Alameda Flea Market which was held on Sundays, by AC Transit bus from Berkeley. Each of us pulled a collapsible ‘granny’ shopping cart, and usually returned with them both full to the top. I followed Dad around the drive-in movie parking lot full of rows of goods. We’d shop for musical instruments, valuable books, other treasures, and sometimes a case of apples. If there was a vendor selling apples and room in a cart, Dad would request a sample be cut, with the promise of a full-case purchase in the event it met with his approval. I never saw anyone refuse him this taste, and that in itself was a valuable life lesson not lost on a young, attentive and openly curious Howard. In my 20’s, my first ‘real’ job was as the Cashier/Bookkeeper at the California School of Professional Psychology. Living alone for the first time! On lunch break I’d ride my bike to shop for the week’s produce. Monterey Market was a huge place dedicated purely to produce. They had many varieties of apples. What’s more, for popular varieties, they offered two or even three sizes, so you could get exactly what your heart desired. I never saw my father take a bite out of a whole apple. Dad always cut an apple to eat it, so I did too. I carried a Swiss Army Knife for this purpose and I enjoyed two apples a day, while at work. People at CSPP sometimes teased me a little bit about eating two apples a day. I’d say that there were a couple of doctors I was intent on keeping away. Watching me cut out the core, a coworker commented, “The core is the most nutritious part, blah, blah, blah,” which I ignored, the first time. A few weeks later she repeated her pith advice as I cut another apple. I said, “Here,” reaching forward, “You can have them,” depositing the core sections into her hand. She accepted them in silence. I don’t suppose she ate them. What is certain is that she left me in peace about apple cores after that. In my 30’s we lived in Boise and I had access to wholesale produce. I followed my Dad’s example of buying apples by the case. I’d store as many as possible in the refrigerator, and the remainder in a deep, low kitchen cabinet which stayed cooler than the rest of the kitchen. I reliably ate 2-3 apples a 66

day, and the rest of the family might eat one per day. At Flying Pie, an employee who had watched me prep perhaps 100 apples over the years murmured as I cut one, “You do that amazingly well.” I followed my Dad’s pattern. First the apple is cut in half vertically (stem-to-bud). Next the core is removed from each half, leaving each half with a ‘v’ shaped groove. For extra style points, before the first cut, you glance at the apple, until you see a straight line which transects from blossom to stem. Cut along that axis. The result may not be half the apple, but it will be half the core and according to my Dad’s pattern, that is the more important thing. In my 40’s, I continued to buy apples by the case. One day, I happened to glance into the nearly empty produce cabinet and caught a glimpse of something waaay in the back. I got down on the floor, reached into the farthest corner and with astonishment retrieved a completely dried out apple. It was the size and weight of a ping pong ball, wrinkled as a raisin and pure black. Somehow, this apple didn’t rot when it rolled back to the deepest corner. It was perfect, a small stem, completely dried out. A little sticker still clung to the deeply grooved surface, proudly proclaiming ‘Golden Delicious’. Chance conditions had aligned and allowed it to dry up and wither, completely intact. I was absolutely enthralled by this little miracle. I showed the family and then put it on a kitchen ledge. At times I’d admire it, pick it up and stare with wonder. I treasured it for ten years. Until…

In my 50’s, I realized it wasn’t in the kitchen, anywhere. I searched all the kitchen shelves and then asked my partner if she knew where it was. She replied vaguely, “I don’t know what happened to it.” I resisted the urge to scream. I had never disclosed how much l loved this little marvel; it was a secret even from myself. I mourned silently, said nothing, partly out of shame at the ridiculous circumstance of treasuring a dried-up apple.

The Persian mystic poet Rumi said you cannot know a thing without its opposite. You cannot really know darkness, without light; cold, without heat; separation without love. Only through its absence did I accurately understand the depth of meaning that apple held for me. Yet even with this lesson, I have fallen into the same complacency with far, far greater treasures which are now beyond my reach. Nothing lasts forever, but that apple came damn close! 67

In my 60’s, the prompt in Heidi Kraay’s writing class was ‘Apple’. I searched an interior landscape for connections and memories triggered by ‘Apple’. Several I hadn’t thought of in decades showed up. This one held up its hand the highest and said, “Pick me!”