Wild Apples

The Swing is Still

After an eight year illness, My mother died several years ago with Alzheimer's Disease.  No illness is easy to bear for those of us who can do nothing but wait and watch, but sometimes there are the little things that fret us about our role as caregiver.

The Swing is Still

“Oh  "     "Oh,how I love

To go up in a swing,

Up in the air so high.

Oh, I do think it’s

The most wondrous thing . . .”

You were my beautiful mother,

Chattering and crooning to me,

“Just Molly and Me, and Baby Makes Three,

We're Happy in My Blue Heaven.”

My Blue Heaven was there.

The creaking of the old green swing,

Hanging securely from the porch ceiling

Of our early home

Was accented by my frequent questions,

“Who's the baby?” I asked. But I knew.

“ Why it is you.”  I loved to hear her say it.

“You are my baby, my darling child.”

And I would curl my small bare toes

And wiggle with delight.

The summer stickiness of southern Indiana

Was always relieved by the sway of that swing

And the lilt of the poems

The two of us shared.

Our world was wrapped and entwined with our love

While you shelled peas or mated socks,

The task at hand

Merging in my memory with the

Closeness, the dampness and the love.

.

“Do you remember  'The Little Shadow'?”

“I have a little shadow who goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.”

“Do you remember that?" You would ask.

Of course I did.

We had crooned it to one another over and over.

We both loved that little shadow

And as we said the precious words,

I sank closer to you,

Pushing the swing to chase away the scarier shadows

That lurked somewhere in the night.

But then the swing was still,

The tables turned,

And the shadows were not poetic, nor friendly.

The shadows of your illness

Lengthened our pain

And shortened the days of your life.

We abide in your illness, holding hands and crying,

And when I ask you why you cry, you shake your head and sigh.

When you ask me why the tears stream down my face,

I try to smile and say, “Oh, no reason.  Just ‘cause.”

Unspoken, not acknowledged,

Your withering brain and unkempt gray locks

Doomed the halcyon days we had shared.

The arc of the swing slowed almost to a halt.

I had become the mother of my mother.

As Alzheimer's deepened and robbed her of her selfhood,

As the shadow of its destruction

Grew and grew,

My tongue was mute.

The pain of her pain made songs and games

And poets’ lyrics dry in my mouth.

I could but cry for the grief I felt.

If once again we meet

In some far distant heaven,

I will ask your forgiveness,

Dear Mother of mine.

You nurtured me when I was small and insecure,

And taught me laughter and gay tunes.

The warmth of your bosom

And the nurture of your soul

Were there for me, unquestioned and serene.

But when you retreated,

Meeting your childhood long before your time,

When you needed me

I could not match the mother you had been.

I could not go into your childhood with you.

We could have swung on the swing so high,

As I hugged you in my arms.

We could have played

With clover blossoms,

And tied them into chains

For your ageless crown.

We could have whistled our tunes

On crab grass spikes,

Matching whatever age you wanted to be,

But we didn’t, and I didn’t,

And the swing has stopped.

Alas, as you became smaller,

And more in need,

As you became the child needing solace,

Frightened

And unknowing,

I could offer you no songs, no poetry.

I could naught but cry.

Author Sue Matthews Petrovski

Love

Love. What other day would be more fitting on which to discuss love? Valentine's Day - Named after a Roman Catholic saint whose life's work remains almost unknown. But don't tell that to the wives of America! Mr. Man better come home this day with flowers, candy, a beautiful trinket, or at least dinner out on the town! Ah love - it has a price,it seems!

Made important by chocolatiers and greeting card manufacturers, Valentine's Day has become one of our favorite holidays. Why - because of love, love, pure love. Who can argue with a day set aside for lovers to play nice with one another. A day to remember, if one has moved beyond chocolate and flowers, that the most important part of a human life is in the love and friendships we hold dear.

