“A” Is For “Apple”

Its apple season and I sure miss the wonderful apples my Dad used to grow in our own back yard. When we first moved to Moreland Hills, I was the youngest of 3, just turning 6 years old. Dad acquired a three acre property complete with fruit trees, most of which being apples of various types. We each claimed a tree from that point on was referred to as “Beth’s tree”, etc. I chose the Jonathan, a sweeter, smaller apple hence a smaller tree of which I was capable of climbing. In addition to my tree, the yard was dotted with a couple of Golden Delicious, twin Granny Smiths, a Cortland and a Baldwin.

Dad soon learned how to care for his orchard. He went to the library to research sprays and pesticides appropriate for our region, when and how to prune, what to assess and maintain the trees he grew to take pride in year ‘round.

On those early autumn days while the weather was still warm and the late season sun cast an amber glow across the lawn, the air was crisp with the sweet fragrance from apples that had fallen to the ground. The yellow jackets buzzed around the decaying fruit the deer had left behind. We each grasped a corner of the durable woolen army blanket beneath Dad who was teetering 12 feet above us on the rickety old wooden ladder, poised to catch either him or the individual handpicked apples with care. The well-choreographed event prevented the precious fruit from bruising, requiring the unexpected phenomenon of teamwork. Wheelbarrows full of fresh multi-colored apples were carefully transported to the garage to be sorted, hand polished and measured into bushel baskets for sale.

I remember being escorted into the bank to open our very own individual savings account. Our first deposits totaled a healthy sum, even for the 1960’s. We continued to follow the same tradition every fall, introducing a different activity each subsequent year. The first year we attempted to squeeze our own cider with an antique cider press, only to find our efforts futile. The following year, we drove our harvest further out to the country to Patterson Fruit Farm, a large yet still old fashion operation. They systematically weighed our vehicle by driving our apple heaped car onto the wooden platform scale, weighing again after unloading the baskets and crates then compensating accordingly for the difference. The disappointment for me was discovering that the cider we brought home was in fact not from our apples with which I had developed a personal relationship. Some cider was enjoyed immediately, some stored to become “hard” and some kept and aged for medicinal purposes like sinusitis and digestive ailments. I got why the old adage “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” originated.

The bushels of freshly picked apples were transformed into pie and applesauce my Mom made in quantity, storing in the freezer for us to enjoy all year long. She taught me how to make the best deep-dish pie, 6 at a time! She showed me how to can applesauce she rigorously put through the ricer then slow-cooked, finally adding cinnamon red hot candies to sweeten, lending its characteristic pink colour. Decades later while living in Wisconsin, Mom sent me a huge box of individually wrapped apples from home. She included a blend of different varieties that carefully formulated a balance of both flavor and texture. It came to be known as the most expensive pie ever, considering the cost of postage by weight and volume. In anticipation of their future visit, I was also determined to make it the best!

The years past and weather took its toll on my tree. The sheer weight of ice following an unseasonable storm split my tree in half, too much of a shock for it to survive. Mom had the foresight to collect the last of the few apples that poor little tree would ever produce, and deliver them to me. Mom and Dad continued their apple ritual, earning a reputation in the community as well as with charities. They sold their now highly regarded apples to friends and neighbors, donating all proceeds to support Heifer Project International. Mom would take her pink applesauce from the freezer and package it with her signature chicken soup for friends who were ill or receiving chemotherapy.

When Dad died in 2004, all I could think to say in memoriam was the experience we had through the life of the apple. I offered an apple on the altar in memory of Dad, our teacher; of growth, harvest, teamwork, economics, sustenance, health, sharing and caring, respect for Mother Nature and the spirituality expressed by the symbology of the apple. Thanks Mom & Dad for the lessons learned and the lifetime of inspiration.

When I went off to college….

Shortly after my 18^th birthday, I went off to college for the first time. Like all freshman, I was facing an unknown. I was not only leaving the nest, I was leaving the only lifestyle I had ever known that I had artistically created for myself. My best friend and preferred “big Sister”, once again conjured a spell to remedy that imbalance. You may have heard of “friendship rings” or “friendship bracelets”, well, we are just about everything but cliché…

Without hesitation, she reached up to her ear lobe and unfastened one of her intricately fashioned serpent hoops that were so expressly her! She pressed it into my palm and folded my fingers around it tightly; assuring me of the energy, we now shared. I wore that single earring, sometimes with a different one on my right side, but mostly by itself for my entire first year! I wish I had a nickel for every time someone stopped me to say, “I think you lost an earring”. I always thanked them for their taking notice and replied, “Nope, nothing lost, one is all I need”.

A few years later on my wedding day, there was Beth, my Matron of Honor, wearing the single serpent earring from the pair we shared. She expressed the ultimate display of support, as I was about to embark on a new life. Decades later, I returned the earring so she would once again have the pair. Closer than ever, that jewelry served as a symbolic gesture of love and sharing that was undoubtedly more profound than any level of friendship could compare – just like “magic”!

Mother's Milk

Once upon a time, before the innovation of infant formula, there was only one way to feed your newborn and that was with breast milk; Mother Nature’s invention. My Grandmother told a story of having trouble producing milk with her second child. Her doctor instructed her to go home and ask her husband to make beer in the bathtub. This surprised her, particularly since it was during prohibition. She had heard of bathtub gin but not bathtub beer. Even though she was a “teetotaler”, she followed doctor’s orders without question, succumbing to the home crafted bathtub beer remedy as prescribed. Curious, what could be the rationale behind such professional advice?

