I’ve recently become enamored with Johnny Appleseed, and am using him as a working model for my life. In short, I aspire to walk Johnny’s walk.
My impression of Johnny A. is as follows: at some point in his life he developed an expertise in horticulture, and for some reason, unbeknownst to me at this point in time, decided to wander out into the Ohio Valley with the expressed purpose of starting nurseries and/or orchards.
My sense is that he was good at a couple of things. Johnny could go somewhere and suss out a landscape, a region, a territory, and figure out the most hospitable location for a nursery. Based on, I’m guessing, things like exposure to light, proximity to water, soil quality, etc.
So he’d pick a location, and then another one of his talents came into play. I’m guessing he was pretty good at sussing out local characters. He’d set up a nursery, train some local Joe (or Joella) on how to care for it, and then set off for parts unknown.
From my limited knowledge, the deal was as follows: local Joe/Joella got the apples, Johnny got the seeds. The denizens of the Valley got a reliable supply of apple jack. Everyone was happy.
About once a year, Johnny would return, check up on the orchard, and collect the seeds. On his return trips to town, and perhaps on his initial setup visit, people would put him up. I don’t know if they fed him, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did.
What I’ve heard from stories is that people loved hosting Johnny A. He always had recent news from neighboring towns, and I’m guessing he was an excellent storyteller. A most entertaining guest; a breath of fresh air, an injection of worldliness and whimsy in the routine (and difficult) lives of the settlers of the Ohio Valley.
I’ve also heard that people tried to pay Johnny or give him things, but he wouldn’t accept. He had no need for most material things; since he was always traveling, he wanted to travel light. There’s a famous picture of him walking barefoot through the woods, a pot doubling as a hat to keep the rain off his head!
That was Johnny’s style – to live simply, to make use of what was already available, and to let one’s purpose and good will carry oneself through life.
In the first part of my life, I developed expertise in a horticulture of sorts.
Through science, and then science pushed through the sieve of experience, I developed an expertise on how to nurture nascent ideas; ideas about better ways of doing things, better ways of organizing (or not organizing) things, better ways of living.
Ways of creating ecosystems that are more hospitable to creation, discovery, and learning. Ecosystems that are less toxic to creators, discoverers, and seekers — the lifeblood of every civilization, and seeds of the new dawn, truly.
Seeds, when planted, nurtured, and nourished, will yield beautiful orchards, beautiful nurseries, beautiful patches of the promise of better worlds. That will yield yet more seeds, scattering to the wind, causing distant meadows to burst forth in bloom.
If you know of anyone who would benefit from a visit, a brief stay perhaps, from an itinerant horticulturalist; a Johnny Appleseed of sorts; a man seeking a simple life, with a few good stories, a few good songs, and a magic seed or two, please, I beg of you, pass your secret along to sweetest, sweetest, hippie lou.