This is a day for elderly lovers, like my husband and me to remember why we married in the first place, and to be happy that our love has survived years and years of trials, tears and happy times. What more can we ask? It is the day for young lovers to go to the door with pounding heart to meet that someone who stands there with one red rose. Ah me! Love!

Henry Thoreau, a confirmed bachelor and things philosophic has few words about love and those I found are hard to interpret. Was he shy? Was he stilted by a New England stiff Christian upbringing? Did he fear that such entanglements would cause him to have less time for his Higher Laws, or did he avoid love because he knew he had tuberculosis.? We’ll never know for sure, but I think he might say yes to all of the above. Why? That is the question and the answer may be in his view love was worth more than just chocolate and flowers. Read on:

"Love is a thirst that is never slaked. Under the coursest rind, the sweetest meat. If you would read a friend aright, you must be able to read through something thicker and opaquer than horn. If you can read a friend, all languages will be easy to you. Enemies publish themselves. The friend never declares his love." Mar. 28 1856.

On Nov. 22, 1858, now 41 years old he says, "Here is an author who contrasts love for "the beauties of the person" and that for "excellences of the mind as if these were the alternatives. I must say that it is for neither of these that I should feel the strongest attraction. I love that one with whom I sympathize, be she "beautiful" or otherwise, of excellent mind or not." I wonder if he is not thinking of his friendship with Lydian Emerson.

Jan. 23, 1854. " Love tends to purify and sublime itself. It mortifies and triumphs over the flesh, and the bond of its union is holiness."

I think Henry would agree with Paul and his words on love in I Corinthians 13:4-13 "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in he truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all thing, endures all things. Love never ends. ... For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part, then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now, faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."

Or, as Rumi said,

"Inside a lover's heart
there is another world,
and yet another." ...and another. Love is and will be. Happy Valentine’s Day to all.

The Sound of the Chimes at New Year’s

Waggling her finger at my nose she smacked her lips a few times to dislodge the dryness of age and said, “No, and no no! Don’t be afraid to have experiences. Experiences help you solve problems"

Someone - can’t remember who - said this once and it stuck in my brain.”
“I have often wondered if a good problem solver simply hangs her many
experiences, like chimes, in the breeze of the problem at hand and then
listens ever so carefully for a sound...what causes a particular set of
chimes to ring remains a mystery to me."

"Yes, somehow it works," she murmured as she resumed her knitting.

Lost in a reverie of the past, my old friend rocked in place, with me wondering if she was trying to remember who had given her this advice or if she had forgotten that I was sitting there in that single other chair near the fire. I let my glance go to her every now and then wondering if she wanted to add something to her thought and in the silence my own mind wandered. I tried to envision a world in which we could each hang our experiences on the line, let the breezes of our problems flow around them, and then listen for a chime to ring telling us how to solve our problems. How would that work? Does it work?

I’ve always believed that we had an undefined insight and intuition that when we choose to use it can pull us out of the bottom feeding position into a place of brighter light. I liked the picture that played in my mind of my experiences all lined up and waving in the breeze – of whatever problem I had and suddenly a chime of remembrance and solution would sound and show me how to make things pure and simple once more. And don't our problems come like breezes – all is calm and then suddenly the air around us is disturbed and whorling, like the sea when the air becomes heavy and the wind riles the waves.

What experiences should I consider putting on the clothesline of my life? The Alzheimer’s Death of my mother, for one. The courage of my father in his last battle and his words of comfort and love to me my whole life. Oh yes, grab the corner of a hankie here; loss is a terrific teacher. Add to that the experiences of every day of our lives, dealing with the broken bones and dreams of family life and inventing and reinventing ways to make life richer for ourselves and those we love. The experiences of my broken dreams, my failures, my errors of judgment are hung there too – even those I prefer to keep private. The largest experiences that need to be hung high and dry are those options I chose to ignore, those experiences I chose not to experience and those things I neglected to do. Sadly, these are unchangeable. I These are opportunities that are lost and gone forever.

