Listening to the radio today started my morning. As my
scanning of the programing occurred I focused on one choice. There on that set of audio waves I heard the
story of the McIntosh Red apple. Little did I know this variety came from the
region of Ontario that lies along the St. Lawrence near Montreal. Had I known that I might have sought ought
the fruit’s farm of origin. Last summer the family and I were about 10 miles
from its location. When you turn up to
go to Ottawa coming from the west the road that cuts up to Canada’s center of
power is just a stone’s throw from Williamsburg. Williamsburg is the place from whence the
once most popular of apples came from.
When Sunday morning comes around I listen to odd audio
streams. I don’t want to hear news. There is enough talk of pain and disaster in
any given week. What I want on Sunday
morning is an insight into small things.
What I want on Sunday morning is something that diverts me from my cares
and concerns.
A favorite program, and I have mentioned this before, is the
Vinyl Café on CBC. In this week’s
edition of the program the host was talking about his commission twenty years
earlier to write a book about small town Canada. As is the way it seems with
all things like this his publishers wanted to mirror a book that had been down
about small town USA by a noted and well regarded arm chair travel writer.
Williamsburg had been one of the 8 towns the radio host had
focused on. He made a short trip there
to scout if it met his criteria. Mr. McLean felt that this place was the best
of the lot. Thus as those of us who like
to savor things do he reserved it for last.
Well when he had finished up the writing on the first seven towns the
author had more than enough in the way of pages and words to complete a
manuscript. His publisher being frugal cut
him from any more travel. Williamsburg
was the chapter left unwritten.
Mr. McLean mused about how many chapters get left
unwritten. He focused on the fact that
the Macintosh apple was simply one of many cultivars of the fruit growing in
the area when it became the focus of horticultural development. He mused that
those other trees growing along the river were other unwritten chapters. They probably were fine cultivars, wonderful
in their own right but now lost to us.
Sunday is a good day to muse about unwritten chapters and
roads not taken. Such musing need not be
grand thoughts of what could have been. It can be as simple as a longing to
have returned to a roadside park visited long ago and wondering why you have
never gone back. Last night Francie dug about on the internet looking for a
place in British Columbia that we has visited about a decade ago. It was an abandoned farm along the coast across
from Sooke. It was a place of beautiful
fields and an amazing beach. Having been
there once I always thought I would be going back someday. Hasn’t worked out that way. Ah but it was nice to have gone.
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