31 Days of October: Day 17... Memories of Autumns Past

Fifer's Fruit Farm. I remember a long driveway, lined with fruit trees and a huge white building where I'd go with my Mom to buy apples. Lots of apples. She made the best apple butter, apple pie and apple dumplings I've ever had! I'm sure the local apples helped make these things taste so yummy but I'm sure that she was just good at what she did! I don't ever recall her saying that she loved to cook and she didn't really enjoy eating so I am inclined to believe that she really, really cared about whether or not the people she served liked what she made.

Then there was my Dad. He liked to eat. He especially liked to eat my Mom's cooking. He bragged on her cooking all the time but in later years he would fuss that it didn't taste like it used to. I don't know if the quality of the ingredients was lower, if Mom was doing something differently, his taste buds were somehow altered or if his memory exaggerated what he formerly experienced. Who knows? But when he'd say "I'd really like an apple pie", Mom would bake one.

Back to Fifer's... I had forgotten all about Fifer's until a cousin of mine posted pictures on facebook of a trip their family took there. So one day last week when we were out running errands, my husband and I decided to go waaaaaay out of the way to visit Fifer's. Long driveway lined with fruit trees? Check! Huge white building? Check! Apples? Check!

We bought some apples, apple cider doughnuts and spiced cashews. Yu-ummmm-my! Did they have all that "other" stuff when I was a kid? I don't think so but it is certainly a place I'd like to make some memories with my grandchildren.

Memory... It is an awfully tricky thing. How accurate is it? Probably not as much as we would like it to be. It is altered by time through filters of pain, joy, circumstance and perception. So how do we know what is real and what is distorted? That is a question too big for me to answer on my own so I go to the source of my faith which says...

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." Philippians 4:8

For me, this takes a lot of effort. It doesn't happen as easily for me as it seems to happen for some people so it is something I have to choose to do. It may not change the memories from times long past but it will change how my future self remembers today. Pursuing thoughts of the whatevers in everyday living!