An apple a day

For many years now, ever since I was in high school, I have eaten an apple a day, usually for lunch, as far as has been possible. Of course, there have been days when apples have not been available, or when there has been other food that grabs my fancy, but the apple tended to feature in some form, at least in thought if not in actually deed. So today, when I took my apple out of my lunch bag, I thought about the times gone by, when an apple was all it took to make a lot of people very happy. Apart from me, that is.

Remember the lady called Eve? She was a bit of a prude…and then she saw an apple. Big, red, rosy and luscious, it called her, lured her, tempted her, pulled her into the circle of sin. And she bit. Literally. That one bite made her want more. And one major part of the ‘more’ was a partner in crime. If it had been anyone else at any other point in time, they may have given up, because the only other person there was in the area – and the world, as it was then, at least as far as Eve knew – was a chap called Adam. The problem was that up to the point in time that we speak of, Eve ‘knew’ Adam only as a buddy, a brother, a companion. But after that little bite of the apple, she wanted to know a lot more. And, once he bit, as was inevitable, Adam changed in status. And Eve found soon after that, as the preachers tell it, that she ‘knew’ Adam in a whole different way. This little bite of healthy fruit led to a lot of problems, from persecution and exile of what may have been the first ever political refugees to the population explosion we are all still trying to deal with today.

That apart, it was the apple that started it all. Through my days of growing up and - we hope - present adulthood, I have met very few people called Adam, the most notable being far younger than I was and almost always, for reasons I never questioned - for thus was the habit of childhood - found under a bed, sofa or suchlike piece of furniture. Perhaps that was why I never could question the whole apple story, even though I firmly believe that it was apocryphal for the most part.

But apples and doctors have been linked in folklore, albeit not really in reality. There is an arbitrary relationship between the two, one being part of the flora and the other, fauna. In my life, the twain have never really met…except in the adage. As for my doctor, she doesn't like fruit!