How we all love to pick apples, sink expectant teeth into unsuspecting flesh that spews sweet spray onto one another’s faces the crunch a clarion call - and come they do! How my boy, not yet two, would grab and gnaw his little white teeth across the red surface, sink slowly into the sweetness hiding there to his eye-widening delight; and how I imagine him slinging his own baby boy across his slim back reaching the same long arms for one, then another, testing four teeth against the slippery skin and likely dropping it before he gains traction enough for a true taste. What is it about fall that brings a grown daughter home every year to climb a tree, snap a few selfies and slide more than a few luscious bites of Macintosh, Macoun and Cortland into her waiting mouth? To the other, I mail packages packed with care to preserve a pair of Mac’s and a jar of jam. Already I have stewed and frozen vats of Macinsauce, simmered pints of golden brown apple butter, baked muffins and pie and crisp and crumble, all this New England fare of yore begging for more. How grateful I for the crunch of each fall afresh with plucking and picking up what fell from weight or wind, as I fall into delirium with each delicious bite. swb Photos by Jim Hester, Fall 1990. Both are slides; the second is a phone capture from slide - clumsy technology but a favorite shot.
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