Windfall recall / Pajamas

Sunday afternoon and we’d all pile into the ’87 Buick station wagon with the fake wood paneling along the side. 3 ½ hours later we arrived at an apple orchard near my Aunt Barb's farm off lake Winnibigoshish.

The plywood sign at the orchard entrance said:
Pre-Picked Apples - $4 a bushel.
Pick Your Own - $2 a bushel.
Windfalls - $1 a bushel.

When an apple falls off a tree and lands on the ground they call it a windfall. Kinda like if you’re holding a slice of pizza and you drop it on the floor you call it trash.

So while all the “rich kids” were skipping around with their heads held high, reaching towards the sun, plucking bright, shiny, crisp apples, I was crawling around on my hands and knees, fumbling through cigarette butts and soda cans, looking for anything resembling an edible fruit.

My dad wouldn’t crawl though. He preferred to walk about 30 yards in front of me claiming to be scouting the terrain for “hot spots”. He'd kick at the trees so apples would fall to the ground and then encourage me to “hurry up before the wasps get 'em.”

My mother's chronic back problems spared her from sifting through trash all day as well. She'd spend her afternoon in the apple gift shop, purchasing completely useless apple related shit.

“Apple earrings. That’s great mom. Yes, they are adorable. Very life like. They’ll go great with your apple reading glasses.”

To add insult to injury, in order to ensure that the people gathering windfalls didn’t, God forbid, actually pick a real apple off a tree, one of the orchard employees would tie bright yellow ribbons around the arms of the windfall families.

As if the skinned knees and bee stings weren’t enough. I now had a bright fucking yellow ribbon to remind me, and everyone else at the orchard, that my father gladly traded the dignity of his family to save one fucking dollar on a bushel of apples.