Apple in no particular order!

          Enjoy as is, or click on an image to see it BIG! 

(Thanks to Crystal for this one.)                                                             

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Taking pictures in the lighting of mom's backyard was too challenging for me.  I left off when I saw we were in good hands.

... Thanks Crystal

Kathleen Marie Simonsen

A little baby girl.

To the naked eye, she's not unlike any other in the maternity ward at Saint Joe's Hospital in Paterson, New Jersey 

     ... She certainly turned out UNLIKE any other.

                  ... And here we are!

Everyone pretty much knows the story of how she migrated west from her home grounds in New England.

I think she wound up here in equal parts due to the fact that it was pristine ... in a Wild West sort of a way ... friendly ... in a loving communal sort of a way ... because there were many wonderful people here ... many of whom still are!  (I suspect there are many in that group who are reading this right now.)  She loved you all and I can understand why.  So many of you have turned into MY lifelong friends as well. And I thank you all for the part you've played in what for her was a pretty good life.

Of course another reason I think she migrated so far west was that it was just about as far away from the 9 Harvest Lane in North Granby Connecticut  as she could get without a passport.

Nobody will argue she did anything conventionally.  It's kind of funny that to make this all work out in the end, she wound up convening her whole family out here.

I'm not sure my dad would have ever been to a rodeo, or for that matter done much of anything that Apple led him to out here, if he were still back in the Not-So-Wild East.

For Apple, being out here, in the long run -- as unconventionally as it came together helped define my family's life.  I'm not sure any of us would really be "right" living in Paterson or Passaic New Jersey ...or ... really anyplace but our hometown here in sisters.

And thanks to Apple I feel we have bragging rights to calling ourselves maybe pseudo-locals. We have found a way of establishing that point to get credibility with bona fide Sisters old-timers by learning to say "Oh were friends of Apple" ... pretty much if that didn't get us someplace I suspect we weren't dealing with  such a bona fide old-timer after all.

It seems like everyone knew Apple ... A fact that my mom can attest to after the upm-teen-eighty-th call she got over the week with good wishes after Apple passed!

I guess were here to celebrate her life ... her GOOD life!  She had many more years of taking it easy ... getting by on whatever there was to get by on ... enjoying this place ... enjoying you people ... keeping worries as low as she could ... a good life.

I think (well I know) I was always a little envious of her.  I've seen the bumper stickers. that say roughly "No worries!"  "No 9-5!"  "Enjoying Life!"  "I'm Retired!"

Well, in my book, Apple, thanks to her unusual way of living life was, the way I saw it, "Pre-tired!"

Sadly. It couldn't go on forever. But I've got to be grateful for the days up at the log cabin ... for parties at the bar ... the Bloody Mary brunches at her house feasting on the bounty of her friends and who knows what?  By that I mean, who knows what her friends harvested cooked and quite often slayed or trapped or come upon by who knows what means.

 ... Days and nights enjoying friends at the bar when she ran it.

 ... Holiday morning road trips to hang with friends. 

 ... Hanging out with her until all hours as she baked Christmas presents for her friends.  (She didn't have a lot of money and her home-baking was ALWAYS appreciated by anyone on her gift list!)

 ... And so on.

When it cane to making friends and finding new experiences, I'm glad to say "We Had an APP for That!" ... long before our friends in Cupertino started with apps..

Good wishes to Apple. 

App, you lived life ... and touched many more people than most of us ever will. 

If I didn't know it before. I've realized it in the past week, just how many people she touched, who she loved, and loves her back.  There was enough love out here to spill over to share with my mom, my dad and me!

I'd like to  give special regards to Sean who helped punctuate Apples last days with us in a good way.

She called me about a few days before she died and was telling me how happy she was.

Bless you Apple.  She's "APPLE" ... Kathleen Marie Simonsen Anderson Eddy.  I can't imagine Kathy as anything but Apple.

Sisters, Oregon made her that ... and in the end ... she may not have had a barrel of money, but she had what so many others, others who've gone before her, wished for their whole lives ... she had friends, a family actually ... she didn't have much, but she had so much.

And to all of you, for defining the friendships we all strive for in life.  Thank you.  Bless you!

                                                                       Gregg
 

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