We walked everywhere as kids. 
Mom didn’t drive 
so our options were limited. 
We walked up and down the busy at times streets. 
Cars whizzed by. 
The blaring sirens of firetrucks and ambulances. 
The familiar thud as car tires ran over a dipped manhole cover. 

I don’t remember why we were in Wescott. 
There was no bus route or a friend’s house to visit. 
Then I discovered a bakery. 
I could smell the fresh loaves of bread long before we crossed the threshold. 
My stomach growled, wanting to gobble the aroma that danced and swirled around my nostrils. 

Did we go in? 
Did we buy a prized loaf? 
I don’t remember eating the fresh bread, 
just the aromas lingering as we walked by. 
A secret bakery, no longer hidden from our path. 

Sweet, fresh, warm, beckoning us all inside 
for a bit a reprieve 
from the walking, how our legs would sometimes ache. 
And our stomachs’ noise matched our longing. 

A childhood memory, 
forever etched in my mind 
of a long gone bakery of decades past.