It was 1968. My dad was making his first visit “home” to Scotland after a 23-year absence. As a family we were able to join him on his journey down Memory Lane. A few things had changed. We stood on a knoll at a place called the Green Knowe, and looked down on what had been the enchanted meadows of my father’s childhood. Obviously he would have to rely on happy memories, because the present reality was a sprawling parking lot, a garbage-choked stream, and a tenement building.
But some things seemed to have survived the years. The sheep-dotted hills. The seaside at Largs; even the same family renting boats to young boys wanting to try their hand at fishing in the Firth of Clyde.
And there was Shawlands Academy in Glasgow, where Dad spent his boyhood school days. We could tell it meant a great deal to him to be back there. We weren’t privy to all that swept through his mind as we stood before the somber gray buildings. But he did let us in on one happy memory of those far-off days. We got to taste the past. Well, sort of.
The Ice Cream Slider. That delectable way of transporting ice cream down the gullet between two thin wafers (2×4 inches) and upgraded to a Double Nugget when married to marshmallow and dipped in chocolate. The slider is a common treat in Scotland, we were informed, as my father led us around the corner from the school. Let’s see…yes…it’s still there!
We felt the mounting excitement as we made our way along Pollokshaws Road toward a little, nondescript news agent.
“This shop’s sliders had the best ice cream. It was on my way home from school.” For two pennies little boys could cover a day of endless facts, tests, and flint-strict teachers with a cool, refreshing, slider.
We all had to have one, of course. And soon we were standing outside again in the sunshine, each with a slider–the slider of all sliders–in our hands. Dad was still in the shop paying for this piece of history (and no doubt reminiscing about the good ol’ days with the clerk).
We couldn’t wait. The ice cream was starting to melt. I took a lick. Wha-a-at was that?!
I had always questioned if you could trust the taste buds of a nation that relished hot bone marrow on bread, blood pudding, the lining of a cow’s intestinal tract–who had exalted the sheep’s stomach to a national monument. Now I was having it confirmed. The slider was awful! We were all finding it out at the same moment, just as my smiling Dad was stepping out expectantly, wondering how we were enjoying this taste of his childhood.
If this was a taste of his childhood, he had had a rough time! He wanted to know what we thought. How was it? What could we say? It was hard enough to turn our warped lips into a smile.
Fortunately, he couldn’t wait for an answer, and tasted his own. It was not a pretty sight. He looked at the treat as if it had slapped him. Defrauded him. Stolen from him. The things were gritty and sour. Something had gone wrong.
Later we had some sliders that had not spoiled, and they were delicious. But it wasn’t the same. The moment had been lost; nostalgia had been forced into reality. Welcome to the real world. Things can go sour over time.
Taste is obviously more than information travelling from our receptor cells along our glossopharyngeal nerve to our brain.
There are taste buds of the soul, too. Memory. Imagination. Esthetics. Conscience. With these we taste experience.
Some tastes in life are acquired. “O taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8). “How sweet are Thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Ps. 119:103). He and His Word will never turn sour on you. And if it’s good now, what will heaven taste like?
It’s good to remember the sweetness of our spiritual youth, the happy times in the first blush of our Christian life. You may not be able to go back, but you can go on with the sweet memories of God’s unfailing goodness.