Apple Showers

My sister Esther and I, in a recent morning Instant Message chat, talked about receiving letters from various family members from time to time with lovely folded handkerchiefs inside when we were kids. Those little presents were precious and I saved mine in chocolate candy boxes.

In those depression days lovely embroidered handkerchiefs with lace were sold in flat boxes the size of the handkerchief for 25 cents. The boxes were wrapped in cellophane and tied with ribbons so you could see the whole embroidered design. They were not meant to be used, but for show. My sister said that she gave those handkerchiefs boxes to her teachers. I never gave a handkerchief to a teacher but I did give apples.

Only favorite teachers got "apple showers" once during the year, perhaps twice, and always as a surprise. Some teachers never received them and I’m certain they were thankful when the favored teacher related her experience. In remembering and telling about how we gave the apples, I am astounded that we never killed a teacher.

When I was in the third and fourth grade, someone would pass the word around that we would have a surprise "apple shower" that afternoon. I never knew whose idea it was, or how it had been decided, but I helped whisper the word around making certain everyone got the message. At noon, when we all went home for lunch, we got an apple from home, or bought one on the way back to school. Before the bell rang to start afternoon classes, there was lots of whispering and hiding of apples and it was decided that someone would give a signal when it was time to surprise the teacher.

Everyone kept an eye on the wall clock, and as the afternoon dragged on we fidgeted, knowing that any minute we would get the signal. Sometimes the signal was someone calling out “Now!”, but usually it was just someone throwing the first apple. In a fraction of a second, apples began flying thru the air toward the teacher standing in front of the blackboard in front of the room, and all us kids yelling, “Surprise!”

The poor teacher, taken unawares, had to dodge apples as 40 kids sent their apples in her direction, some hitting her desk, some hitting the blackboard and many landing and rolling around on the floor. She tried to get our attention by yelling, “Stop! Stop! Bring the apples to the desk!” After all the apples had been picked up from the floor and stacked on the desk, she would catch her breath, then thank the class for the apples, but suggest walking the apples to her desk would have been better than throwing them.

By the second half of the fourth grade, most of the girls carried their apples to the teacher’s desk, but the boys always forgot and threw them.

THIS IS A TRUE STORY