1952 Catholic School Classroom
Photo from thedailysuse.blogspot.com
I can still smell the day
my soft leather bookbag
fresh oiled with linseed
looked after no less than
my trusty old baseball mitt
pulpy brown paper
for covering textbooks
the redolent shavings
from sharpened new pencils
ammonia laced water
cleaned fountain pen nibs
virgin black and white marble
clad ruled composition books
cracked freshly open
clean crisp and awaiting
new knowledge and penmanship
heady with hopes and
excitement imagining
teacher and classmates
who’d make for enjoyable
days amid chalk-dusted
blackboards and inkwells
although it’s all well more
than sixty years gone
I can still smell the day
Poesy plus Polemics 
This poem met all my expectations plus. A little younger, a child of the sixties, my pungent rubberized raincoat seems to have masked my early classroom aroma memories. Your piece is bringing them back. Thanks.
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appreciate your comment – I too remember rubber rain gear and galoshes
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Your sensual poem brings the smell to my nose, along with the butterflies of school days. I can smell the wood shavings from the pencil sharpener.
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happy that it triggered memories for you, too
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How timely, with school just around the corner. You appeal to my senses in an odd with this piece.
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it bubbled up from watching my grandchildren preparing for the new term
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Took me back to a younger time.
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happy that it triggered some memories for you, too
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that sparked some wonderful memories…
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I’m pleased that it did so
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Yes! The schools of the 50s – ink pens, chalk, brown-paper covered books, and classes that looked just like the one in your picture. Memories – mostly good.
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it’s of an era that many of us remember – appreciate your comments
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Wow, what a glorious poem, and it does take me back to similar smells especially; however, I dare say I greeted each new school year with much trepidation, rather than the excitement you speak of. Do you know what that red dust-type stuff was that the janitors would use, or “create”, as they cleaned the hallway floors??
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thanks so much, bennetta – as a lad, I always looked forward to it – wasn’t until my teens that it lost some of its wonder – don’t recall any red stuff
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Beautiful writing. Is that you in the front lower right of the photo? —–Chagall
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ha ha – no – but it looks very much like my childhood classrooms
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Marvellously atmospheric. I remember it all well.
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thanks kindly, jack
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Oh, oh, I’ll read it a thousand times! The first day of school is a thing which cannot be replaced.
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you made me smile big time – isn’t it amazing how odor memory can be so vivid
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Such a vivid memory 🙂 Times certainly have changed but I too remember the first day of school fondly.
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I find aromatic memories are some of the strongest
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Reblogged this on Poesy plus Polemics.
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A day in the life of memories no less! Magnificent.
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a dip in the pool of nostalgia
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Reblogged this on OUR POETRY CORNER.
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thank you for sharing my poem with your readers
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“I can still smell the day”: such a great line. The line about the composition books reminded my of “Emily of New Moon” by L.M. Montgomery. There are three books in the series (written by the author of “Anne of Green Gables”). If you’ve never read either the Emily or the Anne books, I highly recommend them. The writing is magical and marvelous, and the characters very real.
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thanks for the recommendation
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Perfection is phrasing, once again.
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and you are kind, as always
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