The Bakery
The smell was exactly the same as it was forty years ago – the doughy comfort of freshly-baked bread and crescent rolls mingled with the sugary sweetness of coffee cake, shoo-fly pie, and the best cream or jelly-filled doughnuts ever made.
Instantly transported through time, I was seven years old standing with my cousin, noses pressed up against the glass of the display case where they showed a birthday cake with a menagerie of decoration options. The circus train at the edge of the cake passed by ballerinas and baseball players, a zoo’s worth of animals frozen in motion, laughing clown heads, tiny pink and blue baby bassinets, and a comparatively large bust of a graduate stuck smack in the middle of it all as if overseeing the celebration.
The display cake was long gone, but the rest was unchanged; the same tiles still shone on the walls and under our feet, the same glass cases offered the same baked goods of my childhood, and the same smells wrapped around me in a blanket of memory.
My daughter breathed deeply, taking in the smells and, I suspect, a taste of the history as we made our selections and I remembered aloud late Sunday suppers of baked goods and coffee or milk spent with family around my Grandparents’ table.
I was certain I saw my Grandfather standing there beside us just as alive as he was when he brought my cousin and me here…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Each week, the lovely and talented Ivy Walker hosts a link-up challenging writers to spin a tale in six sentences – no more, no less.
Each week, the lovely and talented Ivy Walker hosts a link-up challenging writers to spin a tale in six sentences – no more, no less.
Published 2/9: This week’s cue is BREAD.
Click on the link right here to link your own post and read more Six Sentence Stories from some wonderful storytellers.
Updated 11/9: This weeks’ cue is BAKED.
Click here for the November 9th link-up and some really great takes on the “BAKED” prompt.
Love this? Share the love and tell someone!
32 Comments
Comments are closed.
Lovely story…and now I’m hungry for my grandmother’s pumpkin bread. 🙂
Thank you! And I love pumpkind bread! Great fall treat.
I know places like that, I love places like that. Memory triggers… awesome take on this.
I’m always struck when it happens at how vivid the connections are. Thanks, Paul.
next to songs, are there any more potent cues in (most) of our lives than the emotional seductress of the mind, Smell, (and her much more respectable and wholesome half-sister, Aroma?)
I think sensory experience is very powerful, particularly when mixed with the mind.
Your post brought back memories to me of a certain bakery where it was possible to smell those wonderful smells just driving by in a car with the windows rolled down. Great job of depicting the bakery.
Thanks, Pat. The only problem with the open window thing is that I’d want to go in every time! 😀
A wonderful, wonderful memory transporting me back to the town bakery of my childhood, face pressed to the glass case and fingers crossed that mom would buy some some filled donuts or giant “elephant tracks” along with the bread she needed. We have no traditional bakeries in our small city, only the ones in grocery chain stores, and they are a poor substitute indeed. Zilla is blessed to get to share this special place and make her own memories!
Now what in the world are elephant tracks??? 😀 We have a few small bakeries left around here as well as other businesses like the Italian market, the butcher, the Mediterranean foods store…and I love that they’re all still here. I love taking her to places we knew and loved as kids and places that connect her to family. That happens far too seldom today.
I will admit our supermarket bakery at our particular market is pretty good – but not the same for sure. The big plus there, though, is that they use all natural ingredients and no artificial dyes in their baked goods so my kid can actually have a birthday cake with icing from there! Most places aren’t doing that so they have a big fan in me.
What a beautiful generational story… Great way to experience family.
I love sharing things with her that I loved and that connect her to loved ones no longer with us. I think too often people don’t pass along history anymore and that’s sad.
This is a beautiful story. Poignant tears prickled in the back of my eyes.
Yeah, me too. Then and now. And thank you. <3
What a fun story! You have wonderful sentences that weave a complete story – very talented. 🙂
And…have you had your tea today? Hehe.
Thank you, Cynthia. And no, I haven’t had tea – or anything else – in about three days. Everyone here is down with the flu. Nasty. 🙁
Liked it then, like it now. Thanks for the refresher
Yeah, me too. Thanks, Paul.
I’m going to stand here a moment longer and savor each sentence. Mmmmm.
Awesome. <3
Your words and picture took me back to the time I lived in a little French village, a few doors away from a boulangerie. I can still remenber the smell of the croissants and baguettes that greeted every day.A delightful piece.
Click to read my Six
Oh, that is wonderful, Keith! I’m so happy this transported you. <3
There’s nothing quite like a much loved smell to take you back to a special place or time. The smell of hojaldras frying does it for me, i am in Mawmaw’s kitchen every time.
Absolutely. That instant transport is so powerful. I’m fascinated by how certain smells (other senses, too) can take us to another time and place so effectively.
We live near a bakery and coffee roastery and the smells you describe I am lucky to have every day of the week. Hopefully your daughters children will also get to smell them.
Too tempting! I do hope the bakery is still here long enough for that to be true, Irene. That would be wonderful.
aroma (especially of food) is surely the most potent of past-life recapitulation (aka ‘momentary time travel’)…. totally takes me back.
Agree. Definitely works fast on me.
Loved this little bit of reminiscing … and I was smelling the baking wafting up around me as I read it.. well done
gramswisewords.blogspot.com
Thank you, Marian. It’s a wonderful place.
Thank you for sharing this again. I love ever bit as much as I did at the first reading. It still brings back such wonderful memories for me.
Thank you, Pat. Same for me.