Many years ago, more than 30, there was a little boy who loved apples. On sunny autumn days, he and his mom would each put on a warm, cozy sweatshirt. They would get in the car and take a short drive to their favorite apple orchard.
The sweet fragrance of fresh apples would meet their noses as soon as they walked into the barn. The big red apple barn at the orchard always felt cool inside. On each visit, the little boy and his mom would taste each of the varieties of apples. They already knew which was their favorite apple. But the little boy would watch as his mom carefully cut a slice from each of the apples so they could have a taste. Some were sweet, some were tart, some were soft and some were firm.
The blonde little blue-eyed boy and his mom always chose the same kind of apple. Red and juicy. Crunchy and tart. Firm, not soft. As they wound their way to the place in the barn where they would pay for their small basket of apples, the little boy would stop at the freezer case. He loved the frozen apple cider sticks and he knew his mom did, too. He would stand on the tips of his toes, stretch his arm and try to reach down to pick up two of the frozen sticks of cider. But, he couldn't reach them. So, his mom would scoop him up in her arms and hold him just close enough so that his little hands could grasp the chilly bars of frozen cider.
For most of my dad’s young
life, he lived above and worked at Felcher’s, his parents’ candy store/
neighborhood lunch counter, tucked between P and G's Bar and Grill and
Simpson's Hardware Store on Amsterdam Avenue between 73 and 74th
Streets. Christopher Morely, imagined the man of the future while
watching my dad as a tiny boy play in front of that store and
immortalized him in his novel Kitty Foyle.
So what's the first thing to order in the Florida Keys, after the
mojito and conch fritters? Key lime pie, of course. So we did. We
ordered a slice just about everywhere we ate, and the hands-down best
came not from a fancy waterfront restaurant or anywhere on Duval
Street, but from the Key West Key Lime Pie Co.
The guy to the right of me, wearing a stained #13 Alex Rodriguez jersey, grabbed his glove and screamed “Here it comes! Here it comes!”
Several years ago (about four), I threw a surprise birthday party for the Wild Boar. All I really wanted was for him to be "surprised" and he was. I ordered formal invitations and sent them out with the words, "No Gifts" on the bottom.