What experiences caused me to turn to writing and reading? I can remember the feeling that I was no longer accomplishing anything with my life – my children were grown, my retirement loomed, my parents were gone and it almost seemed that I was no longer of any importance to the world. Grab a corner of this experience and hang it up good and high for it is perhaps the most profound life-altering experience of my life – I discovered that my worth is found in my self – not in what others think of me. The problem of my later years was solved with this ringing of the chimes of experience, and I began to work to make myself something more than I was. If I was to live, should I not fashion that life to its best and highest meaning? I wanted no life of quiet desperation.

My old friend was right. The experiences of my life had shaped the solution to many of my problems. One can sometimes almost hear the chimes when the light of clarity appears. It is a glorious sound!

May the chimes of clarification and illumination ring for you many times in the new year!

Happy New Year!

Oh Deary, Deary Me!

Who Is Alice?

The Old Woman Who Went To Market

There was an old woman,
as I've heard tell,
She went to market
Her eggs for to sell;
She went to market
On a summer’s day,
And fell asleep
On the King's Highway.

There came by a peddler
Whose name was Stout,
He cut off her petticoats
All round about;
He cut off her petticoats
Up to her knees,
Which made the little old woman
Shiver and freeze.

When the little old woman
First did wake,
She began to shiver
And she began to shake.
She began to wonder,
She began to cry,
"Oh deary, deary me, this is none of I!"

"But if it be I,
As I hope it may be,
I have a little dog at home
And he will know me
If it be I
He will wag his little tail,
And if be not I,
He will loudly bark and wail."

Home went the little woman
All in the dark,
Up got the little dog
And he began to bark.
He began to bark;
And she began to cry,
"Oh deary, deary me this is none of I."

For some unknown reason, this long forgotten nursery rhyme has followed me from childhood. I know every word of this silly little jingle, and sometimes find myself saying of myself, “Oh deary, deary me, this is none of I.”

Self knowledge is a difficult commodity to come by. We have spent our lives as daughters, wives, mothers, and sometimes as teachers or accountants or ---whatever career path we have chosen. But deary, deary me, who are we? Who is the I that we hope the little dog will know? We surely hope the little dog will know for we certainly don’t!

Wild apples examples from the past have not been kind to womanly self-knowledge, and although I see younger women today who seem assured, well educated and able to cope well with the changes in the feminine roll that we have witnessed.

Yet, is there much difference in the woman of yesterday and today? Are we women, even in the 21st century, looking over our shoulder for acceptance and approval? And when we look are we looking to men to determine our value? Can we still be cut down to size by a cruel remark made by man or woman? Are we running and doing and pursuing activities at an alarming rate just so that we will not have to deal with the deathly silence of self doubt? Oh deary deary me, who am I?

A dear friend said to me the other day, “I didn’t realize until I quit teaching how much my self worth depended on others.” She knew that she had received much acclaim, attention and love from her students. She had had such a full daily schedule that she had had no time to consider who Alice was. Ironically when I think of this I think of another Alice – Alice in the Looking Glass and Alice in Wonderland, both by Lewis Carroll.

That Alice voiced a familiar womanly complaint, “I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!”
And later she admits, “I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, Sir, because I'm not myself you see.”

Have women in the past depended upon someone else to tell them who they are? Is this only a feminine problem or is it a human problem? The dog will only know us when we know ourselves and are confident and content with the direction of our lives. Then we will have the courage to do as the Queen in Through the Looking Glass bid Alice to do.

“One cannot believe impossible things," said Alice.
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

A wild apple breeze from past experience tells me that the queen was right. Dream the impossible dream and set your sights where you want them to be. Set them in the direction that dictates your self-conceived purpose in this life. It is amazing what talents come to us when we look up and out. “Impossible!” No, the old lady does not need her dog to tell her who she is; she needs to spend time each day looking inside for the impossible. This is her lodestar. This is her mission.

