WHEN CHRISTMAS WAS FOR REAL-My mom was an eighth grade English teacher who loved her school and her students. At Mom's memorial service, her former student Susan Mattison told of a time when my mom gave the class, as a consequence of their misbehavior, the task of writing a long verse from Ecclesiastes. Each student had to copy it ten times. Susan said she thought about trying to just write it eight times and mis number it, but the thought came upon her, "It is not a good idea to fool with God or Mrs. Moseley." As a teacher, Alice Moseley was definitely for real. In this print showing an old time schoolroom, the thought struck me that remembering how things used to be is probably most vivid for me in the smells that are gone. Christmas trees don't seem to fill a room with that cedar smell like they used to. Wood burning stoves had a smell of their own. The oil that they used on wooden school floors had a unique smell. Put all these smells together and, unfortunately, you have an orchestra that plays no more.
