Cafeteria Smells and the Making of School Memories
Smells of the past . . .
Every now and then, if it’s just the right time of the morning when I am giving a tour on campus and I round the corner near the kindergarten playground and the cafeteria, I catch a whiff of a smell that takes me right back to Boston Avenue Elementary. It’s those yeast rolls! I’m sure they are the very same ones I had in my elementary school. That smell, oh my goodness, it is so good.
Then on other days, if it’s just the right time in the afternoon when I am giving a tour and I walk into the cafeteria after all the lunch sessions are over and our ladies are cleaning up, I catch a whiff of another smell that once again takes me right back to Boston Avenue Elementary, DeLand Junior High School and Palm Beach Gardens High School. It’s that “after lunch” cafeteria smell that’s a bit like warm bologna. I’m convinced it’s a universal phenomenon!
Memories of the past . . .
It is funny how triggers to our senses can bring back memories of a time and place in such vivid detail. When I see an older lady with panty hose and chunky heeled pumps on I think of my kindergarten teacher Mrs. Harper. When I see someone eating saltine crackers out of a cellophane wrapper I think of Mrs. Fair, my fourth grade teacher. And if I should cross paths with anyone in this day and age using a chalkboard I would immediately think of Mrs. Kilpatrick, my eleventh grade trigonometry teacher who inevitably was covered from head to toe in chalk when I reached her classroom fourth period each day.
School memories are, for the most part, good memories for me. I loved picking out my new lunch box and school supplies. I loved those big, fat pencils we used when we were first learning to write. I loved SRA reading groups. I loved getting to school early to see my friends near my locker. Pep rallies, homecoming, teachers who were genuinely excited about helping me learn and feeling like I actually progressed in my understanding of science or math are all memories that make me smile and certainly make me cherish those fleeting years.
God’s handprint . . .
Here at Lakeland Christian School, we care about educating our students in the light of God’s word. We want our students to have a clear understanding of their Creator and His call for them to be image bearers as they go out into the world. We want them to grow in their intellectual knowledge and we want them to learn how to love others well and serve those in the workplace, in their churches and in their homes. And rolled up into all of those goals is the day in and day out activity of making memories.
The experiences your students are having each day as they walk these hallways, interact with fellow students and learn from our faculty will be remembered. And we want those remembrances to be good, encouraging and cherished. Twenty years after our students graduate we want them to be able to look back and see God’s handprint on the part of their journey that included LCS. We want them to remember laughter, friendships, spiritual truth, encouragement and even the smell of yeast rolls!
Enjoy the memories of your school days past and join in with us as we help our LCS students create memories this school year that they will reflect on with fondness, joy and gratitude in the future.