When Tim and I were kids, we used to engage in all kinds of warfare with many different objects. Among these were pears, food, BB guns, rocks, snowballs, ice balls, dirt clods, firecrackers, cherry bombs, apples, clams, wet and dry underwear and/or clothes, food, cow “chips” (which we called “Moo Patties”), and countless other objects. In fact, Any object that was near us was fair game for a “fight”. One of the best things we had were apple fights using “whip sticks”.  These were used as hand catapults and were very effective. To make these, we took an apple and stabbed it on the end of a stick from a tree or wherever, and whip the stick forward as fast as we could. As a result, the apple would go a long distance traveling at a high rate of speed. When we were hit by such an apple projectile, it really hurt! Sometimes we would have fights with rotten apples and thus had no need of “whip sticks”. When these hit us, they would splatter all over us. After the “battle”, we would smell like we took a swim in a barrel of hard cider.

 

As long as I’m on the subject of hard cider, our father and Art Moon used to make a big barrel of hard cider every year. They would go the Roy Bristol’s in Berlin Heights and buy an empty 55-gallon wooden barrel and take it to Hast’s Cider Mill and get it filled with apple cider. They would then take it to our dank basement and set it on 2 sawhorses. They would add bags of sugar, then put a clear plastic tube through the upper hole at the front of the barrel and down into the cider. They would put the other end into a jar of water. As the cider fermented, it would cause the tube to bubble under the water. When the bubbling ceased, the hard cider was ready. (See drawing below).  Every time I would go down into the basement to turn the wooden spigot, to sneak a drink of hard cider, I would spit it out since it tasted awful! I wondered how anyone could drink anything that tasted that terrible! However, drink it they did!

 

One time we wandered into our neighbor Norm Hills apple orchard. It was apple picking time and we saw a whole crate of freshly picked apples. We grabbed the crate and went back into our field. After eating our fill, we found some sticks and of course had another apple fight. After that, we had a contest as to who could throw an apple the furthest with a “whip stick”. After that, we headed home with full stomachs and with the satisfaction that we had another “typical” day.

 

As an extra added bonus, be sure and take my Apple Quiz. Click on the apple below…