My parents' generation had a saying "One bad apple spoils the whole bunch." I never gave much thought to its literal or figurative meaning. I knew about the literal meaning because my parents would buy several bushels of apples - Northern spies, yellow delicious and Macintosh are the varieties that I remember the most - each fall from our relatives on the Traverse Bay Peninsula of Michigan. Once we got them home, it was my job to take one page from a mail order catalog per apple and wrap the apple with the page. The apples were then stored in a back-bedroom closet that was not heated (Where my clothes were kept!) and we'd eat on them throughout the winter. The paper, my parents explained, served several purposes - to act as an insulator, to keep the apples from bruising each other and to prevent any spoilage from spreading apple-to-apple. It was a simplistic method of fruit storage that was very effective and truly did prevent one bad apple from spoiling the whole bunch.
The figurative meaning of "one bad apple spoils the whole bunch" has recently been driven home to me in an abstract way that I never would have expected for it is with this life lesson that I have become acutely aware of how much difference one person can make - positively and negatively. "One bad apple" can act as a grain of sand in a running shoe, creating unseen and - at first unfelt - discomfort. You may be aware that something is amiss but you just cannot put your finger on the issue........until the "bad apple" leaves, the breath of fresh air descends upon you and you think to yourself, "Wow". Later you may come to shout "yea".
The unfortunate part about a human "bad apple" is that they cannot be wrapped in paper in order to insulate them from the others. Nor can the others be protected from the "bad apple". We all must walk about on this earth together. There is no cold-storage place in which to house human "bad apples".
Ancora imparo
