Sense Memory

They say that smell is the sense most tied to memory. I can believe that, because right now I'm sitting on a balcony where a guy is watering flower boxes with a hose, and damned if it doesn't take me back to early fall evenings in Bartlesville, sitting on the back porch while the sprinklers were watering the flowers. And summer afternoons pulling weeds, sipping from a thermos full of Lemon-flavored iced tea. And clipping Zinger's fur. And tossing the Frisbee in the vacant lot next door. And the woods, and the barbecue grill, and chirping tree frogs outside my window. And the call of the whipporwill in the morning. The sounds and sights and smells of Oklahoma, in the City on the Edge of the World. What a magnificent thing the mind is.