How to make Lemonade when Life Gives you Rotten Apples

     It was some time before I was over being shocked by the shrunken-head doll section of the local fair in the 1970’s.  Pulling my hand out of my mothers, I stared in disbelief.  How did these repulsive, downright morbid things ever make it into the fair? Tiny little white teeth and eyeballs stuck inside the deep recesses of brown wrinkles; the shrunken-head apple dolls looked like something from a National Geographic piece. If history class served me right, it was the Jivaroan Tribes from Ecuador that used to decapitate, then skewer and shrink the heads of their enemies to scare off any potential threats from other tribes.

     And then I looked at my mom and said, “can I make one?” And that is how I got into the Rotten Apple Doll making business. I was a real entrepreneur!  Stealing soft apples from the fruit bowl, I would peel them, and set them on a railing outside to dry. The hair was pulled and collected from my sister’s hairbrush, and beads were used for the eyes and teeth.  Using my mom’s Singer Sewing Machine and pieces of old clothes, I clipped and sewed little outfits for my dolls to sell.     I was different, instead of selling lemonade like a normal kid, I sold shrunken-head apple dolls.  Proudly sitting behind my sales table displaying my menagerie of old faced ugly dolls, the neighbors would come and pay cash for them. They probably took pity on me thinking I did not know the first thing about the Lemonade Stand business.  I did not care, my young mind relished exploring the creative process while making some money on the side.

 I was doing great business all summer long, until one day, I just lost interest.  I was over it as suddenly as it had begun.  It’s hard to say exactly, but like many odd and curious things in our lives, they come, and they go. You would probably be hard-pressed today to find a shrunken-head apple doll anywhere, and you know why that is? Because they are ugly!   And I discovered that about the time I walked under an apple tree. An ordinary, extraordinary apple tree of Gods creating. I guess on my journey of discovery, I figured nothing could top what the creator had already created so beautifully.

The saying is “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, and it goes to say that defining beauty can be tough. It’s probably because at that age, I discovered the truly beautiful in something else that captured my eye and my heart…..boys.