Cider and Doughnuts -- It's Autumn In Michigan

(Photo courtesy of www.michiganapples.com)

It’s getting to be that time in Michigan.  The leaves on the trees are changing colors and it’s cool enough to turn off the central air and open the windows and let Mother Nature keep you cool with her cool summer breeze.  After a summer what seemed like non-stop ninety to ninety-five degree heat and humidity – these cool temperatures are a welcome relief and something of a reward from having to endure all that we had to this the summer. 

The cool temperatures aren’t the only reward that us Michigan folks get to enjoy right around this time every year and just thinking about it is enough to put a smile on your face.  What am I talking about?  It’s apple harvest time and there’s nothing like popping the wife and kids into the family sedan and going to an apple orchard for a gallon of freshly squeezed apply cider and a dozen or so of those apple cinnamon doughnuts with the sprinkled sugar that are greasy as all get out – but worth every delicious bite of them that you take.

The big box stores – Meijer, Wal-Mart and Kroger – try to capitalize on this time of year by offering apple cider and apple doughnuts from their bakery – but it’s just not the same.  For one thing – the apple cider that they usually offer has been pasteurized and distilled enough that by the time that they put it in the plastic gallon – you’d better off just going down their frozen food aisle and grabbing a can of frozen concentrated apple juice.  If you want really true apple cider – you have got to go to an apple orchard – there are no cutting corners here. And the apple cider doughnuts at the big box stores are same league as the jelly filled pastries that they masquerade as paczkis right before Fat Tuesday --- they’re about as close as Kool-Aid is to Coca-Cola…it might be tasty, but it’s not the real thing.

I’m a little choosy when it comes to apple orchards, too.  There are about six or so apple orchards in the area where I now live in Michigan and they are as varied as a Wal-Mart store is to some Mom and Pop grocery store or as Cedar Point is to a traveling amusement company.  When it comes to orchards – I prefer the orchard that is close to a Mom and Pop/fruit stand – farmer’s market kind of operation.  All you need is an area where there’s delicious apple cider that they squeeze and keep cold in a big cooler and they have got to have those apple cider doughnuts – fried before your eyes and served hot with a tall Styrofoam cup filled with cider.  If all the orchard has is just apples, apple cider and doughnuts – I’m there – looking for seconds and thirds.

There’s one apple orchard in this area that tries too damn hard.  They have classed the joint up to become a tourist destination for people visiting the area and when you class something up – you can expect to pay big ticket prices, too.  I go to an apple orchard for apple cider and donuts – I don’t go there for little knick-knacks and the kind of candy and trinkets that you can find a Cracker Barrel.  Give me cider, damn it! 

When my Mother was alive – I took her to this “fancy” apple orchard thinking that she might enjoy it, boy was I wrong.  When she came face-to-face with a caramel apple that was priced at nearly two bucks (and this was something like ten years ago), my Mom said, “I wouldn’t pay two dollars and I won’t let you pay two dollars for a god-damn caramel apple,” I knew then and there that the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree between my Mother and me when it comes to how we choose our apple orchards. 

Most of my life I have lived in an urban area and I never thought that I would ever find myself living, as well as enjoying, life in a rural setting and it was about six or seven years ago that I knew that I have finally adjusted to living in a rural area – and it took an apple orchard in the area to make me realize that I had made the change.  An out of town friend of mine was visiting his sister in the area and I had him follow me to one of the apple orchards in the area.  After enjoying some cider and doughnuts, he needed directions on how to get back to Detroit and I surprised myself that I actually knew how he could hook up to M-25 and the freeway back home – because I had only been to this orchard once or twice myself – and I’m usually not that great with directions.  But, when I could tell him how to get back to Detroit from this orchard – I realized that I was finally comfortable with my new rural lifestyle. 

Well, I should be going and don’t be surprised if you see me enjoying a nice tall glass of apple cider over the next few weekends….because it’s that time of year in Michigan....let’s enjoy it while we can.

Term Street and The Memories Of The First Place I Called Home

This is the place – 3502 N. Term Street, Flint, Michigan. This is the house that I lived in from the day that I was born until my parents got a divorce when I was seven or eight years old. It wasn’t a fancy house by any stretch of the imagination, but it was home and I still think about this place some fifty years later. Almost every time that I visit Flint, I find some excuse to just drive by the house and check it out from afar – and somewhere in the back of my mind – I hope one of my old neighbors are out in the yard so I can stop by and see if they remember me (but the odds are that my old neighbors have either moved or are dead – so that chance meeting is never going to happen).

