Life's Little Pleasures

 Often life's little pleasures are encountered with our taste buds.   I started to reflect on this and recalling some of my favorite foods.

Every Christmas my parents took the family to visit Aunt Bess, at her farm. She made the best  bread that I ever tasted.  That taste still lingers in my mouth, and I have not experienced anything near its divineness from the regular bread shelf at the grocery store.

In North Manchester, Indiana, where I grew up, there was Clark's Root Beer stand.  Here you could purchase the best Spanish (chili) hot dog on the planet.  That taste has not left me either.

On my birthday, Peggy serves up my favorite banana cake for dessert, along with my request for a Sloppy Joe to consume.  Every year that taste desire seems to return, even over the option of dining out and having an exquisite meal.

These little pleasures are not limited to some remembered tastes. At aunt Bess' farm I enjoyed not only eating her delicious bread, but also her warm hospitality and the happiness we shared at her table.  At the root beer stand it wasn't just that delicious chili dog I enjoyed, but also it was a time to visit and joke with my high school friends.  And that banana cake not only tastes so good every year at my birthday, but it feels good to celebrate another year gone past, a time to be thankful for all life's little pleasures.

"Sometimes the small pleasures in life are the sweetest."        Karen Marie Moning