Beer has several components that support breastfeeding from the production of milk to the release and let-down. There is a debate over the introduction of alcohol into the bloodstream, which with beer, is minimal once metabolized through the Mother’s system then digested by the baby. Certainly, the consumption of alcohol by a nursing Mother is not promoted, however; the myths are dispelled by LaLeche League International. Home testing kits are available to measure the alcoholic content in breast milk if one subscribes to the “pump and dump” technique.

The grains, barley and hops, in beer have biochemical properties promoting milk production, making non-alcoholic beer an excellent alternative as noted by Berthold Koletzko^* and 1Frauke Lehner

*	Div. Metabolic Diseases and Nutrition, Dr. von Haunersches Kinderspital, University of Munich, Germany

Abstract:

“Traditional wisdom claims that moderate beer consumption may be beneficial for initiation of breastfeeding and enhancement of breastfeeding success. Here we review the question whether or not there-is any scientific basis for this popular belief. There are clear indications that beer can stimulate prolactin secretion which may enhance lactogenesis both in non-lactating humans and in experimental animals. The component in beer responsible for the effect on prolactin secretion is not the alcohol content but apparently a polysaccharide from barley, which explains that the effect on prolactin can also be induced by non-alcoholic beer. No systematic studies are available to evaluate the clinical effects of beer on induction of lactogenesis, and short term studies have shown a reduced breast milk intake by infants after moderate alcohol consumption of their mothers. It is conceivable that relaxing effects of both alcohol and components of hop might also have beneficial effects on lactogenesis is some women, but there is no hard evidence for causal effects. It appears prudent not to generally advocate the regular use of alcoholic drinks during lactation but to rather refer mothers to non-alcoholic beer, even though no adverse effects of an occasional alcoholic drink during lactation have been documented.”

Hops

Hops is a grain present in beer that creates a relaxing and slightly sedative effect. From the genus cannibus, hops is an effective nervine, promoting sleep. Hops has been used medicinally for centuries throughout Europe, to treat these as well as several other conditions.

Barley

Barley is an ancient grain that has algaecide properties and contains all eight essential amino acids. It is high in other nutrients as well. It has been used for many years to increase production of breast milk. This is why beer, with its’ proposed ingredients, is a natural choice for Mother’s who are breastfeeding.

“The Birthplace of Aviation”

July 20, 1969…It was my 7^th Birthday but not like just any other birthday occurring once a year. Today the astronauts would land on the moon, making history. We all huddled around the television for hours, waiting and watching on a black and white monitor of vast nothingness that was our first glimpse of “space”. Being MY birthday, I was irritated at the fact that the attention was diverted from me. The day was dark and the weather was stormy, downright ominous. I couldn’t help but wonder if Mother Nature was upset with people for walking where they shouldn’t have. Somehow, it didn’t seem right. The rains continued to fall and the sky remained dark as night while Dad drove us down the road to the Chagrin River where we watched it rise. We parked on the bridge at the bottom of the street, spanning the feeder creek that ran through our back yard. The water was muddy, moving rocks and boulders with its might and now rushing wildly over the bridge. As it reached the bumper of our 1968 Plymouth Fury III convertible, Dad decided it was time to leave. We returned home with the force of Mother Nature echoing in my ears, scolding us with her powerful wrath only she could conjure. I was convinced “she” was acting as a parent, disapproving of this most unnatural technological event.

I opened my gifts and had cake, Hough bakery cake. I got a tennis racket I still have to this day. Later that evening, when the air cleared enough to catch a fuzzy glow of the moon, I strained my eyes hoping to locate movement of the now heroes who had blasted through time and space. I asked my Dad why we could not see them and he gave me the only answer a Father would give a silly soft 7 year old girl; “Because they’re on the other side” he remarked convincingly.

I have since had a much different perspective of that day in 1969 when the astronauts of Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Every 7 years became a significant birthday to me. For my 14^th, I was old enough to spend the day at Geauga Lake Amusement Park with a group of my closest friends. At age 21, I was a newlywed living in Dayton, OH, home of the Wright Brothers, and celebrated my birthday dinner at the top of a tower hanging in the night sky overlooking the lights illuminating the city. In the next room, Wright Patterson Air Force Base was honoring the first girl to walk with muscle stimulated assistance, pioneering a method of overcoming paralysis. At age 28, we relocated to the Outer Banks, NC and lived down the street, just beyond the Wright Brother’s Memorial. “First in Flight” read the license plates. I anxiously took the airborne tour in a single prop plane above the same dune, nearly 100 years later, from the same perspective. I was awarded a certificate in honor of sharing that historic event. In 1997, the summer my Mother died, she had marked in her calendar on my birthday, “Beth walks on the moon”. That July 20^th, I found myself in the Science and Technology Museum at the Smithsonian. When I hit the Mall, I immediately made a beeline to see the very space capsule that had become a symbol of pride, adventure and our future. A little more than a year later in early November, I landed on the same spot but this time, behind a velvet rope with a small gathering of people, glued to a monitor where we talked with Astronaut John Glenn from space, as he took his tour once again of the moon (coincidentally he was 77!). They presented a moon rock we lined up to view and touch in person. It was a completely spontaneous trip and event that was an absolute thrill and honor. Now its 40 years later and once again, its my Birthday, my 47^th Birthday, and the lunar landing has become personal. I plan to commemorate the day much the same way America and the world did 40 years ago. I will celebrate with family and eat cake, while looking forward to my next “every 7^th birthday” in a couple of years when I turn 49. Who knows what surprises await-maybe that will be the year I finally travel space. Happy Birthday to all the aptly named “Moon Children”…Happy Birthday John Glenn!