The Spirit of a Basket

A Story on the loss of a good friend.

The Spirit of a Basket

The old woman handed the weathered basket to the younger one and, in a voice almost like an incantation, she said, “Wherever this basket travels will be home and hearth for you.” In it she placed chocolate, tea and wine. Patting her friend on the head, and putting her arm around her she said,

“For thousands of years Women have traveled with baskets, for they do not break on the journey. Like friendship, the basket will bend and stretch carrying good wishes and love within. When you reach the place you call home, the basket will know it and find its place near a rocker or near a hearth, and with a sigh it will say, ‘We have arrived. We are home. Whether I hold food or yarn I will watch with passion the life you are living and witness your personal victories as you fashion a home where there has been none before.’”

“Blessings on you,” the old crone said. “When you drink this chocolate, sip this tea, or share this wine with those you love, think of those who carried baskets before you. In our hearts we travel with you.

With love and best wishes,

A Valentine For My Father

"Fathers be good to your daughters,
Daughters will love like you do,
Girls become lovers, and turn into mothers,
So mothers be good to your daughters too."

No, it’s not father’s day but just the day that dawned and I thought of my father. I’ve written a lot about my mother, and I loved them both, but was just recently that I realized the influence my father had on me as a woman.

May I wish for all future women a father as wise as mine. He raised me to be a person - not gender determined. He never disrespected the female that I was, nor did he ever remark about it in such a way to make me feel less than I was. I guess part of what my father was is shown by what he did not do. He never said, “Oh, you wouldn’t like that – you’re a girl.” He never encourage me or discouraged me from any activity. I tackled those things that I was interested in doing, not what ‘girls’ should do. He took me hunting and shooting, his favorite hobbies, but never tried to make me a boy.

One important part of my father was his curiosity and that he shared with me in many ways. He listened to my stories at the dinner table and later, when I was in college, he took the time to read the classics that I recommended to him. Later we would discuss them and it was a time that I know we both cherished. He respected me and my intelligence and my abilities.

What does this mean to me in my adult life? I have never felt unable to accomplish something because I was a woman, or that I was a lesser creature. I tackle those tasks and projects which interest me, because I’m me, and I have an inate sense that what I tackle I can finish. My father’s best lesson: “You can do anything you want to do if you want it badly enough.” I wanted to marry, and I did. I wanted children and I had two great ones. I wanted to teach, and I did. I wanted to write a book, and I did. I want to involve myself in the philosophical and I do. I want to write some more, and I am. Much of what I have done, I would not have done if my parents had raised me to feel incapable, or afraid to try new things or think new thoughts.

I see women today who are so insecure, so afraid of failure, so afraid to think, particularly if their thoughts disagree with the men in their lives, and so needy. I was emotionally and intellectually fed by my father and when he died a very big light went out of my life. Every Valentine’s day he would bring home a big red heart full of candy to my mother and another one for me. On each he would write, “I love you with all my heart.” And we were so very sure of that love.

This year, I write this as a Valentine’s present, my big red heart, for my dear father. May you all be as lucky as I was.

Snow Ice Cream

With the snow flakes thick on the window-sill,

And drifting white in briers by the hill,

With the wind across the orchard lot

And howling down the chimney-pot,

I'm turning the leaves of my memory

Till a treasured scene comes back to me -

A bowl of snow, white as brides-day silk,

With sugar on, and flavoring, and wholesome jersey milk -

I trust there's no child living who has missed the joy supreme

Of wintertime and stormtime and a bowl of snow ice cream!

Riches and possessions never worried us a mite,

Threre was rarely any money for the purchase of delight,

But we knew the common pleasures that common people know,

Like rhubarb in the springtime, and in wintertime the snow,

And some day in the future, whin I'm squattin' on the coals,

A-bein' elbow-neighbors with them other poor lost souls,

The anguish will diminish into a rosey dream -

If I can have a bowl and some snow ice cream!

