Sense Memory -- Lilacs in Jim Thorpe

For Proust it was the madeleine, for me the lilac. The sight of one takes me back to the yard behind my childhood home. When my mother needed milk or bread she sent me to Kline's store, on the street behind ours. The shortest route to Kline's passed through an alley of thick grass separating our yard from theirs. At the edge of Kline's lawn was a mammoth lilac bush that filled the air with scent and bee buzz every spring. Mrs. Kline was a gracious woman who adorned our lives with candy and kindness. Every once in a while she'd hand me my change and say, "If you want to take a few lilacs down for your mom, go ahead."

I was always a champion flower picker. Permission to take some lilacs was a free pass to paradise. Even now I find them hard to resist -- whether they are in some stranger's yard or growing wild along the highway.

Last night, as I walked the streets of Jim Thorpe, I made the loveliest discovery. From the middle of Broadway to the top of town, the entire avenue smelled of lilacs. That perfume is a sure signal that you're not in Philadelphia or New York, not Pottsville or Reading. You are on the main street of one of America's best small towns and, at night, the entire length of it smells like lilacs.