Interesting Stuff About…

Interesting Stuff About Halloween

The word “halloween” comes from a Old Irish term that meant “summer’s end.” In the 1500s, people began talking about All Hallows Eve, which was the night before All Hallows Day. The Catholic Church eventually called All Hallows Day “All Saints Day,” a day when we celebrate all the saints who have gone to heaven.

In the Middle Ages, poor people would go door-to-door asking for food in exchange for prayers for the dead. Far cry from greedy kids snubbing trial size Snickers in favor of the 260-calorie full size option. Today, we honor the saints who have gone to heaven by asking our neighbors for candy.

Choose your candy carefully…don’t be caught giving out Necco Wafers that taste like chalk dust, chocolate coins that tastelike wax coins, anything in the fruit family (including raisins) or the worst ever Halloween treat…a toothbrush. And for God’s sake, please don’t give away that candy in the orange and black wrappers that doesn’t seem to have a name.

For a few years, everyone was concerned that evil people were putting razor blades in the candy, though that story is more urban legend than fact. This story was probably invented by the same person who told us about waking up in the bathtub to find a stolen kidney.

Dressing in costumes didn’t become popular in the United States until the early 20th century, but today, we love to dress up for halloween.

When my wife was a little girl, she attended a very conservative church and was only allowed to dress as Biblical characters. The problem was there aren’t many female heroes in the Bible. You’ve got Mary, though I’m not sure dressing as an unwed, pregnant teenager would be the smartest move at the Independent Baptist Church. And it’s not likely that any of the girls are going to dress as Jezebel, though she’s technically a Bible character.

In 1993, Barney and Aladdin were popular with the kids. In 1985, some kids dressed like Ronald Reagan or Richard Nixon. Star Wars characters have been uber-popular twice, when the original movies (the good ones) were introduced, and again when the new ones (the bad ones) hit the big screen. It’s always safe for kids to dress like a pirate or a princess, but be sure to take their candy to the local emergency roomy o have it x-rayed for hidden razor blades.

Interesting Stuff About Apples

I’m not talking about that apple. I’m talking about the edible ones.

The history of the apple is as old as the Garden of Eden. But the BIble never says the fruit Adam and Eve ate was an apple. For all we know, Adam and Eve had a bite of a banana, or a kumquat. Maybe the fruit hanging from the tree of knowledge of good and evil was a pear. Given the the fact that the Middle East is located in the Middle East, it’s far more likely that the forbidden fruit was a pomegranate or an olive. Still, all the painters paint an apple, so an apple it must be.

Right off the bat, things aren’t looking good for the apple. On top of the negative impression created from serpent association, wild apples were terribly sour. Today, you can enjoy domesticated Honey Crisp, Gala or Red Delicious apples. The Pink Lady apple is a cross between the Lady Williams and the Golden Delicious apple, and is the best selling apple in Europe. There are 7,500 types of apples, some are best for cooking and others are best for eating. I wonder which apples work best for bobbing? China produces most of the worlds apples, as well as most of the world’s everything else.

The reputation of apples remained sour until Isaac Newton came along in 1642. As the story goes, he was sitting under an apple tree when one of the little red devils fell on his head. A short while later, he taught the world about gravity. I’ve always been intrigued about Newton’s Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says that things naturally go from a state of order to disorder, which is continually proven by the introduction of my three children into a clean room. Isaac Newton has nothing to do with fig newtons, despite all the fruit related stories. Fig Newtons were named for the town of Newton, Massachusetts.

There are a lot of stories and legends about the apple. According to Vegparadise.com, people in England used to hang apples from strings over the hearth. When the apples were fully roasted, they fell into a bowl of spiced wine. This is perhaps the precursor to the Apple Pie, which is apparently very American.

New York is sometimes called The Big Apple, a nickname given by a sportswriter in the 1920s. Ironically, the first time the phrase “The big apple” was used in reference to a city, that city was Los Angeles. New York has been one-upping Los Angeles ever since. Of course, the reason you know New York is the Big apple is mostly do to advertising and the 1970s I Heart NY campaign. Advertising is also the reason you buy knives that can cut through tin cans by calling a 1-800 number at 2am.

There was a guy named Johnny Appleseed who lived in the 1700s. He traveled around for about 50 years, planning apple seeds and dreaming of a land where nobody would go hungry. Who knew that Utopia was a world with endless apples?

If something or someone is important to you, they might be the apple of your eye. Nobody really knows why these people considered apples more important than everything else. Shakespeare used the phrase and so does the Bible.

Sometime during the 19th century, someone said, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Maybe that’s because apples are high in potassium, folic acid or Vitamin C. Clearly, apples are better for you than fig newtons.

So there you have it…interesting stuff about apples.