Imperial Valley Press

Yes, We Had Apples

As a fruit importer, Dan Wiest had better stick to assessing and collecting. he decided this week in between mild explosions against "red tape" and "bureaucracy". Dan, recently home from a vacation back in the Middle West, recounted how he brought a bushel basket of Jonathan apples from the orchards of Missouri across five states. Stopped for inspection at the Arizona-California border. Dan proudly showed his apples. Inspector Bill Quick raised his hands in horror. "Dan!"he howled "You couldn't have brought anything worse. They are poison to California." Dan bowed to the inevitable under a barrage of statistics quoted by Quick concerning how dreadful the apples are to agriculture. He telephoned a friend in Yuma to hop out to the line and get the apples. The friend hopped and stopped at the Arizona customs on the way home, only to have the Arizona officers go California one better by confiscating and burning them! RR's tip would be to make cider out cf any apples Dan wants to bring across in the future. You can't burn cider.