It wasn’t that long ago that there was a “For Sale” sign in front of this house. My girlfriend told me that I should call the realtors and tell them I was interested in buying the place and could I get a tour. I was tempted to do it, but knew deep down inside that I couldn’t pull off the “phony interested buyer” ruse and, if I was honest with myself, I knew that seeing the inside of my old house couldn’t live up to the memories that I had of the place. What’s interesting about this house is how long that it has stayed the way that I remembered. It’s only within the last seven years or so that the new owners replaced the original front door on the house and they removed the black and white aluminum awnings on the front windows – other than that – the outside of this house looks the same as it did fifty years ago.

One of the nice things about this house on Term Street was that it had a great backyard with lots of space to run around and be a kid. I can’t tell you how many “blanket tents” were strung on my Mom’s clothes lines and how many pies and jellies were made by my Mom from the fruit on the apple, cherry and pear trees in the backyard.  My Dad also had one of those huge brick barbecues built at the furthest end of our backyard where he’d be the master chef doing the hamburgers, hot dogs and corn on the cob. I think the only time that my Dad ever cooked was on that barbecue – all of the other times – he’d leave the cooking to my Mom (who everyone in the family knows could do no wrong in the kitchen). 

Our neighbors to the south – The Goin family – had something like six or seven kids. I remember the father, Willie, as one gruff son-of-a-bitch – but he created something that attracted kids from all over the neighborhood and they loved him for it  – he built a merry-go-round in his backyard as a companion piece to their swing set. He planted an axle from a car in the ground and bolted two-by-four’s on the wheel hub assembly. Who knows how many miles that wheel hub assembly had on it before it was placed in the ground – but I’m sure all of the kids in the neighborhood must have put a few cross-country miles on it just spinning around. 

The Ebmeyer family lived one house south of the Goin family and if there ever was a family that resembled the Cleaver family from “Leave It To Beaver” – it would have been the Ebmeyers. Bruce and Marion Ebmeyer were definitely Ward and June Cleaver – but they had a daughter and a son – so there goes the resemblance to the Cleaver clan. Mike was the oldest son and he was the one boy that my sister had a crush on and his sister Bonnie, with her long blond hair that she would twirl with one finger, was my friend. One time Bonnie and I were playing on the front porch of our house on Term Street and she did something a lot of kids did – and got in trouble for it, too – she used her play scissors (that could actually cut things) and gave me a haircut. I can remember our Moms getting mad and having to take me to the barbershop to get a crew cut because of Bonnie’s "attempt " giving at giving her friend a haircut.  

The television set plays a big part in a lot of my memories of the house on Term Street. I can see that TV now – it was one of those stand-up light wood black and white television sets with the round dials. The only channels on the dial were 2 through 13 and nobody ever had an answer when you asked them, “Why isn’t there a channel 1?” I can remember sneaking out of my bedroom one night and taking a glance at the TV show that my parents were laughing at. The show that they were watching was comedian Ernie Kovacs' comedy half-hour show and I remember watching Kovacs draw a water faucet on a huge poster board placed on an easel. Once he was finished drawing the faucet – he grabbed a real glass with one hand and with the other hand turned the spigot on the drawing and water flowed out of the faucet and into the glass. I was amazed…my parents thought it was funny. 

I can remember Saturday nights on Term Street as being pretty special. My Mom would pop up a big bowl of popcorn and make some Kool-Aid to drink (sometimes there would be a cold M&S Red Pop) and we would gather around the television and watch “Gunsmoke” and “Have Gun Will Travel” (on Channel 6 out of Lansing) and then switch it to Channel 7 out of Detroit to watch a fifteen minute bowling show called “Make That Spare” that was followed by a forty-five minute boxing show called “The Fight Of The Week”. (The boxing program was sponsored by Gillette and I can still hum the theme song to that show today – it’s ingrained in my brain like the opening to “Wide World of Sports” is to another generation.) Probably one of the reasons why I remember these Saturday nights was because it was one of the few times I can remember my Mom, Dad, sister and me together as a family unit – looking back – there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of those moments. 

