Johnny Appleseed Day

Ths past weekend I peeled apples with Dena for a homemade squash soup. The soup was not my favorite soup, or Josh's, so thankfully I won't have to peel any more apples soon. 

But the apples reminded my of one of my favorite things when I was young.  I used to love getting up on Saturday morning to watch cartoons.  My favorites were the Roadrunner and Bugs Bunny. I have good memories of waking up early, pouring a bowl of cereal, getting a glass of milk, and watching Saturday morning cartoons with my dad.  Cartoons were more special then.  We only had three T.V. stations and the cartoons were only on Saturday mornings.  Nowadays, you can see cartoons 24/7 and I think that takes away some of the anticipation and fun of watching cartoons that I experienced as a child. 

In addition to the cartoons, there were what I would call "fillers" that would be shown between the "actual" cartoon shows.  The networks would play these "fillers" once a month or so.  "Conjunction junction what's your function?" is one of those regular"filler" cartoons that still sticks in my head.  "Hooking up words and phrases and clauses"... Sorry, I digressed. But my favorite regular "filler" cartoon was Johnny Appleseed.  The guy was so cool to me for some odd reason.  He wore a metal pan on his head, was a scrawny, little guy, and he was a pioneer. And he loved the woods. One of the things I liked about Johnny Appleseed was that he was happy all of the time.  When the show opened, he would climb an apple tree and sing a little song while picking apples.  The song started with Johnny singing, "The Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord, for giving me the things I need, the sun and rain, and an appleseed, Yes, He's been good to me". I am laughing just writing this little ditty.  Can you imagine that being on a Saturday morning cartoon in 2011?

Unlike many legends, Johnny Appleseed was a real man.  His name was John Chapman.  He was born in 1774 and in 1792, at the age of 18, Johnny took his 11-year old half brother and sister and headed west.  Tradition holds that Johnny's father lost his farm in the American Revolution, so Johnny, hearing of fertile soil in the western United States from passing pioneers, decided to try and make a life for himself and his siblings by leaving home and heading to the new frontier.  In 1800, Chapman settled for a while in Ohio, which was considered "the West" at the time.  His father rejoined him in 1805 with his second family.  Johnny's younger brother rejoined his father, his sister married, and Johnny decided it was time to move on and, from that time until his death, was a traveling planter and preacher.

John Chapman was, in fact, an entreprenuer, a conservationist, and an animal lover.  Instead of the myth that has Johnny roaming the landscape aimlessly, in fact he would travel from area to area and plant nurseries (rather than orchards), built fences around them to protect them from livestock, left the nurseries in the care of a neighbor who sold trees on shares, and returned every year or two to tend the nursery. Many of these nurseries were located in the Mohican area of north-central Ohio. Appleseed's managers were asked to sell trees on credit, if at all possible, but he would accept corn meal, cash or used clothing in barter. Appleseed was not the only person to have this type of business, but in fact is believed to be the first person to start such a business and is the only person that continually traveled from nursery to nursery.

At the time of his death in 1845, John Chapman left a considerable estate of 1200 acres, roughly 15,000 apple trees, to his sister.  He became a living legend, mainly because of his kindness and the charity that he showed to all.  He also became a living legend for the symbolism and importance that he placed on what he considered to be a simple gift from God, the apple.

Today, March 11th, is considered by many to be Johnny Appleseed Day.