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  • Ding, Ding.

    Ding, Ding.

    Texaco gas station. Pleasant Grove, AL.

    I started my car today and got a mile from my house and the gas light came on. The sensible person would find the nearest gas station and fill up. I’m rarely sensible and I never fill up. It’s always the same. Five miles until empty and twenty on five please.

    I just don’t like pumping gas. It’s easy. It doesn’t take up much time. But, it’s awfully inconvenient. It reminded me of a time, not too long ago, when going to the gas station was quite literally one of the best parts of my week.

    The old school across the street was a tall two story building. The outside was wrapped in planks. White planks to be exact, though decades of age started to peel it away. A few yards from the front door of the old school was an out house. The structure was a relic. A monument of a time that was. All of town seemed to move away from that time. A new an improved school built behind it, and now an even newer school built down the road. The school was there before self check outlines at the grocery stores, and before two day shipping. It sat empty, watching over a town that had long since forgotten how important it was.

    Yet, across the street was the Texaco. There were two pumps, and a mechanic shop. There were other gas stations in town, more modern ones. I remember when car washes were installed. But, you couldn’t compete with the Texaco.

    As you pulled up you would run over the black cable that stretched across the lot. When you did a bell would ding with each passing of your tires. Ding. Ding.

    Upon your arrival a man in greasy coveralls approached your vehicle. I can’t remember his name but it was sewn into a patch on the breast of his outfit.

    On the side of each pump was a black bucket full of water with a squeegee. One side was a sponge of some sort and the other was made of rubber. The gentleman with either a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, or drips of tobacco hanging from his lip would tip his hat to you as he cleaned the windshield.

    “Five dollars please.” the financial exchange happened and the man began to pump your gas.

    I looked forward to this. The dinging of the bell. The windshield being cleaned. The place wasn’t clean by any means, but it sure was convenient.

    I didn’t know it then, but this place was the last of its kind. Sooner or later it would join the school house and watch as the world moved on with out it.

    We can leave the out house in the past, sorry old school, but I would give my last pair of socks to go back to that old Texaco.

    Ding, ding.

  • Tomatoes.

    Tomatoes.

    Did you know that there is a word for when a smell brings back a memory? It is called the Proust effect. It’s named after a French writer who noticed the smell of tea made him think of his childhood. Our senses are wonderful things. Thoughts we have hidden away, experiences that we forgot to photograph. They are there waiting for our nose to help us along the way.

    There are many smells that does this for me. My grandmother’s perfume, which is no longer in production. Rain… I love the smell of rain. When clouds give way to the pressure of condensation I am a boy again, barefoot and muddy. I associate smells with holidays. My old sniffer goes crazy during Christmas.

    Yet, there is one smell that really gets me.

    My grandfather had a garden that would make the Babylonians jealous. If it was a vegetable, and we ate it, he grew it. As a child I would walk through his garden and crops would tower over me. Corn stalks were so tall they would block the sun. He protected his garden like a king over a small city. We were not aloud to pick anything…except…tomatoes.

    As children, out favorites were the small ones that didn’t grow any larger than a grape. We called them “Tommy toes” but when I became an adult I found out that highfalutin people call them “cherry tomatoes.” I always wondered who Tommy was, and why our tomatoes were named after his toes. Actually, it was not until writing this that I understood it.

    Tom-e-toes. Tomatoes. (get it?)

    While cherry tomatoes sounds nice, I still prefer to pick a few of Tommy’s toes.

    It was only those small tomatoes that he would let us pick. We would make a pouch with our shirts and fill them up until the fruit spilled over the top, shoving the ones we were able to catch in our mouths. What I remember most wasn’t the taste. What I remember most was when I went to wash may hands there was a smell. They smelled like tomatoes.

    I’m telling you this garden was huge, so we had more tomatoes than Heinz. We ate them in soup, sliced on the side of our meals with a little salt. If there was a way to eat a tomato we did it, or invented one.

    The best way was my Nana’s tomato sandwiches. I do not want to go into too much detail because the recipe is top secret, and rarely has it ever been replicated. Once I ate a tomato sandwich for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert.

    What I remember most, however, wasn’t the taste. What I remember most was the smell. Those sandwiches smelled like tomatoes.

    My family has a garden now. It is nothing compared to what my Papa had. It’s a few beds in my back yard, but we have tomatoes. This year when they began to grow and bloom, there it was. My daughter was with me and she reached down and touched the stem and leaves of the plant.

    “Smell your hands,” I told her. She gave me a look of distrust. It’s okay, I have earned that look.

    “Seriously, smell them,” I asked again. I wanted to give her the gift my grandparents gave me. I wanted one day for her to smell tomatoes and have memories of picking them off the vine with her old man.

    Her nose curled.

    Her eyes squinted

    “I need to go wash my hands,” She said and walked off.

    Well, It was worth a shot. There’s a world full of smells for her. Maybe it will be the smell of the old piano that sits in our dinning room. Perhaps it will be fresh cut grass.

    We never know when it’s going to happen, but its one of those graces that God has given us. We can’t help but breathing, and every now and then that essential reflex gives us a gift. A memory.

    I sure am glad the gift I was given was tomatoes and not Tommy’s toes.