It’s a ritual of late here on the edge of the world where I work part-time on Springfield farfarfar northeast side. Or if you listen to WMAY as much as I do, you may call it a ritualTHING. Whatever you call it, It has become a part of my life, and I missed it when it wasn’t three days this week. Though in the past 40 years up to September this year, I have eaten probably fewer than a dozen apples, since early September, I have consumed maybe 50. If the new ritual were connected to my experience reciting at the Johnny Appleseed Museum in Urbana, Ohio, I believe I would have adopted it closer to March when I visited and read part of Vachel Lindsay’s fine poem “In Praise of Johnny Appleseed” at the Museum’s rededication. Though I think well of the man, revere him, I feel no loyalty to the man John Chapman a/k/a Appleseed whose legend benefits not a whit from my eating fruit. The ritual of the 10:00 apple began as an easy effort to live healthier. By the time I considered it a ”ritual,” it had become one.
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No surprise, there, really.
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I am eating more fruit these days. Green seedless grapes I purchase more frequently than chunky peanut butter. Almost as frequently I purchase Golden Delicious apples, six or seven almost every visit to the grocer at $1.98 a pound .
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I brought a plate and sharp knife from home in the opening days of the 10:00 ritual, a poor attempt at ceremony, a Welsh-American’s attempt at something as special to me as a high tea in London. Even before I started working at my aviation museum at the airport at 5 am and then coming to the edge of the world to open at 9, I found myself hungry by 10, and the perfect sate to said hunger was and is and evermore shall be my 10 o’clock apple.
It’s not just an apple. It’s an apple with the peeling left on (my Momma did not give birth to a softee) sliced four times around the core; roughly 1/2 , 1/3 and the rest in two more cuts. To make it more of an adventure, I don’t even wash the apple — or if you live in central Illinois, I don’t even pre-wash the apple. Then I slice the chunks into bite-size wafer-thin pieces, ready to munch at my leisure. If I am called away by priority matters — visitors, a phone call, supplier representative — I’m seldom away from my desk long enough for the color to go “brown” with exposure to the air . . . or dusty, from too much exposure to the air.
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I KNOW I could maximize the experience with a Riesling or Sauterne, a Chablis of I’m truly desperate, but this is not an option on the edge of the world. The best I can do is a 2011 Folger’s Instant, young, hearty with coffee overtones and a robust bouquet.
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Until last Monday, the 7th, I didn’t know how much the 10:00 apple meant to me until I opened the low right door on my desk and discovered the empty bag. I had forgotten to buy more over the weekend, and I was in no mood to visit the Shop N Save Tuesday and Wednesday. A rough day on the edge of the world saps the joi’d'vivre out of me like a leech on a ventricle. And I wasn’t desperate to go to the store. It wasn’t like I was out of WINE at home!
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Sooooooooo, today on my way to the Gallery II reception downtown I will stop at Sh’ave and bag me some more apples for the rest of the week. It’s a ritual that brings me a breath of sweetness every morning, a simple, unhurried pleasure. I bet, if you try this for yourself, you will feel the same. ENJOY!
Live long . . . . . . . and proper.
Makes me think about buying some Gala apples when we go to the store this afternoon. However, I wash my store bought fruit…with sudsy hot water, then rinse in cool…I’ve heard it helps neutralize the chemicals that have been sprayed on the fruit.