                                        - Barton Rees Pogue

Bedrock Good

  Barton Rees Pogue, 1896-1965,  Indiana Hoosier poet, deserves a footnote in history.  Like the wild apples of which I speak, Pogue lived in Upland, Indiana,  a fairly remote corner of our country.  He was not universally known, and and may have been a bit tart and simple to the taste.  But he was imbued with that special something  that deserves to be remembered.

  Pogue was hayseed and pillow tickin’, punkins’ and parents, homestead and hallowed ground, simplicity and sympathy.  He was the simple touch that reached our hearts with both humor and emotion.  He met us face on and caused us to feel. 

If you become a Pogue fan, and want to help keep his work alive, click on http://www.abebooks.com/ for used copies of his books.  All are out of print, but there are several used copies listed there.

Pogue taught at Temple University in Indiana and for several years in the ‘40’s he was a well-known voice on WLW in Cincinnati, and his poetry, and his deep, rich baritone became a part of every listener’s day.  Today, beyond these rather narrow arenas, few know of Barton Rees Pogue, my Wild Apple Poet.  There are personal family connections that make him special to me, but the philosophy he espoused is what holds me captive to his simple, unsophisticated style.  Some of his poems are just fun, and others bring back cherished memories. Some have deeper philosophical twists, but always his poems express what is bedrock good in mankind.   

For those of us who are too materialistic, he wrote:

                        “I own some things that men call good,

                         I’d own some others if I could,

                         But save me, God, from thinking these                                                                         

Can give this heart of mine it’s ease.”

He speaks of home and Mother in “Till Tomorrow Morning.”  No mother can read this poem without knowing the longing in this mother's heart.

                        “If I go home to spend a day,

                       Mother’ll come out to the car and say,

                        Just as I’m ready to drive away,

                        “I wish you could stay till tomorrow morning.”

            

                        If I go home to visit a week,

                        Mother’ll choke up till she hardly can speak,

                        And she’ll say, though her voice is trembly and weak,

                        “I wish you could stay till tomorrow morning.”

                        If I go home for a month or so,

                        It’s certain to come when I’m ready to go,

                        Same dear refrain, more trembly and slow,

                        “I wish you could stay till tomorrow morning.”

                        I don’t want my mother to change her ways,

                        Yet I know, should I live there the rest of my days,

                        She’ll come to my room when the last trumpet plays,

                        And ask me to stay till tomorrow morning.

-         from Wayside Windows

We can be a bit wistful of thoughts of how it used to be when we read, "Progress In Reverse."  (In part)

                        “What an age we’re living in!

                        What a day this is for tears!

                        Our century of progress, friends,

                        Has set us back a hundred years!

                        Why the women used to try new ways

                        To make our stomachs ache,

                        But now they have one recipe:

                        “Add water, mix and bake”!

                        We live in a day when home-made foods

                        Have run on destructive rocks,

                        And everything we have to eat

                        Has the taste of a cardboard box.

                        Our mince-meat is flavored with a unique blend

                        Of newsprint and rags and pulp-lumber,

                        And we can’t eat pie without a fear

                        The crust has a serial number!

                        Fudge-making once was a lover’s delight!

                        Many a mother’s pride

                        Can date his “fall” from the cup he held

                        In which the syrup was “tried”;

                        But now they crack a cellophane bag –

                        Before Cupid can bat an eye

                        They add four spoons of boiling water,

                        And set it out to dry!

                                                        - from Wayside Windows

And there is such universal longing in this excerpt from "To My Father".  (Also from Wayside Windows)

                  

In all these years,

I never did sit down and say to you

The things that in my heart I knew

Would make you glad -

It hasn't been because I haven't had

The chance.

The broad expanse

Of time was mine,

As up and down the stream of Brandywine

We walked,

And talked -

But now, before your call shall bid us part,

I want to say I love you, from my heart.

