Most of us are created to enjoy the 5 senses of sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste. The idea to write about them came to me yesterday morning when I used hazelnut coffee creamer. I’d put in the back of the refrigerator after my daughter had bought it for me, thinking I liked it. Out of my favorite French vanilla, I used it this morning. When I took a sip of the hot beverage, it instantly took me to the beautiful Colorado mountains. It surprised me.

My son, Clay, has just moved from there, but while he lived there, my visits never failed to fill me with awe as we visited the Rocky Mountains not far from his home. But before we’d take to the mountains, at breakfast we’d have a good meal followed by hazelnut flavored coffee. I never told him I just wanted coffee to taste like coffee because, but after all, I was his guest. So, after sipping that coffee yesterday, I spent a long time looking at pics of Colorado on my phone. See where one taste can take you?

Another time, last year, as I was walking around my acreage, I passed a honeysuckle bush I’d planted by the road entry about 10 years ago. The fragrance of the early summer honeysuckle vine blossoms instantly took me back 56 years ago to late 1965 when I was dating my then fiancé, (Lewis) James Gillespie. Honeysuckle vines grew on one side of our front porch. After we came home from a date, we’d walk to the porch and sit on the old metal chairs and chat awhile in the cool breezes heavy with honeysuckle fragrance. No matter where I am, when I get a whiff of honeysuckle, I go back over a half century!

When I see the new glowing green leaves on all all kinds of trees around my place, it reminds me of Daddy wanting people to learn the different kinds of trees in this area. When we were transforming one of our lake areas to be a local swimming and picnicking area for the public, he made small wood signs with names of trees on them and nailed them to those specific trees on a narrow walking trail. That was in about 1966 and it stayed with me. In the late 1990, James and I were always improving our 34 acres with rock gardens and always planting new trees.

As an instructor at Seminole State College, I went through steps to develop an English Honor Society, in which I was always thinking of activities for students and employees. One was inviting them out to the 10-acre canyon. For about a year before, I’d worked hard preparing the area by cleaning the edge of the canyon to provide sitting spaces for people to sit, share their favorite readings and just soak in the peace, quiet, and beauty. I had also cut a path through thick brush. Then, I painted wooden pieces with names of trees on them and attached them to the trees on the trail into the canyon area. Several groups came to read their favorite writing on the edge of the beautiful canyon. In the distance, one student played the flute, another strummed lightly on a guitar during the whole hour or so of readings. When they see a tree, a wood violet, or a canyon, will they remember any of these bits of creation? I hope so. I extended Daddy’s vision of teaching people a fun way to learn about and appreciate nature.

I’ve had the privilege of traveling to many beautiful places. On one particular highway to Texas there is a large structure created in brick of a horse. Whenever I see anything in brick—houses, partition walls, fancy patios, or large buildings, I think of James who laid brick for almost 40 years. It is said by many that he was the best bricklayer in the country. He could just look at a house and tell if the brick was well laid. Even though I didn’t get him to brick our house, I did get brick flowerbeds and a beautiful fireplace. I TOUCH the smooth brick hearth, and imagine his hands rubbing the brick to be sure everything’s even before calling it finished. More than likely, some of you readers live in a house he bricked.

And, the last sense is that of HEARING. Anytime the melodies from the 60s, like from Elvis, Clarence Frogman Henry, Conway Twitty, Olivia Newton John, Chubby Checker, Dean Martin, Leslie Gore, the Beatles and on and on, I go back to high school days as quick as a wink. They’re memories of dates, parties, and just listening to popular music on the radio for hours on end.

Isn’t it awesome how our brain records memories like little movies of incidents experiencing the senses of taste, smell, sight, touch, and sound throughout our lives? And, when we just encounter an object, or sound, or smell, or taste, or touch, it can tap a memory from as long as 70, 80, or even 90 years in less than a minute!

I was told that if the mind was studied, it would take the size of a football field to lay out its structure. So, I see it this way: there are thousands of little doors that have information collected through the years hidden behind them. We are able to recall how to do things. And, from the time we learned something, after that, we are able to do it then without even thinking. Little doors can be opened when we want to remember something…or when one of the 5 senses tap on it to open for us. Behind those doors are stored everything we see, hear, touch, taste or smell.

So we want to see that our children and ourselves will only put things in our brains that we are instructed to if we want a good life. These things are “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable—if there is any moral excellence and if there is any praise—dwell on these things.” [Holman Christian Standard Bible, 2011). Over 2,000 years ago it was inspired by God and written by his believers these wise instructions for a better life. Wow! It even still works today.