Floor Wax, Yeast Breads, and Mother’s Soup

Memories spark up like static electricity when certain smells and colder weather hit at the same time.  Mother always waxed the hardwood floors with Johnson paste wax before the holidays.  She always baked fresh breads, but it smelled better when the weather was cold.  And then she made soup.  Cold weather and Mother’s soup were meant for each other like ducks and shotguns were made for hunters.

Years ago when our house was full of young things and all their shoes, boots, and clumps of icy gloves, we would have a pot of soup and I would remember home.  And when I baked fresh bread, we always had to have two loaves without any heels left because each child and a husband thought that was the best part of a loaf.  And I remembered home.

Will the coffee and freshly flipped pancakes be the smells that awaken memories for our little ones?  Maybe it will be furniture polish.  Whatever sparks their memories, we can always hope that those memories will bring them home again.