I wish I could print more of Pogue's words here, but this post is getting long.  With laughter in my heart and a tear in my eye, my evening is complete.  I have shared it with a wise and wonderful man.  May I present Barton Rees Pogue.

                        

The Last Rose of Summer

I always look for her, and, I don't know why, but I think of her as "she".  For 36 years we have lived in this home and every Fall, after the first few frosts, I look for my faithful companion.   A few days ago I searched and found nothing, no signs of beauty or life in my small garden.  No sign of anything but dying matter; leaves folding inward and dying, a yellow cast to everything and a decided chill in the air. 

Scrapping through the leaves, someone said, is like nature's  graveyard.  So it is, but today 'she' was there!  Somehow this one beautiful rose had survived the cold, the chill and the Autumn winds.  The last rose was in bloom and, as always, it was pink.

Freedom or Fame?

“When we talk of freedom and opportunity for all nations, the increasing paradoxes in our own society become so clear that they can no longer be ignored.”  - Wendell Willkie addressing the NAACP Convention.

Few of us remember the also-rans - those that finished second, whether in politics or sports, are soon forgotten.  There's probably no reason why we should remember them, except that sometimes they were the ones who have changed our world the most.  Self-sacrifice for their beliefs seems to be a hallmark of some - the true Wild Apples of our world.

Today, if Wendell Willkie is remembered at all, it is in the context of his 1940 Presidential defeat at the hands of Franklin Roosevelt.  He was a loser, and little is remembered about his later words and actions, most of which came after his defeat.  We have chosen to forget the wisdom of such words as seen in the above quote.   Although history has not sufficiently credited Willkie for his many contributions, Willkie himself was satisfied with the role he had played. 

Eleanor Roosevelt, in her October 12, 1944 "My Day" column eulogized Wendell Wilkie as a "man of courage [whose] outspoken opinions on race relations were among his great contributions to the thinking of the world." She concluded, "Americans tend to forget the names of the men who lost their bid for the presidency. Wilkie proved the exception to this rule."   That is only partially true.

Originally a Democrat, Wendell Wilkie became a Republican because he disagreed with FDR’s New Deal policies of government ownership of utilities, and, as always, he acted upon his beliefs.   He didn’t wait, as most of our politicians do, to see which way the parade was marching before showing his true colors, and, unfortunately, his ideas of racial equality, world peace, and his attacks on American isolationism cost him votes at the polls.

A new Republican, he was picked as a compromise candidate by the Republican Party in 1940 to challenge Roosevelt in the presidential race.   Although he fought valiantly, his middle of the road stance scared away traditional Republican voters and the looming possibility of war drew voters to the Democratic candidate.  Because he spoke as he felt, he was his own worst enemy in the race, making statements such as

“I am not interested in the support of anybody who stands for any form of prejudice as to anybody's race or religion. I don't want it. I have no place in my philosophy for such beliefs. I don't have to be President of the United States but I do have to live with myself.”  (In a statement repudiating the endorsement of the anti-Semitic Social Justice magazine during the 1940 campaign)

After the election, Willkie was freed from the necessity of pleasing others, and from 1940 onward, having gained public attention, he wrote and spoke as he wished, and, some would say, changed the world somewhat to his own inspiration.

In 1942, Wilkie flew to 52 countries to demonstrate America’s desire to fight fascism.  It was a good will tour par excellence’ and as a consequence of this tour, Wilkie developed a vast understanding of nationalities and races of people.  Tolerance for all men became a lifetime concern, and in 1943 he published a book titled One World, which became a best seller and a financial success.  He did not keep the money gained from One World, but placed it in a trust fund to be used by humanitarian organizations and activities.   

His view of world affairs, as expressed in One World, threw light on the crumbling colonial system that would affect the world for many years after WWII.   He also saw conditions in the Middle East that would impel them into an unshakable desire for self-determination.  “ Foreign Affairs”, in its review of One World, called it “One of the hardest blows ever struck against the intellectual and moral isolationism of the American people.”   

