Grandpa Perry's TARP program

Grandpa Perry designed the first TARP program 70 years ago; his version was designed to Toss an Apple into the Rum Pot. Grandpa Perry lost his job as a stockbroker during the Great Depression. No government bailout for him, he had a family to feed and no government handout was going to put a dent in the appetite of six growing children and my grandmother. He decided a little hard cider would be just the stimulant the economy needed. After a brief scouting expedition with the boys in tow, girls were not to be exposed to high finance back then, Grandpa Perry found the perfect spot, a 50 acre farm complete with apple orchard and cider mill, all the better to feed the family and maybe earn a few dollars (quarters most likely).

My Grandfather liked to take credit for moving the family from the city to the suburbs but knowing my Grandmother as I did, I suspect it was my Grandmother who led the troops. After all, she had worked for a successful restaurateur who had “miraculously” weathered the depression. Some call that luck; I prefer to think in more basic terms –bootlegging, and Grandmother knew the cider mill could do double duty.

They weren’t the suburbs back then; it was a rural community, a cross-section of the American melting pot, Irish, French and Italian Catholics, with a few Protestants thrown in for good measure; an agricultural mecca with apple orchards galore and its share of shoe factories. The farm sustained life, producing founding members of the "Greatest Generation", the boys went on to fight and win a war, the girls entered the workforce, and my Grandmother provided the backbone to keep the cider flowing. The farm was eventually lost to a housing development and the family members each went their own way but Grandmother never let us forget that sustaining the family was the bedrock of a strong nation.

Today we face another economic slowdown, not nearly as ominous as some claim, certainly not like the Great Depression, but our President has called on us to sacrifice and I intend to do my part even if it means putting that cider mill back to work. Well Sweep Farm is teaming with life and excitement again after 200 years of being at rest. There are two pigs and a lamb in the freezer, the seed catalogs are starting to arrive, and plans are underway to enlarge the garden. I’m not sure I have time to plant and grow an orchard, time marches on, but the apple orchard down the road should be a good source of raw material for our cider press. Now if I could only find the plans for a still.