I'm in the third grade sitting at the mint green cafeteria table at my elementary school, arms folded, staring into an untouched cup of apple cider. The other kids in my class surrounding me are happily slurping away at their freshly pressed cider. They are walking up to Mrs. Moffett, our teacher, asking for seconds. My stomach is churning. The chatter of my classmates, mixed with the sound of paper cups and sipping is just a tic away from sending me running out of the room.
"Andrea, are you not going to drink your cider?"
"No Mam. No thank you."
I can see that Mrs. Moffett is about to gently encourage me to give it a try. I was an incredibly picky eater as a child so under regular circumstances I would have had a had time sampling the goods. And today, well today, there was no chance of me even remotely touching the rim of that cup to my lips. Did nobody see what I just saw out there? I couldn't have been the only one. I heard you all gasp! You know what I know. Stop drinking your cider.
It was a crisp fall morning and my class and I were excited about the thought of a guest speaker. A local farmer, whose name I wish I could remember, was coming to visit us to talk about his apple orchard and do a demonstration on a cider press. In a kids mind, double score. Time out of class and free apple samples. What could go wrong?
As we listened to his demonstration, I was a nerd at that point in my school career so I am sure that I was listening and paying attention. I mean you could have a quiz for God's sakes. Teachers love to be sneaky like that. Oh class, lets watch this movie for the next two afternoons. Surprise! Quiz! Guess you shouldn't have been daydreaming! The farmer discussed the use of the hand press that he still used at his farm.
I can hear his old rusty voice.
"And kids, when I say you need to be careful when using a cider press, I mean it. I made a big mistake when I was a young man and now I look like this."
Farmer held up his hand and plucked off his black glove to reveal his two missing fingers. The pointer and middle finger on his right hand were just little nubs. Looking back on it as an adult it is ridiculous. I mean it is just two fingers, really. I have seen people with no arms no legs change conquer the world. What are two digits in the grand scheme of things? But in my little third grade mind, my third grade world experience it was the worst thing I had ever seen. A collective gasp moved across my class. His fingers! We whispered, we hummed, Mrs. Moffett had to quite us down for the presentation to continue.
Me? I wanted to say point well taken. No apple cider presses for me ever but no. The show went on. While he continued with his demonstration I watched the apples mashing and the juice dripping and I started to piece together in my mind his accident. The crushing, the blood, the fingers themselves mixing into the cider. I had so many questions. Was this the press you lost your finger in? What hospital did you go to? Why on earth would you continue this obviously crazy and dangerous profession of cider production. Jesus, man, look at your fingers!
My husband and I took our children to the apple orchard today to get some apples. And you know what he walked out of the farm store with, a gallon of fresh pressed apple cider. I'm a grown up now so when we got home I gladly sampled the delicious cider. But I would be lying if I didn't say that I had one quick flash of Farmer staring out at me with his two nubs on display.
