Josh First's Blog

Fallen apples

Recently drove to Upstate New York and back, and the country roads everywhere were loaded with apple trees. Especially in New York, and less so in Pennsylvania.

The apple trees were growing alongside the roads because most of the roads were built along the original dirt tracks that connected farms. And farms always had apple trees growing as an important source of food. The farms are largely gone, and the dirt farm lanes have become paved public roads, but the trees remain, and for whatever reason this is a banner season. Lots of production, lots of beautiful delicious apples of every variety and sort.

What intrigued me was not just how many trees held apples that had not been picked by people, but how many trees had apples gathering at their base. Piles of fallen apples at tree after tree, many of which were in front of or right next to homes. The apples were just lying there rotting in the hot summer sun, and no one cared. No one was picking them up to use them.

My family members chuckled at my constant outbursts about these beautiful apple trees and their abandoned apples both on the ground and on the branches. But what do my kids know about having to forage for food? I grew up in a time and a place where no food was ever wasted, discarded, or thrown away. Or worse, ignored. Apple trees were always picked clean by somebody, if not by many people, for home made applesauce and canned sliced apples, or for fresh apple pies.

I have never seen apples go to waste in my life, until now.

The idea that literally tons of free delicious, organic fruit is just sitting there and rotting within arm’s reach of the public way is anathema to me. For miles and miles and miles. It is a literal shame, and it casts a shadow over the American culture that has emerged from ubiquitous junk food and over-abundance.

It is almost as if these miles and miles of fallen, rotting, abandoned apples are symbolic of our rotting, fallen, bloated, pudgy and lazy culture. Everyone has more than they need, and so they just ignore the free healthy and abundant food that Mother Nature and past farmers have bequeathed to us now, if only we get out of our speeding vehicles for five minutes to gather some.

America and its apples, falling. I think the whole world sees it, and our people don’t.