Johnny Appleseed and Grandpa's Orchard

I remember seeing this cartoon in school as a kid in Ohio.  Johnny Appleseed was actually a real guy, and he wandered the general area of Ohio I lived in from 4th to 8th grades.  Once when I was about 12, a friend took me deep into the woods.  Normally this meant an afternoon of fishing or playing army.  But on that particular occasion, he wanted to show me something he found.  It was an old gnarled apple tree that was still producing apples, the only apple tree anywhere in that patch of woods.  He thought it was so old, and in such a weird spot, that Johnny Appleseed himself might have planted it.  He could have been right.  We both ate part of an apple, even though there were pretty green, just to say we'd eaten an apple off a tree planted by Johnny Appleseed himself.

When I was a little kid in Ohio, My grandpa and grandma on my mom's side lived in a pink duplex in Mansfield, Ohio.  Mansfield was the actual area where a guy named John Chapman went around planting apple trees in the pioneer days, earning himself the nickname "Johnny Appleseed," and spawning a legend.  All of us kids in northern Ohio heard the tale of Johnny Appleseed.  My grandpa Mayer was many things.  He was a German immigrant who'd come to the U.S. as a kid, worked his way through college, and went on to be a pharmacist who never made a single mistake at work his entire life.  He was also an avid gardener, and was usually out working in his huge garden when we'd show up on the weekends.  Unfortunately, these aspects of Grandpa were overshadowed by the fact that he was a really mean drunk.  My memories of him as a kid were this big guy with no shirt working in his garden.  Then he'd take a break inside, watch golf on TV, and drink a quart of Stroh's beer.  Then he'd go back out into the garden and repeat the process.  I've seen him drink five quarts of beer on a Saturday, and he'd get meaner and meaner after each one.  That sucked, because he could be a really cool guy... when he was sober.

In addition to the huge garden, grandpa started planting fruit trees in the backyard when I was four or five.  He planted apples, pears, plums, peaches, and a walnut tree, along with a lot of berry bushes.  For the next few years he pruned and fertilized and nurtured those scrawny little trees, which seemed like a lot of wasted work to my little brain.  But on a good day, he'd show off each tree and tell us how, if he took care of them for the first few years, those trees would grow hundreds of fruits in the coming years.  Sure enough, those first scrawny trees started yielding fruit.  By the time was was about ten, every trip to grandma and grandpa's house in the summer or fall would end with a big basket of fruits and vegetables to take home.  In a similar fashion, grandpa rented out the other side of the duplex, and wound up buying the duplex next door and renting that one out as well.  He ultimately took back half of the backyard of the second duplex, and planted a bunch more trees.  Those trees, as well as the duplexes, returned huge bounties for the rest of the time they lived there.

So what does my grandpa's orchard have to do with anything, not to mention Johnny Appleseed, who planted apple trees in Ohio 200 years ago?  Starting a business is a lot like planting a garden or orchard.  In the early days and years, you do a lot of work that you don't get paid for.  But if you plant the right seeds and fertilize and nurture them, then can return an amazing bounty in later years.  As I start my little business around art and writing, I keep grandpa's orchard in mind.  Today I was reading a book about business and social media in today's world, and even these guys immersed in tech used the apple tree metaphor.  I'm not just drawing pictures to make a few bucks.  I'm trying to invest a lot of time and effort in building a business that will not only allow me to do a lot of creative projects in coming years, but will hopefully have a long term positive impact, a little like Johnny Appleseed's  and grandpa's fruit trees.

But I live in a household where I'm the only one who does any long term thinking.  I'm continually harassed about not making enough money in my first few months of starting a business with absolutely no money.  In effect, every single day I'm encouraged to "chop down my apple trees" and buy a single apple. This is frustrating as fuck.  But I'm not in a position to move to any other situation at this point, so I just have to grin and bear the onslaught of negativity.  The point here?  Keep planting your apple trees and guard them against anything that might destroy them, especially the people who don't think about the future bounty those trees will bring.

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