I've always liked apples, the fruit, not the computers. Perhaps because they hit all the senses at once, sight, smell, touch, flavor - even sound (crunch). I use variants of apple in different languages as usernames and passwords for many things. Once I identified as a quince! In Hebrew, apple is part of the word for many other things. An orange is a golden apple, and a potato an earth apple. The latter is true for French, as well. The reason for using apples in this way is not because I like the fruit, it was simply because the first time I was required to make one I was trying to program an Apple-Mac computer in ThinkC. It quickly did the apple-thing on me. Macs always freeze when I try to use them, and display a timer icon. At the time, it was a little black-and-white clock, but in later years that was replaced by a rainbow-colored bow or hourglass that looked not entirely unlike an apple core.
When I first thought of this idea, I remembered a story about someone planting apple seeds across America. This was confused in my mind with a story about George Washington, or perhaps Lincoln, and an apple or cherry tree. I probably read both stories in an American Grade School reader when I was 6. It came from a used bookstore in Israel, and was one of the few new English books that I owned at the time, which I hadn't brought with me from London, so I kept it fondly even after the corner was chewed off by the dog.
Looking on Wikipedia, I quickly discovered that the story was about Johnny Appleseed, a real historical character and Swedenborgian missionary who traveled around the outposts of Ohio preaching about not harming animals, and planting nurseries with apple seeds supplied by the cider brewers who wanted more apples in America. Johnny Appleseed lived on other people's floors, wore discarded old clothing, and went barefoot in the summer.
It was George Washington who killed a cherry tree with his new hatchet, when he was 6, after being told it was good to use on wood. Then his father, outraged finding the stump, asked who had damaged the tree. Little George confessed to the act, saying he couldn't lie, and his father was so delighted that his son had spoken the truth he was not angry with him for killing the tree.
According to Aristotle, the form of an apple exists within each apple, whereas Plato thought there was a world of universal forms, where ideas exist like 'good' that have no particulars in this world. Aristotle thought there were particulars of everything.
I could have made the story be about Lincoln and an apple tree, and had his father as the itinerant seed planter. Lets try that. Lincoln, Sr. traveled around the West planting apple seeds, and preaching about not harming animals. Finally, he settled in Sinking Spring Farm, in Kentucky, with his young wife. One day his six-year-old son Abraham was given a hatchet, and told it worked well on wood. Trying it out, he accidentally killed one of his father's precious apple trees. Lincoln Sr. was outraged to find the apple tree felled, and asked who had committed this felonous deed. Unable to lie, young Abraham confessed. Although the apple tree was precious to Lincoln Sr. he was happy that his son had told the truth. Lincoln, like his father, avoided killing animals.
The truth, I think, is fleeting, like a trout. Reality is more like an apple. Memories are precious but often false. This meditation was made possible by Wikipedia, the collective efforts of many minds working together to perfect knowledge.
Many years ago, I planted a seed in Wikipedia. I planted the proverb "He who eats alone, dies alone," under Jewish proverbs, because my father used to say that. Curiously, I found out from a friend whom I lunched with that it was actually an Italian proverb. I could not find a biblical or other Hebrew source for the saying, so I surmised that its popularity in Israel could have stemmed from the stories of Holocaust refugees who had spent months or years wandering the shores of Italy before finally gaining passage to Israel. I did not change my entry in Wikipedia, but after a while I found the expression listed under Italian proverbs and removed from Hebrew ones. Interestingly, I now see that it has been reinstated in Wikiquote as a Jewish proverb as well as an Italian one.
The proverb has a number of possible endings. He who eats alone, dies alone. He who eats with others, dies of starvation. He who eats alone, chokes alone. Hey - this one is in Arabic and may account for both Hebrew and Italian interpretations. Spanish preservers 'chokes'. I think I caught a glimpse of the trout.
Quite peripatetic. I like the planting project.
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