Memories of Eskimos

Earlier this evening the scent of something burning wafted through my open windows. It’s not an uncommon occurrence here and I sniffed warily to identify the smell. My neighborhood is too residential to get people burning trash or garden debris but it does sometimes happen. It was far more likely to be BBQ smoke, a smell of summer that I adore. The smoke was too woodsy to be hot dogs and too sweet to be plain steaks; but it seemed so familiar. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to decide where I remembered that scent.

My first thought? Blueberries.

Well, it was obvious that these people weren’t grilling blueberries…or that I had at once in my life smelt blueberries cooking yet oddly enough, that was what was coming to mind. It took me a few moments to recall something other than small tasty fruit but I finally placed the memory. It all went back to my 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Bulmer.

You know when people  wax on and on about the teacher that changed their life? The one person who is talked about like they are half fairy-godmother and half Yoda? That person for me is Mrs. Bulmer. I’ll always love her for telling me that I was an author and always encouraging me to write…but she was a great teacher in other ways as well. She brought in her Chow dogs for lessons, took us to her backyard in the country for science and did an entire unit on Eskimos. For months everything in class had to do with Eskimos. We looked at Alaskan maps, we learned about whale blubber and I’m sure even our math lessons had an Eskimo connection. The entire thing culminated with a trip to our local park in the middle of winter. We ice fished on the pond, we played games that Eskimo children would play (tossing things on a blanket that I think we pretended was polar bear fur) and ate food that Eskimos might eat.

Blueberries and venison. Even now, I can picture us huddled around the grill (three giant steps back for safety, kids!) as Mrs. Bulmer’s husband heated up the venison. We had run around in the snow, sat on carpet squares on a frozen pond and tried not to think too hard about slimy fish and pretend that we were flying into the air propelled by polar bear skin. It was easy to pretend that we were no longer in a suburban park in the middle of Michigan but on the frozen ground of Alaska as we all craned our heads to get a whiff of the sweet smelling smoke off the grill.

That smell coming through the window tonight took me back to standing in that park, clutching my plastic plate of blueberries and venison, and imagining that I was a little Eskimo girl living an adventure in the wilds of Alaska. Thank you, Mrs. Bulmer for giving me that memory…and thank you, random griller in my neighborhood for bringing it back.