Johnny Appleseed and Other Tall Tales
(Johnny Appleseed Day March 1)
I was always fascinated by the story of Johnny Appleseed as it was taught to me in childhood. I remember watching a film about him in second grade. When I look at his real biography, I can see the film left a lot out about his life. What fascinated me most about him was the idea of him traveling all over the country planting apple seeds.
But of course, he didn’t actually do that. He was responsible for a lot of apple trees in some of the northern states like Ohio. My forebears may have eaten his apples in those areas, I’ll never know for sure. But I started a rumor about him as a kid. I still hear it repeated back to me from time to time.
When I was 13 years old my dad bought a 40-acre property on the edge of Independence, Missouri. Much of it was an apple orchard, about 25 acres. It had at one time been operated as a business. There were several other orchards nearby and they all had one thing in common. They were very old. The graveyard on our property actually went back to the late 1700s before Missouri became a state.
Our house was not the original house on the property, but it was built on the same sight at the top of a hill. There was also a beautiful, old, weathered barn next to the pond we kept stocked with fish. Bass, sunfish, catfish, and of course snapping turtles. We didn’t stock the turtles, they came with the property. The barn was a treasure trove of old objects and still held an antique apple press for making cider. By the way, this is part of what Johnny was famous for, providing people with the means to produce hard cider.
The oddest part about the orchard was that it had about 50 different kinds of apples as well as a couple of peach and plum trees. I always thought it was odd there were so many and it was because of this that I started the rumor I mentioned. I told my friends who visited the orchard that there was talk that it had been planted by John himself. Not a single person ever questioned me about it and the only talk about it before then was what I was saying, not general public discussion.
We never sold the apples, but we picked for ourselves and allowed people to come in and pick them for free. Do you have any idea how many different ways you can prepare apples? Well, I can tell you, I learned. My stepmom taught me to make, apple sauce, apple butter, apple crisp, apple pie, apple strudel, apple cake, apple pancakes, cinnamon apples, and the list goes on.
One of the things I mentioned before, came with the old barn. It was the apple press. The press was at least one hundred years old and likely older. Our handyman got it in working order and I can promise you the fresh cider was the best thing I ever drank. You could taste the vitality in the juice. I wanted to breathe it. It was nothing like what comes in a glass jar at the supermarket. It was fresh, unfiltered, and unpasteurized. I can still remember it clearly. I’ve never tasted anything like it since. Sadly, during my senior year in high school, some kids were messing around in the barn and set it on fire. It burned to the ground along with that old press. We still have a painting of the barn, painted by my cousin Judith.
There were so many different kinds of apples in the orchard, the rumor I started was never questioned. To this day, I have people say things to me like, “Did you know your orchard was planted by Johnny Appleseed?” “I’ve heard that” I chuckle. The orchard still stands.