Right now, KING-fm is playing a series of old North American carols (Shaker songs, and Old-South carols, and Appalachian carols, and Spirituals).

I remember reading somewhere once that the smell of a particular beverage (a dark beer, maybe?) was "enough to give you memories you didn't have."

I'm having that experience as I sit and listen to those carols (and grade on my LAST biostats exam). I can see the dim, wood-paneled room, lit by only candles, and the people standing there in their simple dark clothing, the women with white collars and caps on their heads. And it's cold outside and the wind is howling.

or some of them, I can smell spiced cider and flummery and chilly night air and evergreen boughs, and I can see well-dressed young men and women descending from their carriages, preparing to go to a ball...and the servants in the back room, gossiping about the people at the party and "snitching" a bit of the delicacies they have prepared but will mostly not get to eat.