It's 9AM.

Does that smell like freedom?

Chris Lowry

Apr 11, 2023

Bonanza was a special treat.

Reserved for once a year or so.

Pennies pinched and portions of paychecks put away to save up for that rainy day.

A meat storm of sirloin and a salad bar with all the trimmings.

Every so often, especially in summer, someone slaps a slab on the grill and I get a whiff of 1979.

Time travelling by scent.

It doesn’t happen as much as I like anymore.

I used to look forward to long slow rains just to catch a smell in the air.

Wet earth, wet air and Southern AR.

When that smell happened, it carries me straight back to a Saturday morning in Pine Bluff.

The front door open to the black screen door, a slow and steady rain filling the front yard.

Pippi Longstocking on the television, my brother sitting next to me on the green vinyl couch, my Mom getting ready to run the Hoover upright over the blue shag carpet.

We lived in the front half of a duplex my Papaw owned, two blocks from their home.

My mom cooked a thousand hamburgers in that 10 x 10 kitchen but I can’t tell you how it ever smelled.

Just the morning rainshower that comes for an unexpected visit every now and then.

If the senses blunt with age, sight goes dim, taste goes dull and hearing goes huh?

Then maybe.

Just maybe.

The memory of memories can stay sharp enough to keep them coming back.

A once a year reminder like Bonanza once was.

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