Question on facebook this morning was "What is the one smell you can not stand to smell cooking?" My answer was immediate, "Apples." That is always my answer. I can still smell the apples cooking in my mind. My poor little Kenny never quite understood my aversion to the smell, but he learned to live with it. When his mom was still alive and his sister Martha lived with her they would bake apple pies and invite us over. Kenny usually went alone on those visits.
While he accepted that this would never be an apple pie house, I do not think he ever understood my reasoning. It is not that I chose to hate cooked apples. In fact I am alive today because of the apples that were gathered, stored in the root cellar, and cooked through the cold winter months to keep us fed. I shall try to explain this to you so I can understand it myself.
When I smell apples cooking I smell poverty. I smell a 2 bedroom house that was home for 8 people. I relive itchy wool blankets that kept us from freezing. I remember trips to the outhouse in the middle of the night and fearing I would be eaten by wolves or kidnapped by Gypsy's. I remember heating water on a wood stove so we could wash dishes or take a bath in a tin tub. Apples and Carp. Foods that kept us alive.
But I do have good memories. Those memories are triggered by crisp, cool air and a moon high above on Saturday nights listening to "The Grand Ole' Opry" with my brother on a car radio in the front yard of 709 Strong Street. I love the twang of a flat top guitar and the mournful sounds of Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb and all the old singers. My world almost ended when Hank Williams died in the back of a car on the way to the Grand Ole Opry.
The feel of sand between my toes takes me back to running along the road to the Vincent Sand Pit to watch my brother fish or swim in the murky water. I never learned to swim, but I could bait a hook and catch a big old catfish! Mostly it was Carp, but it was food for our bodies and nourishment for our souls. The smell of the Lilac bush takes me to my Grandma Haas and Great Grandma Hatfield.
There were 8 of us back then. Now there are 2. I think back to the bygone days and while they make me nostalgic, they are also my salvation. It was the ramshackle house and the poverty that shaped me into the woman I am today. I like the think I am compassionate and caring. When I see the poverty and homelessness of today it makes me appreciate how much my mother sacrificed for us kids. Not just me; all of us. We got an education and learned humility and responsibility. Mother gave us our basics and then pushed us off the branch like the momma bird does with her fledglings. We all flew!
I like to think that my kids learned something from me. They all seem to be responsible. They are hard working. I have never known them to take anything that was not theirs. They give an honest days work for a days pay. And the one thing I know and hope they learned also is that if God brings you to it, he will bring you through it.
Amen!
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