I was recently talking with a friend who’s been going through a rough medical patch. She was back on her feet, but … a little unsteady, slightly out of focus, and lacking her usual Wonder Woman superpowers. So, I set my imagination loose to create this alternate reality for her.

That she would wake up the next morning in the kitchen of the kind of a farmhouse Norman Rockwell might have painted for a Saturday Evening Post magazine cover in the 1940s. In that kitchen would be a grandmotherly soul with frizzy silver hair wearing a frilly apron. Her hands would be wrist deep in a large ceramic bowl filled with pie crust batter, and she would be smiling. Smiling and humming to The Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe being sung by the Andrews Sisters on a nearby radio. In front of her on the table would be a huge bowl of apples, some already sliced, a small bowl of white sugar crystals, an even smaller bowl of brown sugar, a big slab of butter, an egg crate, a tiny bottle of vanilla extract, and a tin of ground cinnamon.

The smells of coffee brewing on the stove, intermingled with those of cinnamon, apples, and vanilla would intoxicate the senses and imbue the room with peace, safety, love, and the kind of silent laughter that one swallows as if it is a happy secret.

My real, true, and steadily healing friend would be sitting at that table across from her imaginary grandmother, holding a sharp paring knife in one hand, a large apple in the other, and peeling it with a positively seraphic expression on her face.

In the world of my fantasy, my friend would stay in that farmhouse with granny for at least two weeks. Every day she would peel more apples and create something new: caramel apple puffs, deep dish apple pie, almond apple tarts, apple dumplings, apple cake, baked apples, apple cobbler, and … Oh, Childhood Delight … taffy apples!

While I was inventing this alternate reality for my friend (where is my damn magic wand when I need it?), I started to muse about autumn. Crisp fresh air, leaves turning orange, yellow, and red, porches decorated with pumpkins, gourds, scarecrows, skeletons, witches, and fat, friendly ghosts. Most of all, though, I thought about apples, because, of course, autumn IS apples.

Now I will segue from the perfect cure for my wounded friend to a cheerful glorification of this pretty, juicy, sweet, tart, and utterly delicious fruit.

Quick. Off the top of your head, how many varieties of apples can you name? I’ll start first: Golden, Macintosh, Red Delicious, Honey Crisp, Fuji, Cortland, Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Gala, and…well. That’s it.

Apples. Apples. Apples. They seem to be and always to have been … everywhere.

Beginning with the biblical story of creation: Adam. Eve. Snake. Apple. First bite. Oops! Poor Eve. How vilified she was for her curiosity. As to the apple? Well, back then, it wasn’t just an apple. It was “the forbidden fruit.”

But 4,000 to 10,000 years ago, before (or after) the apple became forbidden, it had a non-biblical origin in the land now called Kazakhstan. From Central Asia, it was transported via the Silk Road to Persia and the Mediterranean. And thenceforth, courtesy of the Romans, to Europe, America, and the rest of the world. Until … hello, local grocery store … that’s where they landed up!

In Greek and Roman mythology, apples were symbols of love and beauty. My father used to tell me a fairytale about three brothers presenting three gifts to a princess. All three – a distance-defying telescope; a flying carpet, and a healing apple – were magical, but after the princess became sick, it was only by eating the apple that her life was saved. So, obviously, it was to that brother she gave her hand in marriage.

However, that’s just a glimpse into the wonderful real and / or mythological World of Apples.

In grammar school, we learned that an apple falling on (or in the vicinity of) Isaac Newton’s head led to his discovery of gravity. We also learned that in defiance of a tyrannical government, William Tell shot an arrow off his son’s head. But don’t worry. Both Tell and his son survived the ordeal.

That apple … not so much.

What other facts about apples can I retrieve from childhood memories? That … “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” And that the best way to put a smile on a teacher’s face is to put a bright, red apple on her desk.

Let us not forget how apples have populated popular music. The Andrews Sisters sang “Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me.” Rober Miller serenaded us with “God didn’t make the little Green Apples.” And Jo Stafford made us smile to “I’ll be with you in apple blossom time.”

A bit more about this delicious and now ubiquitous fruit.

 There are over 7,500 varieties of apple grown all over the world.

 The apple most in demand in the United States is Red Delicious, which is my favorite apple, too. Also, it’s least expensive.

 Granny Smith, which is tart and used mostly in cooking, was discovered in the 1860s by Maria Ann Smith in Australia. I wonder whose granny she was?

 Apple bobbing is a stupid and fun game played by children at Halloween. I’ve tried it many times, always end of sopping wet, and never once was I able to catch an apple in my teeth.

 Throughout the months of September and October, there are literally hundreds (I’m betting thousands) of apple festivals celebrated nationwide. Most have exhibits showing how apples are pressed in order to make cider.

 Speaking of which, at Christmas, one beloved libation is hot mulled cider. The delicious ingredients include: apple cider, oranges, cloves, cinnamon sticks, allspice berries, ground nutmeg, cardamon pods, brown sugar, and orange slices. Yum.

Last of the apples on my list, and the one I’m least familiar with (I’m an HP girl myself) is the Macintosh Apple computer. Apparently, the Apple Computer Company got its name because its founder, Steve Jobs, liked apples. And Macintosh got ITS name because the MacIntosh apple was the favorite variety of one of the members on its development team.

All of which brings me back to my slightly wounded friend, whom I have relocated to the imaginary kitchen of a farmhouse where she is baking apple pies, apple tarts, and apple cakes with her (also imaginary) grandmother. Perhaps, while she stirs softened butter into the flour, she silently hums the lyrics to Stevie Wonder’s song: “You are the sunshine of my life • That's why I'll always be around ▪ You are the apple of my eye • Forever you'll stay in my heart.”

There … in the comfort and safety of that rural domicile … far away from computers, iPhones, and other intrusive digital and electronic devices, she can revel in a sanctuary of peace, quiet, and apples, recover her strength, and in no time at all, become Wonder Woman again.

Copyright © Shelly Reuben, 2026. Shelly Reuben’s books have been nominated for Edgar, Prometheus, and Falcon awards. For more about her writing, visit www.shellyreuben.com