Dirt and Dill.
I have acute olfactory senses. A really good sniffer. I get it from my Dad. It’s sometimes a bother to have such a sensitive nose, but usually I don’t mind. I suppose I don’t know any different because I have always had it.
Since I have always had a sensitive nose, many of my memories are connected to different smells. And since I have a good memory, there are a whole lot of smells that…well, you get the idea.
I can’t smell hogs and their associated confinement buildings without having a flood of memories of having my Uncle Dick’s dog Daphne jump all over me, licking me, and my cousins Gina and Julie rescuing me from her. Uncle Dick raised hogs. It was very stinky out on their farm.
I can’t smell broccoli cooking in a school cafeteria without racing back to the hallways of First Lutheran School in Knoxville, Tennessee. And seeing the faces of Mrs. McClure, Mrs. Speegle, and Mrs. WhateverhernamewasIneverreallyknew who worked in the kitchen.
There is a very distinct smell to the main building on my high school campus. The building is Baepler (pronounced bep-ler). It’s a strange mix of old books, old bricks and old tile. And while it sounds old, musty and disgusting, it’s really a very pleasant smell in my memory. I loved high school.
Nebraska has a smell, too. Well, the Nebraska of my childhood - when we would visit for three weeks every summer - it always smelled the same to me. And now that I live here, with a great deal of regularity in the summer, I smell the smell that is Nebraska. It’s a mixture of dirt and dill. A humid earthy smell, combined with dew and morning sunshine. And dill. Nebraska smells that way.
What smell brings you back somewhere?
I don’t have good senses, including smell. Yeah, I know that is hard to believe. But every time I taste peppermint schnapps I have a gag reflex. I can’t remember why. Hmmmm…..
Thanks to my mom, sometimes my nose doesn’t work. But I’m happy to say that last year while at my high school reunion, i could smell different parts of campus. They were odors I never knew I smelled before - quite possibly because I had been smelling them since the age of 5 when we moved to Concordia. It was actually comforting.
Parmesan/ramano cheese smells like puke.
There’s lots of smells that remind me of other times…but I can’t put my nose on one right now. Except for the smell of certain types of plastic or rubber reminds me of Christmas toys of the long ago past.
OK, no comment about the smells, but it looks like that weird aricept cold sweat, etc spammy thing isn’t related to photos, after all - it;s there on this post.
That’s so weird. I need to check into that…if only I knew how…
I LOVE the smell of gasoline and paint thinner. Paint thinner reminds me of watching my dad work in our garage.
Curt, I can’t smell Pepperidge Farms Chessmen Cookies, and I’m going to guess that it’s for the same reason, minus the alcohol.
I was just talking with a girl at church this morning about nostalgic smells when her twin boys brought in their old-fashioned lunch boxes to be blessed for back-to-school Sunday. They had to order them online. “There’s nothing like the smell of new school supplies!” I said.
Then we talked about the unique smells of the matching thermos, the smell of Playdough, and the awesome smell of freshly-run dittos!! Good times!
AND … for me there is nothing like the smell of fresh lumber - I guess I should have been a guy!
Speaking of the smell of playdoh…
http://www.perpetualkid.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1698
When I first read “The Lord of the Rings” series, I frequently flipped the book pages like a fan so I could smell the books. Every once in a while, I’ll find a book that smells like that, and I’ll be in 7th and 8th grade again.
I always smell new books…and sometimes older ones too…but I just open the darn thing and stick my face right in it and smell. I’ll have to try the fanning method.
How about you take a pervasive smoky chemical smell caused by overheated high-speed drills, combine it with a the sweet stench of nitrous oxide, a spritz of ether and a moist fog of cigar breath. Wet your pants with fear, it’s Dr. Blanton’s dental torture dungeon!
AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!
(That’s just too real. *shudder*)
I love the smell of diesel exhaust, fresh asphalt, engine grease smell (especially on my hands), anything with camphor in it (I am sniffing generic Vicks vapor rub right now).
And bacon. Mmmm….bacon. Reminds me of Grandma and Grandpa’s house.
The earthy smell of the first few minutes of a summer rain shower. We had a nice rain shower a few days ago, during a warm day, which is unusual for this time of year in these parts. The smell brought me back to the summertime thunderstorms of Missouri, and it was great.
Vick’s Vapo-Rub. Childhood comes screaming back at me.