A Bite of an Apple

After lunch today I took a bite of an apple that suddenly triggered some very intense memories. Over the past several years I've eaten many apples but mostly pieces that Becky had cut up and shared with me after a lunch or dinner. We enjoyed those slices of apple. Today was different. The other day Becky bought home a bag of apples from the Co-Op and so I went into the fridge and came out with an apple. I washed it off and immediately too a bite. Then another. At first I started thinking about eating apples as a kid and the bushels full that my parents got from "the farmer" who delivered fruit and eggs to our door every week. We were always getting baskets of apples, oranges, pears, etc. from him. 

A few bites into that apple and then it really hit me. I was once again eating on board a Navy ship at sea which was actually a rare experience that was occasionally enjoyed and savored by everyone onboard. Fresh food was not always available and was only eaten regularly while in port or for a few days after a at sea replenishment from a supply ship. Otherwise fresh food and in particular fresh fruits were not around very often. A rare treat. So today as I took a bite of an apple I had that rush of memories of how good it was to eat an apple back in the day.

When apples were available onboard there would be piles of them in the mess decks that were there for the taking but they didn't last long. This was true of all fresh fruits and also milk. Fresh milk was something to savor. While at sea there would be plenty of powdered milk but I could never drink any of it. The only other thing to drink at sea was "bug juice" which was actually some cheap imitation of Kool-Aid or something like that. There would be large containers of drink powder in storage near the mess deck. 

Re-supply at sea was a big thing especially during a long deployment. It was an all hands on deck activity and a work detail for everyone except the higher ranking lifers and officers. For us E-4 and below it was a long chain line of guys passing boxes from the deck where the supplies came aboard, through the hatches, down the passageways, and deep into the bowels of the ship where food supplies were put in storage. Everyone worked at it in one way or another. Everyone had to eat.

So over the course of eating that apple I relived some of those experiences from some fifty years ago.