Taste… One of our five senses. It is for me the source of so many memories . Today at work, I sliced open and apple and bit into it. In that apple was whole sections of my childhood. Of Freckled apples on the ground littered with twigs, bees and leaves. Of apples in the press and the sound and smell as the juice comes running down the trough into the bucket covered in cheese cloth. Of glimpses of dresses, shoes, pants, and smells. All of this in my Grandparents upper back yard. At various time they had 3-4 apple trees in the upper back yard… and they are the spot of all sorts of memories for me.

In that spot, was where I was when my grandmother had me with her when she was killing a chicken. After the head was off, it chased me around the yard, there under the apple trees. I have no idea how many Saturday afternoons were spent picking up apples for apple butter, cider, jelly and frozen apples. Nearby was the spot for the kettle for making apple butter. At one end is the Queen Anne Cherry tree that one year my grandfather put me up in the tree to eat till I could not reach any more. Various Cats running up the cement path from the house to the wash house and the well house. The sound of the door on the wash house with the slight glass rattle. The metal awning over the back porch screen windows painted green and white wide stripes. Pushing the baby buggy with dolls in it that was my Aunts when she was young. If I look up to the hill behind the house there is the sounds of the leaves starting to rattle as they dry. On some years there would be the sounds and smells of the final batch of corn in the field. The smell of sunshine on ripe corn could be smelt before you got to it. Down near the house there is a round flower bed made of river rocks ( I always wondered where they came from) It is painted with the white house paint when the house had been painted. Usually the bed was full of red saliva and Coleus, geraniums in red, white or salmon. In the corner of the garage was a stand of Iris that bloomed purple in the spring. In one of the apple trees or on the close line was usually a hanging basket of additional geraniums that was sometimes hung on the corner of the wash house. On the clothes line there is a Flour Sack bag that my grandmother has made at some time in the past. This is where she keeps her clothes pins.

I could go on… One bite with the juices in my mouth running lets me let the juices of my memory run as well. A friend of mine pointed out that when dieting we are not just depriving ourselves of food but memories and reunions. This part of why we go into mourning and depression when we remove certain foods from our diets. We don’t just miss the foods, but also the people and the memories that go with them.