Gone But Not Forgotten

By Andy Kober

The pungent aroma of Gardenia permeates my childhood memories.
My wife has been diligently working with her plants and flowers, some days until nearly dark. For her it is a labor of love as it is with all who enjoy the colors and smells provided by flowers. It also serves to remind me of childhood memories.
Many of you my age and older grew up in homes without air conditioning as home air conditioning units did not start becoming widespread in rural areas until the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s.
During spring, summer and fall, windows were often kept open to help provide natural cooling – at least compared to outside. Some older large houses had tall ceilings to help with keeping the inside cooler. The house I grew up in was old but rather small so did not have tall ceilings and we used fans to circulate air.
The bedroom I slept in, later shared with my younger brother, was closest to the woods, and cooler air, so the fan in my window was turned to pull that cooler air in. A fan elsewhere was turned to exhaust the warmer inside air. Most of you in my age group and older would have likely shared a similar experience.
Outside my bedroom window was a gardenia bush. I do not know the specific type of Gardenia bush or how it came to be there as it was there when dad bought the house and property.
GARDENIAS have pretty white flowers when in bloom and produce a very strong, pungent aroma when flowering. In that small bedroom the scent of the Gardenia would become so intense as to be overpowering. When that bush was blooming – and it seemed to bloom forever — everything in my bedroom smelled like Gardenia, sometimes strong enough to be nauseating.
There were two windows in my bedroom, one on the south wall and the other on the east wall and that darn bush was right on the corner.
There was no getting away from it.
I came to loathe that Gardenia bush, almost to the point of hating it.
It would be in the very late 1960s that dad put central heat and air in the old house and the smell of Gardenia was largely banished to the outside, over time becoming a childhood memory. I mellowed a bit and so did those memories. The once obnoxious odor of Gardenia actually became a pleasant memory in the way that memories do. It is joined with memories of playing in the woods, spending time in the creek that flowed in the woods behind us, and riding our bicycles to Logs Landing – the swimming hole we regularly visited.
THE OLD house is long gone, sold and moved shortly after I left home in 1974, as dad and mom had built a new house. I was told it was moved somewhere along the Savannah River as a fish camp.
The woods behind my bedroom window disappeared shortly afterward, victim of properties being sold and more houses built. The creek we played in is no longer there as the water now flows underground through drainage pipes to be discharged somewhere. I have no idea the status of Logs Landing since I have not visited it in over 50 years.
That Gardenia bush is gone too. It disappeared about time the old house was sold and moved, and I never thought to ask what happened to it. All that is left now are the memories and all too soon those will be gone as well.
Perhaps as Theresa is planting flowers and shrubs I might slip in an unnoticed Gardenia to smell and remember.
Good memories are good things.
That’s my opinion.
Andy Kober can be reached at andykober@hotmail.com