The Sweet Smells of School

(This was published in the August issue of Leawood Lifestyle magazine.)

Every time I step into a school cafeteria (which is easily 100 times a year) the acrid smells of sour milk, baked mystery meat, and bleachy cleansers swirl into an unpleasant olfactory gumbo that assaults my brain’s limbic system, somewhere near the hippocampus. That’s the spot where smells trigger memories.

Instantly I’m hurled back to third grade. I’m sitting at the lunch table nibbling on a crumby peanut butter sandwich and an apple, while my friend Steve inhales a “real” lunch of potato chips, a Ho-ho, and a can of Cragmont Lemon-lime soda wrapped in foil. His mother must really love him.

Over in the corner stands George the janitor standing ready with his mop and bucket and a box of sawdust, just in case one of those nervous stomachs decides to heave back its lunch.

Ahh…the smells of school send my mind reeling. Each room and each hallway prompts its own cascade of memories.

Over in the dank and musty gym – the woody smell of the fl oor mixed with rubber and leather and perspiration-soaked cotton reminds me of the single glorious victory we had in five years of elementary and middle school basketball.

In the kindergarten room, the distinctive aroma of Play-Doh, and Elmer’s glue, and the dusty scent of construction paper takes me back to a time when I was five, and my classmates and I sat with our eyes riveted to a tiny black-and-white television screen as we watched Apollo 14 splash safely back to earth.

And in early afternoon, in almost every classroom, nostrils are shocked to attention by the unique clammy bouquet of a gaggle of sweaty students fresh from recess. I’d like to bottle that scent and market it to retired teachers as “Eau de Playground.”

And then there are memories that trigger smells, like purple-inked hand-outs duplicated on ditto machines. Cool and still slightly damp as they come off the silver cylinder – there wasn’t a kid in my class who didn’t kill a few brain cells sniffing that irresistible chemical odor.

But the most hope-filled smells of all come from the supply aisles at the back-to-school sales.

Every August I’d joyfully inhale a stack of brand new school supplies that held infinite promise. There’s nothing that reeks of hope as an unmarked Big Chief tablet and an unblemished Trapper Keeper, or a freshly sharpened #2 pencil and a soft pink eraser. I’d cram what could fi t into a sweet chemical-smelling plastic pencil bag with a zipper that still worked.

The smell of school is in the air. Think of the possibilities!

Mary, Queen of Victory, pray for us!

This is me in the 5th grade (1975).
Nice hair!









We just finished up Catholic Schools Week! And a saintly week it was. I kicked it off at St. Ann's in Prairie Village, then St. George had a snow day, so we rescheduled. We rocked the gym at Holy Cross in Overland Park, and finished with a rousing version of "This Little Light of Mine" at St. Regis in Kansas City.

This week brings me back to my roots, as I am a product of Catholic education. 17 years! It's true. Kindergarten through eighth grades at St. Peter's, Rockhurst High School, and Marquette University. (I suffered through one semester at University of Missouri - Columbia and, well, let's just say that going to school with 25,000 other kids wasn't for me. And I did my master's at University of New Mexico, so I have a little "public" in me.)

With the Catholic Education I got the guitar masses, uniforms, getting out of school to serve funerals, and nuns. We were taught by the Sister's of Mercy at St. Peter's -- which always cracks me up. Mercy, right? Like, they're supposed to live it and dispense it as Christ did. I swear my scalp is permanently tattooed (I can see it now that I'm balding) from where Sr. Jean used to tap the ball-point of her pen into my head. (Sr. Jean was an awesome English teacher and generally very cool, but that pen hurt.)

When I started kindergarten in the late 60's, the nuns all wore habits -- a couple of them in the full Blues-Brothers-Penguin garb, most in veils. By the time we graduated in the late 70's most of them had kicked the habit and transformed into groovy progressive nuns. Sr. Damien and St. Johanna were our principals, and both very cool. Sr. Colette was a sweet, old rebel-rouser -- always pulling a wagon full of food for the poor and rallying for some cause. Sr. Cecilia-Marie taught my sisters and subbed in my class a couple of times, which was enough to scare me. There was another nun who was about seven feet tall, but nobody seemed to know her real name. We just called her Sr. Jolly Green Giant. (We were so polite.)

If you forgot to bring your lunch to school (as I did often), you had to climb the stairs of humiliation up to the convent on the top floor of the school building, knock on the door, confess your forgetfulness to the aged sister-at-arms, and sit in penitential silence while she fixed you a PB&J. The deafening hum of the fluorescent lights and that sickening ever-present smell of gravy made the wait maddening. With a slight bow and a quick "Thank you, Sister." I'd split down the stairs, two at a time, back to the chaotic safety and comforting sour-milk-smell of the cafeteria.

There are a lot of glorious mysteries about elementary school that still linger. One mystery was the unusual ritual before the start of each basketball game -- our team would huddle together, put a hand in a pile in the middle, get a pep-talk from the coach, and then finish with a rousing and manly "Mary, Queen of Victory, pray for us!" What was up with that? And who started that tradition? As if Mary was taking sides between St. Elizabeth and St. Peter. Or, as if Mary had ever even played basketball.

People write whole books about their Catholic School experiences, as could I. Show me one public school kid who can match our tales.