I went for a walk today, which is a big no-no for me. I've been told that I have to stay off my feet because of a hole in the sole of my bad foot. I didn't walk for long. I can only do a block, anyway. But that block is one I've walked around my entire life, starting when I was a little kid with Mom.
We used to go for walks all the time. I don't think I was even in school yet, I was that young. We'd head out from where we lived at the time, which is two blocks from where I am now, and we'd head toward Jefferson Elementary because there was a park there I could play at.
The neighborhood has changed a great deal. Almost none of the houses are the same. But there was a house that had a beautiful garden that we liked to look at all the time. It lasted quite a while until the old couple who lived there moved out. That was maybe 20 years ago. One of the first things the new owner did was wall in the garden. Although I'm pretty sure they also ripped it up, and that there's nothing to look at even without the fence. It's a shame. It was very beautiful.
But there was another spot we used to stop at, and I thought about it today as I walked past. There was an old man who lived in a cottage that had an apple tree in the backyard. If he was there, he'd give me an apple, freshly picked. And I'd eat it on the way to the school park.
Wait, li'l John Bruni eating fruit? Yes. To this day I can tolerate apples. I can also stomach corn (and not just as liquor!). While in the psych ward I learned that I can stand pears, too. So me eating an apple at that age isn't that far afield.
I was attending that elementary school when the old man moved away. I remember asking Mom if the new owner will keep giving me apples. She said she hoped so.
But the new owner didn't. One of the first things he did was uproot the tree. There is a piece of sidewalk now where that tree used to be, a stone path through his backyard. At first I thought, with a child's simplicity, that the new owner just didn't like me, but that guy probably had no idea of all the walks Mom and I took through that neighborhood, and he certainly had no idea of the enjoyment a simple apple could give a small boy like the one I'd once been.
I miss that tree. I even had a taste for apples today. As Vonnegut used to say, "So it goes."
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