Remembered Aromas of Youth

They Wear a Crown in our Memories

I woke up this morning to the lovely scent of a Christmas candle burning. Robert was already up and writing. Within two minutes, I had a hot mug of coffee in hand and a coffee-flavored kiss to introduce it.

“What a nice surprise to wake up to, Robert, thank you. You’re such a sweetheart and I love you.”

As I sat down at my own computer to write, the comforting scents of coffee and candle were still floating in my mind.

Then it occurred to me how some scents from childhood made such a lasting impression on me that just thinking of them brings their aromas back from memory:

1.) Homemade chili simmering on the stove and cornbread in the oven when we got home from school every Friday all winter long.

If there was snow on the ground, as soon as we got home, we bundled up, grabbed our sleds, and headed to the big hill at the Country Club golf course.

When we were tired, or frozen —whichever came first, we could hardly race home fast enough to enjoy a big steaming bowl of Mama’s chili and buttered cornbread.

2.) The smell of a library with its mile-high shelves and never ending rows of books is still the best-smelling place in the world.

Libraries always bring a memory of serenity, of sitting on an oval pink floor rug listening to Amy the Book Lady reading stories to us in the Children’s Reading Room.

The smell of books stayed in my nose and remained all through me for the rest of the day.

3.) The pungent smell of burning leaves in the fall. It was a wonderful scent that followed me everywhere, mainly because all the other dads in the neighborhood were outside burning leaves, too.

4.) The scent of shoe polish was one of my earliest memories, as my dad polished his Sunday shoes for church.

I was too young to even know the days of the week, but when I smelled Daddy’s shoe polish from the small round can, I knew it meant we would be going to church.

5.) I loved the mixed scents of gas and diesel in filling stations while I watched the station attendant whistle and clean our windshield. Then he propped the hood open and looked under there. Things are so different now.

6.) The saved aromas aren’t all good. Here’s one that wasn’t. My brother’s feet. He had the stinkiest, most awful, “gag-you-left-right ‘n all-around” feet on the entire planet.

I can honestly smell them again just from memory ...

My Brother’s Feet
A Chldren’s Poem, by C.J. Heck

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PEW! My brother's feet are stinky
And he's hard to sit beside!
Mom makes him take his sneakers off
And leave them there, outside.

-*-

She really shouldn't do that,
It's not something she can hide
'Cause he brings the smell right with him
On his socks and feet inside.

-*-

EWW! That smell is really awful!
His feet must be nearby.
Gee, my brother isn't home now ...
Oh my gosh, it's mine!

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