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Patricia Finn

Thank You Johnny Appleseed



It's fall and I can't wait to make homemade applesauce. Up North this is the season when we go apple picking. When I was living in Florida, I can safely say that picking apples at the market had the same delicious result as standing on a ladder and tossing them into a basket. I love apples and I love homemade applesauce. Because this is an election year, I have decided to advocate nominating the all-American apple to be our National Fruit. You may find yourself asking, "Do we have a National Fruit?" We sure do. In addition to fruitcake, we have a National Fruit.. The eagle, bald and somewhat frightening, shares national prestige with a chosen fruit. That chosen fruit is none other than (drum roll) …the blueberry.

 What! Don’t get me wrong, I like blueberries. I just think that apples are more deserving of The National Fruit title. I want my national fruit to be crisp. I want it to dangle majestically from a tree, and not be a berry plucked from a humble bush. If we look beyond the superior physical characteristics to the history of apples, they easily trump the lowly blueberry. Superior to mere muffin, or pancake fame, apples have achieved notoriety in the key areas of religion, education and health.

       Consider the apple’s history, going back to the Garden of Eden. What other fruit could have triggered the downfall of man? A banana? A grape? No, only the apple could have tempted Eve to lose it all with one single bite. It was then and there that apples got linked to The Tree of Knowledge and fast forward a few thousand years; we have the ‘Bring the Teacher an Apple’ tradition. Today you can’t bring your teacher an apple because all food products brought to schools have to be commercially prepared, labeled and wrapped but none the less, the apple theme can still be found decorating America’s classrooms.

      If history were not enough, apples come with a medical endorsement: An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away. Away? How far away? Can this be applied to the dentist and the dermatologist? The answer is “Yes.”

 Even the cliché ‘As American as Apple Pie’ should promote apples to the honor of being our National Fruit. Have you ever heard “As American as a blueberry muffin?” No. Never.

      We would be remiss if we didn’t consider the competition. What other fruits could upset the grocery cart and claim the title of National Fruit? Hawaii might nominate the pineapple, but it would be competing with cranberries from Wisconsin and the Florida orange. If we move forward with a Johnny Appleseed logo, I predict that apples will win. A focused campaign targeting Wisconsin, Hawaii and Florida, will enable us to take those states and replace blueberries in the next National Fruit election. “Miss Pat, there is no next National Fruit election. The blueberries have it. They’ve already won.”

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