Peter,Peter, Pumpkin Eater....

   Many years ago, when I was in Radiology Tech school, at Duval Medical Center,I began my issues with smells.( I make myself laugh! I don't know how I will connect this, but I will!) As a young student, taking care of sick people was new to me. In fact, seeing people naked was a new concept. Seeing poor people, ravaged by diseases that were new to me, eye opening. Working the ER, mind altering. I was like a sponge, soaking in all of the things associated with medicine, except for smells!
  There were no "plug-ins" back in the day. I think maybe the hospital, did not even have much in the line of air conditioning. Body odor, bodily fluids, feces, puke, car wreck smells, burnt skin, and my favorite, autopsy fun!
 My first trip to the county morgue, and the doctor told us to cram Vicks Vapor Rub in our nose? I smeared a little, as if I had the sniffles. The body we were to take the xray of, was a young man, who had been shot, and left in the Florida sunshine for about a week. They unzipped the bag, and I ran to grab the entire bottle of Vicks, which barely masked the decayed smell. Smells are huge, good and bad, and some will never leave you. This morgue visit, I'm talking about some forty years later.
 My first visit to the ER, was taking care of burn victims from Woodbine Georgia. Some kind of plant had blown up, and we received some of the people. I had burnt, dead skin on my shoes, and the smell is just as strong today as it was then. I went upstairs to the Radiologist office, and told him that I did not think this was for me, he smiled. He sent me back to the war zone, and I never let smells change my plan of action.

 However, I feel certain if places, like hospitals used the smell of pumpkin, people would heal better. Maybe even apples, the smell of Autumn. With all my serious thoughts, I believe this to be true.
Pumpkin pudding, pies, cookies, bread, just pause and sniff! You do not even have to like the taste, the smell, makes you take pause.
 There is pumpkin hand soap, lotions and potions!!, face masks, candles and sprays.
The color pumpkin, in nail polish and lipstick, to die for!
This time of the year, when summer leaves me wanting more, pumpkin saves me.
I had to pull over to the side of the road, last week, and hold my pumpkin latte from Starbucks in my hands, for a moment! I held it to my face, the warmth and the smell, thank you baby Jesus, for such a smell.
 If only this divine smell, was available in a jell form, back in my training days? I don't know, maybe I would not have gone back to the ER that day, I guess I had to learn. How would I know how such wonderful smells would touch me, if I had not smelled the worse? I will never know, I just think, pumpkin vs Vicks, Iam voting pumpkin!! (Hospitals, listen to me, I may be right!) and (by the way, it would not be a bad idea, to not paint hospitals the color of smashed peas either!)
  Life is so full of stories, I hope you write yours down.
I got to thinking about Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater
                                  Had a wife, but could not keep her!
He put her in a pumpkin shell, and she never left!!!
The smells of Fall, the smell of pumpkins, will heal you.
***Malia Bagdy, thank you from the bottom of my heart, for giving me your pumpkin pudding recipe. Thank you for making it for me for my Christmas present, you knew I loved it sooo much!!!