That New School Year Smell

My good friend Donna told me over breakfast recently that she loved this time of year.  It made her think of the excitement of starting a new school year when she was a child and the scents and sensations that a new school year brought.  She said that she loved the smell of her new box of crayons, her pencils, even the paper in her new notebooks.  We both agreed that the smell of paste was also alluring!  The scent of cigars also weighed into the mixture, for at her school, elementary school-age children were asked to bring a cigar box from home in which to place their pencils, erasers, crayons and more.  Our conversation drifted to new school clothes and what that entailed.  Neither one of us boasted big, new school wardrobes.  It was more like a new dress or two.  Donna said that her mother always made her a new dress for the new school year.  It was frequently made of brown fabric, for her mother associated brown with autumn.  Sometimes, the brown fabric would feature little flowers and at other times a subtle plaid.  She said that the feel of the new fabric meant a new school year until the dress had its first washing.  We ate our blueberry pancakes that morning, reminiscing and reveling in the happy memories of those old school days when the scent of crayons was the most delectable scent of all.