Food and memory

I’ve always had different memories associated with different foods but none more strongly with McDonalds Hotcakes. Now I know you’re saying to yourself, “McDonalds, really?” but bear with me. So I swam all through high school and we had morning practice 3 times a week. To make it to the 5:15am practice, I had to get up at 4:15am (which actually turned out to be more like 4:45am) which usually let me little time for breakfast. I usually managed to down a bowl of cheerios and some milk and juice but that was really only enough to get me through practice. So after practice most of us varsity guys would go down to McDonalds and get breakfast (probably not the most healthy thing in the world but with 9 practices a week, it didn’t really matter what we ate). Sometimes we’d eat down there but most of the time we would bring it back to the school and eat it in the cafeteria at the big round tables. This was always the best part of the swimming season (I mean besides state and nationals) because I think it added to the camaraderie of the team.

I’ve been to McDonalds a few times since high school and even just the smell of the hotcakes is enough to remind me of the great times I had during my four years of high school swimming. But that’s the thing, it’s just a memory. I’ve sat down with the same group of guys and had the same breakfast but it was never the same; they didn’t taste the same and the whole experience just wasn’t the same. McDonalds hotcakes are my breast of Aphrodite. Although they have never disappeared or really changed at all, my buddies and I have all changed and it’s just not the same; it doesn’t make me feel like I’m back in high school, dead tired after a killer practice.