Visiting Grandma and Eating Apples

A couple of weeks ago, I went to visit my Grandma in Westborough, MA. She lives near my aunt. I was only there for a couple of days, but I learned a number of things.

I learned my grandmother grew up without a father because when she was three he gambled away the family home and my great-grandmother took the unusual (for the time) step of divorcing him.

I learned that my grandmother's uncle was a famous music conductor named Bernhard Levitow whose music recording is it still possible to find on the internet.

I learned that my grandmother once got stranded at a bus stop in Virginia when she was 17. Before she was picked up by her uncle (NOT the same one), she picked up a sailor and had the young man buy her her first Coca-Cola.

I learned that back in her time, Grandma went to nursing school (which was distinct from college) and also started to go to college at night, but stopped when she met and married my grandfather. We got to talking about the books she read after we saw the Jane Austen Book Club together.

I learned that my Grandma's favorite cousin when she was younger was a fighter pilot in WWII. He survived the war but came back with tuberculosis and died a year later. He pushed everyone away before the end.

I learned more stuff, but most importantly I learned that when my Mom was a kid, Grandma used to take them from Long Island to New Jersey to pick Macoun apples. I had never heard of Macouns before, but Grandma thought it would be a nice idea to go to an apple orchard during my visit. It was crowded and it rained on us. There was a hedgemaze we didn't go in, a petting zoo, a pumpkin patch and store. They had about a dozen varieties of a amazing apples. One of them was the Magical Macouns! I have never driven even an extra mile for special fruit, but I can understand driving from Long Island to New Jersey for these! I had two a day until I left. My Mom told me over the phone that she was jealous, so I brought her one.