Couple Spend 20 years Searching for Extinct Apple, “We have wasted our lives”

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A Colorado couple has spent the last 20 years searching for an apple that has long been thought to be extinct. The Colorado Orange Apple was a common variety of apple a century ago, but as the industry moved towards more national varieties, it fell out of favor. According to a CNN article, the apple was a “Colorado heritage” apple and was one of the first cultivated in the state to help feed those who came in the 1800s in search of gold and silver.

Lost for decades, the Colorado Orange apple variety has been found – officially
How do you like dem apples? The couple seen here with their most valuable possessions. Image from The Journal.

Addie and Jude Schuenemeyer, the couple on the Herculean search for the extinct apple, finally found a tree still producing the fruit. After another two year wait to confirm that the fruit really was a Colorado Orange Apple, they had somewhat mixed reactions. “Well we didn’t really enjoy the sex that much, and living in rural Colorado, there isn’t really that much to do, so we thought we’d look for extinct fruit,” says Addie.

Jude had his own thoughts on the search for the apple, “I’ve always thought life was pretty futile and being someone who has always struggled with our purpose here on earth I thought a search for an extinct fruit would be a perfect way to show the meaninglessness of life.”

Nietzsche187a.jpg
Friedrich Nietzsche actually invented the apple to prove the meaninglessness of life. Image from Wikipedia.

Once their magical apple had been confirmed to in fact be the one they were searching for, they celebrated by eating the apple. “It just tastes like every other apple I have eaten in my life, no different at all. If I close my eyes I could be eating a Macintosh or a crab apple for that matter. Come to think of it, I don’t even like apples, this was all my stupid husbands’ idea.”

Now we know: Can I eat an apple from the ground?
An apple on the ground is worth two in the hand. Image from The Irish Times.

When asked what to do with their lives now that they have caught this mysterious apple, Jude had a few ideas, “Well I was going to kill myself after coming to terms with the fact that I have in fact wasted my entire life searching for an apple, but then I thought about it and, being a man in my late 60’s, I’m pretty close to death anyhow so I figured I would just wait it out. Maybe we’ll move to Wyoming, I don’t think the people who live in that state are even alive anyways.”

Wyoming | Capital, Map, Population, History, & Facts | Britannica
No human lives in Wyoming, they all abandoned the state after the great flood of 1916. Only Buffalo live there now, Buffalo who enjoy 3 electoral college votes. Image from Brittannica.

Addie herself has stated that the state in which they take their final breaths doesn’t matter to her, “When you have wasted this much time searching for an apple you don’t really care about anything else. I have no family, well, none that I have a relationship with anymore.  After 20 years of relatives calling and telling me they found plenty of other apples at the supermarket, I had to cut them out of my life. I mean 20 years on this? It doesn’t even taste good. We could have had a family, we could have made the world a better place but instead we searched for apples. I was so focused for so long on this damn apple I dropped out of the world; did you know Donald Trump is President? How did that even happen, I’ll tell you how; living in a world full of apple lookers when we should’ve been organizing for Hillary Clinton. I don’t even like apples, it’s my husband who likes them.  I wanted to search for the Idaho mustachioed plum!”

The ‘Idaho Mustachioed Plum’ last seen here in 1969. One of the founding members of the Weather Underground, he has been on the run since helping to organize the riots during the trial of the Chicago Seven. Image created by Max Weinberg.

Jude did have his own positive take after coming to terms with the loss, “Well, I think this entire experience has taught us not to waste time and savor every moment because you only get so many. On the bright side, at my age I know I wouldn’t make that mistake again, partly because I don’t have another 20 years to waste on apple hunting so there’s that. By the way whatever happened to zima? I loved that stuff, but then you look up and it’s not 1998 anymore. I would spend 50 years looking for some of that stuff.”

10 Things to Know About Zima - Eater
Zima even helps reverse global warming. Isn’t that a hoax anyways? Image from eater.

Edit: An earlier version of this article had incorrectly referred to the Colorado Orange Apple as an alt-right hate group working as paid campaign staff for U.S. Senator from Colorado, Cory Gardner.

Koch network backs vulnerable GOP Sen. Cory Gardner
When I say I’ll vote to confirm a ‘qualified nominee’ what I mean is I don’t care that I’m going to get my ass handed to me by Hickenlooper. I just want that sweet Republican lobbyist job come January. Image from CNBC.

 

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Max is a Senior at New England College majoring in Political Science and minoring in Creative Writing. He is from Upstate New York. This is his second semester writing for The New Englander. Contrary to many reports, he is not Professor Homestead’s brother. Max is a huge Yankees and Giants fan, and is currently on a quest to go to all 30 MLB Stadiums. He writes most things, from the mundane to the nonsensical, including opinion pieces. Max also writes a column, The Scallion, which is his version of the popular satire website The Onion. Regardless of what you may have heard he does not bring the problems from the 90’s into 2 thou’.
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