There was one summer day on Term Street that I can remember somewhat clearly and wondering why the people on the television set were laughing when events all around me got turned upside down. My Dad brought home a brand new metal burn barrel (with holes poked in all around the sides for the fire to breathe) to replace the old one that we had been burning our papers and garbage in. My sister and her friends saw this new burn barrel and decided that this would be the thing to play it. My sister got inside the barrel and her friends turned it on its side and started rolling her around the lawn in it and in doing so – the holes that had been punched into the barrel was ripping the skin off my sister’s back. Someone rushed into the house and told my Mom what was happening and confusion began as they tried to clean her up enough to take her to the hospital. All I can remember is hearing my sister cry and I couldn't understand why the people in the TV audience of “Truth or Consequences” were laughing while my sister was in such pain – didn’t they know she was hurt? 

When my parents filed for divorce – we had to move out of the house on Term Street, because the house payments were more than my Mom could handle. We had to say to that great backyard where we had all those great family picnics.  We had to say good-bye to the Goin family and all of the fun we had on their merry-go-round.  My sister had to say good-bye to Mike Ebmeyer and I had to say good-bye to Bonnie Ebmeyer.  The hardest part was having to say good-bye to the house that we called home.  As much as I would have loved to see the inside of the old house on Term Street once more – something told me that I shouldn't do it.  It's not easy to recapture a part of your past because reality can't live up to the memories that you have -- especially  the memories of a house that you  once called home.

I Wish I Knew What I Know Now...When I Was Younger

There’s a new television drama/comedy on TNT called “Men of A Certain Age” that looks at three men who are going through a mid-life crisis. The music that they are using to promote the premiere of the show is an old Rod Stewart song called “Oooh La La” that has a refrain in it that says: “I wish I knew what I know now (when I was younger)”…which brings me to this:

Some Things I Wished I Knew What I Know Now (When I Was Younger)

#1) Girls don’t have cooties. There are a lot of thing that girls do have, but I have come to the conclusion that cooties isn’t one of them. I wouldn’t doubt that somewhere on this vast planet that there are scientists in a lab trying to document the “girls have cooties controversy”, but they’re just wasting their time and money in doing so – because once you get to know girls you discover that you let the fear of cooties get in your way of getting to know them. Trust me -- girls are ok.

2) Sooner or late – we all become our parents. While attending Northern High School in Flint, Michigan some forty-one years ago, I was a walking “Hey Look At Me” billboard. If weighing in at some three hundred or so pounds with hair that went down to the middle of my back wasn’t enough to get your attention then maybe the white bib overalls that I tie-dyed four different colors could get you to turn your head. My divorced parents were basically split on “the look” I had in high school….Mom basically accepted me for who I was and didn’t make a big deal out of it – but my Dad with his flat top haircut hated “my hippie looking ways”.

As I have gotten older a lot of things have changed – especially when it comes to my hair. What once flowed down to the middle of my back has now turned gray and is now even shorter in length than what my Dad’s hair was when he died. How in the hell did that happen? Who knows? As I have gotten older, I have found myself saying things out loud that our parents use to tell us. I’m usually taken back by what I have said , because even though it was my voice that spoke the words there was a voice of one of my parents in my head that shoved the words out of my mouth. Most of the time that voice was my Dad and every time “his voice” enters my head it scares the shit out of me. It scares the shit out of me only because it reaffirms that no matter how hard we fight it -- we eventually become our parents.

#3)In looking back…I know that I made a memorable impression on people when I was young and back then I enjoyed making that kind of flamboyant statement – but when I see kids today – Oy Vey! Kid’s hair today is pretty short – compared to when I was a kid – but when they dye it purple, green or some day-glo pink color you have to say….(reverting back to “the we have become our parents” theme)….what the hell! Now add the piercings and the tattoos – the sometime Goth look – and I find myself asking why do they have to look this way….but then I remember the bib overalls and long hair that I wore and I really don’t have a right to judge them. In the not too distant future, the kids of today will have their “ah ha” moment and when they come to that intersection where youthful expression takes a backseat to the realization that you’re an adult and you have to act like one. (I just wonder how they’re going to hide the tattoos and piercings.)