“We must fight our way through not alone to the destruction of our enemies, but to a new world idea.  We must win the peace.” 

In today’s terrorist world, the peace seems far off.  Rather we want to convert everyone to our way of thinking.  Peace?  A novel idea.  But the future and the downfall of the Soviet Union by its own inertia made these words almost prescient:

“The best answer to Communism is a living, vibrant, fearless democracy -- economic, social, and political.”

Without a doubt, however,  the most vital focus of Willkie’s life was centered on what unites the human race, not what divides it. In 1942 he went before the Supreme Court in Schneiderman vs. United States. Schneiderman was a landmark immigration case resting on whether Schneiderman, who had been a Communist at the time of his naturalization 12 years prior, should be allowed to stay in the United States.  The court ordered that membership alone, with no evidence of actions against the United States was not enough to deny a person citizenship.  There were no overt acts of violence and proof of mere membership was not enough.  Although he won the case, he lost much political capital because he had defended a Communist.  At the time in the United States, there were no good Communists.  Sadly, even today many would not understand the implications of what he said when he reminded us,   

“Those who rejoice in denying justice to one they hate, pave the way to a denial of justice for someone they love.” 

  And somehow, before we stop to carefully consider it, these words seem terribly naïve in our 21^st century world:

“Freedom is an indivisible word.  If we want to enjoy it, and fight for it, we must be prepared to extend it to everyone, whether they are rich or poor, whether they agree with us or not, not matter what their race or the color of their skin.”

   "The Constitution does not provide for first and second class citizens."         

Willkie’s efforts to make an even playing field for all Americans took other paths as well.  He publicly attacked FDR for his sluggish attitude in denouncing Jim Crow laws, such as the poll tax.  He also urged the president to denounce lynching – still a prevalent attack on blacks, particularly in the South.  While Roosevelt’s hesitancy was based on his unwillingness to upset  Southern white Democrats, Willkie didn’t let concern for his own political future stop him from expressing his distaste at what he saw happening. When a race riot exploded in Detroit on June 20, 1943; riots that left 34 people dead, Willkie nationally attacked the Congress and the President for not legislating changes that would prevent such atrocities.  He said at the time, 

"The desire to deprive some of our citizens of their rights -- economic, civic or political -- has the same basic motivation as actuates the Fascist mind when it seeks to dominate whole peoples and nations. It is essential that we eliminate it at home as well as abroad."

Willkie knew that he had made political enemies with his outspoken ideas, but still decided to seek the nomination of his party in 1944. The Republican Party hardliners had never trusted Willkie and circulated many untrue stories when he announced he would run.    Even today, the Republican Party is shy about acknowledging Willkie, and gives little attention to what he said or did. 

Early in the primaries, Willkie realized that his chances were small and he withdrew, but he was still upbeat about his life.  Shortly after he ended his 1944 campaign when a reporter asked him to sum up his experiences, he said, "I've had three great satisfactions in my life -- the nomination, the book, and this campaign.  Somehow I’m damn proud.”

In October of 1944, following a series of heart attacks and shortly after his failed attempt to capture the 1944 Republican nomination, at only 52 years of age, he died. In a letter to a friend shortly before his death, Willkie wrote,

“If I could write my own epitaph and if I had to choose between saying, ‘Here lies an unimportant President,’ or “Here lies one who contributed to saving freedom at a moment of great peril,’ I would prefer the latter.”

.   He had ascended to the heights of political power, but lost, largely due to the fact that he was an honest, egalitarian man.  He was never properly acclaimed for the numerous achievements and ethical dreams he shared with America, and America and the Republican Party has largely forgotten the man who has affected our history and our freedom so directly and richly, but his Wild Apple thoughts and dreams still linger on, alive and well, well hidden, perhaps, but not the less still vibrant and alive under the radar of America’s deepest soul.  Someday…