Field Report 302.6

[[Ed. Note: If you’ve been following along, you know I occasionally drop a midweek observation. Some of these Field Notes are backstories to a Sunday Story; others are just things I’ve noticed—or things that annoy me. And, to be fair, I have no shortage of those.

I call these posts my “302s,” a nod to FBI field notes of the same name. I picked up the term in the nineties, back when I was a journalist. A 302 is a crucial document for recording evidence in real time - in the field. It’s the agent’s written account — unedited, uncorroborated, a distillation of what a witness recalls. Official, but slippery. Because memory is like that: precise in the moment, distorted in the retelling. Here, I’m both witness and agent. These are my unedited notes, my recollections, my truth.]]

FR-302.6: I’ve always had a thing for apples. Not in a farm-to-table way—more like a love affair way. They’re simple, not boring. Predictable, not dull.

I live in the Big Apple, obviously. My beat up 1998 Jeep is Candy Apple Red, which feels either on-brand or off kilter —I haven’t decided. Probably both.

There’s the McIntosh apple, my favorite. The OG of apples. The slightly misshapen and bruised. Not glossy, and not trying too hard. Basically, the apple equivalent of someone who’s lived a long life, got banged up but stayed the course and didn’t document all of it on Instagram. I’m a McIntosh. The OG. I’ve earned that.