#4) When you’re young…If you read the newspaper – it was to find out what time “Star Wars” was playing at the local movie theater or to check out the box score of your favorite baseball team – you never read the newspaper for the news. Duh! Then slowly but surely, you're not checking the times at the movie theaters anymore and you start to become interested in some of the news stories and articles in the paper; and then before you know it the first thing that you go to when you grab the daily newspaper are the obits. If we just went to the obits and read them that would be find, but then we take it another step further by reading them aloud and then asking our friends or significant others, “Did you see who died today?”. Then you have long discussions about the deceased person. Then you attend the person’s funeral, because believe it or not, funerals have become a social event. You check out all of the people and wonder aloud why this person or that person didn’t attend the funeral. All I got to say is if I would had known when I was younger that death plays a big part in your life when you get older, I would have invested a little money in a better suit.

5) Enjoy it while you can. When you’re young, you can do anything. You’re indestructible and nothing’s going to harm you. When you’re young, you can get shit-faced drunk and laugh off the hangover the next day. When you’re young – you don’t think twice about eating this or doing that – you just did it. It’s only when you get older that you have to deal with some medical professional in a white coat telling you, “You can have pizza, but only in moderation – have a piece, not the whole pie.” Or be asked" “Is there diabetes in your family?” Or be told: “I think that it’s could be tumor – I’ll set up some tests.” Or you have to deal with the ball buster of ball busters: “I got the results back from the lab and I’m going to set up an appointment for you with Dr. So and So because I think you might have.....”

It's like the song says...I wish that I knew what I know now…when I was younger. Ooooh La La!

Memories of November 22, 1963

November 22, 1963.

It's one of those days in history that you knew exactly what you were doing when you heard the news. On that date in history, I was a nine year old boy just starring out the window of Mrs. McLaughlin's third grade class room at Lewis Elementary School on the east side of Flint, Michigan. Looking out the window it didn't look like anything was different that what I saw every other day that I looked out the window, but something was different and everyone in the class knew that something was wrong when Mrs. McLaughlin didn't crack open the Bible and read from it like she did every day of the week. (You got to remember that this was 1963 and this was long before teachers were restricted from reading the Bible to their students in a public school classroom.)

Somebody from the office talked to Mrs. McLaughlin at the classroom door and instead of her reading the Bible to us she just sat quietly behind her desk in front of the classroom. It wasn't until around 2:30 or so that Mrs. McLaughlin announced to the classroom that President Kennedy had been shot and we were going to be dismissed from school early. None of us kids in that third grade classroom really understood the implications of what had happened in Dallas, Texas that afternoon. The President had been shot and kids don't connect being shot with dying -- that's something we never really had to deal with before.

I lived about five blocks away from school and I thought that I'd just go home and sit in front of the TV set and watch cartoons just like I did most every day -- little did my child size mind realize that the news departments of all of the network TV stations would be doing wall-to-wall non-stop coverage of the events in Dallas and there would be no cartoons. My Mom (who had just gotten a divorce from my father just months before) was working at a laundromat some five or six blocks away from our home and wouldn't be home until 7:30 or so -- which normally would not have bothered me -- but watching all of this coverage on the TV about the assassination was starting to scare me. I was so scared I couldn't even get off the couch and I feared what might be waiting for me beyond the furnace grate on the floor in the corner of this reverse L-shape living room/dining room of the house the lived in.

When you're a nine old kid -- seeing your President get shot on television just didn't make any sense and your small mind can't comprehend why adults were feeling like they did -- but you knew that something serious had just happened.

And just like everyone can remember what they were doing on November 22, 1963 -- they can remember just where they were when they turned on their TV set and watched Jack Ruby kill President Kennedy's alleged killer Lee Harvey Oswald. When Ruby killed Oswald, my Mother and I were visiting our neighbor two houses from us. Our neighbor was a deeply religious woman with four kids (one of those kids was a retarded adult who was pretty much sheltered from the public) and for some strange reason -- I walked into their living room and was glued to their black and white television -- the same television that I had seen Arthur Godfrey on one night now showing Jack Ruby pulling out the gun and killing Oswald.

"Oh my God!" was being murmured nonstop by all of the adults in the house as they watched the events unfolding on television.

Those are some of the memories that I have of November 22, 1963 and usually I relive those moments every year when November 22 rolls around -- but for some reason this year November 22 came and went just like any other day. I don't know why -- but I kind of feel bad that I forgot to remember a day in a history that the world will never forget.