Recently I was reminded of the incredible power of our body senses. My brother Duane (Osborn) shared an experience with me, but first of all it is necessary to provide some background information.

When my siblings and I were growing up on the ranch, we worked hard during the summer, putting up hay, checking cows, and doing other seasonal chores, so we didn’t take many trips, or go much of anywhere for that matter — except when there were several days of rain which, believe it or not, was pretty common in July.

It took a few days for the hay to dry after one of those big rains, so we sometimes went fishing, usually up the Williams Fork River, near Hamilton. Since the decision was usually “spur of the moment,” after Dad checked the hay, we didn’t have time to fix a lunch. So we just stopped at the Hamilton Store which was on our way and bought lunch.

Boy, was that a treat! We bought hot dogs, buns, chips, marshmallows, and cookies — all items that we didn’t have very often. We didn’t have soda pop very often, either, certainly not to the degree that we all drink it today. So buying a soda pop was a big deal, too. We chose glass bottles of soda from the cooler in the store. Very often the chosen flavor was strawberry.

After making our purchases, we drove up the river, selected a place to fish and eventually made a fire and cooked our wieners and marshmallows and washed everything down with strawberry soda. That was years ago.

Craig and bought a can of strawberry soda. He doesn’t usually buy strawberry flavor, but for some reason he did this particular day. Guess what? Duane reported how amazed he was after that first sip. The taste immediately triggered the memory of those fishing trips.

I’ve been thinking about some of the memories that have been triggered by my senses. There are a lot of them to be sure. For example, the “smell” of taffeta ( a fabric not used so much today) brings back the memory of a newly-sewn prom dress. The sound of rain on the roof at just the right time of the day triggers the memory of rain on the hospital roof the afternoon after my son Jody was born, and rubbing my hands in the soft hair on a cow’s side brings up the many times I brushed my 4-H steers.

“Mind-boggling” is the word that comes to mind when thinking about the many roles our senses of hearing, sight, taste, smell, and touch play in our lives and how they can trigger memories such as a childhood fishing trip. (That’s not to speak of their roles in the ways memories were stored in the first place.) Mind-boggling, indeed.