This Southern Journal (pleasant guitar music)
is called Apple Country.
It ran in our November 1989 issue
and was written by Catherine Bulling.
The reason I chose this is because I
have such vivid memories of picking apples
at my grandparents' house in North Carolina,
and you'll understand why.
Even though in the South, when it's apple season,
it doesn't quite get cold enough for hot apple cider
so you're walking around with apple cider slushies,
that is my favorite memory.
So shout out to Barber Orchard
in Waynesville, North Carolina.
Thank you for all you do, and we will keep coming back.
My grandparents knew nothing of paucity.
Their white, two-story house was splendid with children,
and generosity, and extra pantries.
Grandfather, tall like his seven sons,
had an abundance of white hair
and the quiet self-assurance to match.
Although he had bought a farm on the edge of town
to keep the boys out of mischief,
his vistas were considerably wider
because he had traveled the railroad
from Atlanta to Richmond in charge of the U.S. Mail.
Even his leisure drew upon challenge.
I often shared his lap
with the Atlanta Journal Constitution's Sunday crossword
and a large red leather Webster's.
The only thing diminutive in the household
was my grandmother, but she compensated for her stature
with an oversized funny bone,
often overwhelming her with mirth, bringing tears
to her eyes and a hoarse chuckle to her voice.
Her brothers had received the education funds.
She, instead, based her higher education
on a slow cataloging of life experience,
which condensed into a pithy wisdom.
Her philosophy embraced giving and receiving with grace.
To a child growing up in the Low Country,
having a grandfather in high apple country
was a wonderfully fine thing.
In the fall, just before the foliage turned
to match the red clay of the Carolina mountains,
the apples dropped from the trees, tart and full,
and my grandparents scurried
to make the most of those gifts.
The best of these, the smooth, firm, and unblemished fruit,
were relegated to the root cellar, where my grandfather
carefully packed them in barrels, layering them in sand
to keep them from touching one another.
Here they were safe from the snows
and the ice storms to come.
The dry cellar, smelling of musty earth,
already hoarded a cache of onions, carrots, beets,
and potatoes from the garden, provender for winter.
There they hid secrets, like the dried corn
in the wooden crib out back, or the basket
of hickory nuts waiting for Christmas cakes.
Those apples whose flesh had been pierced
or bruised from their fall to the earth had different fates.
One of these was a cider mill,
constructed by Grandfather for the season.
Once the mill was in place, the apples,
fresh from their cold water baths, settled into a wooden tub
and surrendered their juice to the press,
the horse and harness constantly circling,
willing the press down.
Helpers scrambled to catch the cascading liquid,
holding up copper pots to the flow.
This was man's work, however.
So during the milling, my grandmother
conveniently turned her back, knowing some of her boys
would bury a few jugs in the cool autumn ground
to produce a slightly stronger brew.
The leavings from the cider mill went to the livestock.
That way, the whole apple was served.
On the last warm days, my grandmother arranged sliced fruit
on large trays covered with cheesecloth
and put them out to dry in the sun.
The snowy white cloths obscured the grass
and seemed to foreshadow the winter to come.
Once the barrels of apples from the cellar were depleted,
she would resort to the dried ones.
These she meticulously tended, turning and watching them
until just the right amount of moisture
had drawn upward toward the sun.
Inside, the kitchen grew warm, and the spicy aroma
of cinnamon and nutmeg permeated the rest of the house.
Stripped of their peelings and cores,
some of the select fruit simmered in the applesauce.
This sauce would turn the pantry golden,
sharing honors with other mason jars of peaches,
tomatoes, green beans, and watermelon rind pickles.
It would later share breakfast plates
with steaming grits, home-cured ham,
farm eggs, and homemade sausage,
or would fill the thin pies and tarts
at Thanksgiving or Christmastime.
The cores and peelings,
by-products of the applesauce, had yet another use.
They were the ingredients for jelly,
boiled and cooked down to give out the last succulent bit
of flavor rendered from summer's warmth.
Grandmother would pour this cooked mass through layers
of cheesecloth, from which it dripped, slowly steaming.
And then, mustering all the strength
in her frame, she would grasp the cloth
and wring every last drop for the final stage.
After the condensed liquid simmered,
the spoon finally pulled away sticky.
And at that precise moment, she declared the jelly
ready for the sterilized jars and their hot paraffin covers.
The jelly would reappear on her oak sideboard
with Grandfather's honeycomb and thick, sweet sorghum,
small jewels to lather on thick graham biscuits.
The apple country spoke to me of abundance,
and thrift, and some kind of contract with God.
It seemed to me that there had been
a certain prior arrangement
that had stamped the outcome with approval in advance.
That arrangement appeared to be something
like doing your best and enjoying the best in return.
My grandparents' mountains were also symbols to me
of a certain largesse of spirit, as full as the sound
of the rain on their tin roof as I huddled under one
of her home-sewn quilts, or as warm
as the late evening coals in their bedroom fireplaces.
This spirit hovered in their orchards
and accompanied a jug of cider to a neighbor down the road.
The bounty multiplied as it was shared,
making the man somehow equal to the apple.
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