[From the Fall 2023 Showcase of Homes Magazine]
It is apple time in New York. Wow, apple pies, apple sauce, apple turnovers, apple juice and cider and simply - apples. The smells and sounds of autumn brings back very fun memories of my adventures as a young child. I was always full of energy and creative ambition. One specific autumn memory includes a raid that included a large number of kids from the neighborhood I lived in. To this day, my brothers and I call it “The great army tent camp out and apple raid.”
We grew up in your typical baby boomer neighborhood of 4.7 kids per household. I was eight yrs. old, and my brothers were seven and six respectively. We had just moved to the neighborhood and were hoping to make friends with the other kids. My dad who still had ties to his army buddies, went out and bought an army surplus tent. But this wasn’t just any tent, it was huge. It made the tents on the TV show MASH look tiny. We begged our dad for a camp out and “could we invite some of our new friends from the neighborhood?” He said “sure” so we proceeded to invite every little boy in the neighborhood. But there was one requirement: you had to have a bike. One particular evening at about dusk, there was a convoy of little boys on bikes with their sleeping bags and pillows. My parents were a little overwhelmed when about fifteen little boys of various ages ranging from five to eight years old arrived at the Reardon household doorstep. My parents had to ask each little boy for their phone number to speak to their parents to make sure it was okay with them to spend the evening at our home. That evening, we all bunked side by side in the tent and we fit with ease. I was the oldest by two months so my dad said, “you’re in charge, and I don’t want any shenanigans from you kids.” Later, when my dad left, I looked at my army and said, “oh boy are we going to have fun!” A half mile away, was the biggest apple orchard in town. We waited until we knew everyone was asleep. You see, I had a plan.
I told all the boys to take the pillowcases off their pillows and we were going on a raid to get apples. Now, some of the younger ones were very afraid so we said “if you don’t want to go you can stay here and we will be back soon.” We got on our bikes, wrapped our pillowcases around our necks, and headed out for the local orchard. When we got there, we all started quietly picking apples. We had our pillowcases about half full when one of the boys, I think it was Johnny Babbs or Karl Sobie, started yelling that there was a dog and somebody was coming. Pillowcases started to get dropped and I yelled out “run for it, lets get to the bikes!” We urgently took off for home. I held on to my apples because I didn’t want to let them go. We giggled when we got back until we finally fell asleep. The next day, word of the apple raid got out. My mom demanded that my brothers, Danny, Billy, and I return the apples and apologize to the owner of the apple orchard. It was the longest bike ride of our lives. We rode onto his farm and knocked on his door. An “old” man answered the door or at least I thought he was old, but he was probably only around forty-five, but that was “old” to me back then. We told him that we were sorry, and we returned the apples and that we meant no harm. He was not a happy farmer. He told us that this is how he fed his family and that when you took his apples you were taking from his family’s table. His dog came out to greet us also; it was a small dog but seemed big to us at the time. He let us go and said don’t do it again. To the rest of the kids in the neighborhood, we were heroes because they didn’t have to go back and apologize. The story of that raid is still told today when we get together.
Deep-Dish Caramel Apple Pie
