It is October, and that means it is time to celebrate the fruit that represents this cool, spooky season.

Round, shiny and full of seeds, of course I am talking about the apple.

When I was a child and infectious diseases were well-known but still ignored, I recall bobbing for apples. Of course, we had nothing to fear. It's not like anyone has a cold or flu in October, right?

And if they did, young children are certainly considerate enough not to bob with snotty noses, right?

Disease vectors aside, most people are likely unaware not only that apples have long represented this time of year, but that bobbing for apples was probably at least a bit pagan. In the 1870s, the United States began to reinvent a practice from Celtic and Old English heritage.

They came up with bobbing for apples.

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