Yellow Apples

With seven or eight apple trees down through the back field and the apples falling everywhere, this time of year on Stevens, it was all about apple casting. The piece of equipment that needed to be located first was the perfect caster, not too long, not to whipy, with just enough stiffness to it. The bushes, near our back baseball diamond, held the prime 'models'. Cut it down your jackknife, strip off all the leaves, and test its 'whipiness '. It had to be perfect, at least to survive the afternoon battles. Next, find the right size apples for your model. Crabapples were the best-- small, fast and HARD. You didn't have to pick sides for this fun; you just started firing at anything that moved. I must admit the little kids and the neighborhood girls often became targets, if they were unlucky enough to be venturing up the path towards our house on 'casting' days. But most of the time is was just us, the guys, firing indiscriminately at each other. Fall afternoons, after school, sped by amid all this fun!