“They” say that the sense of smell is tied very closely to memory. Want a citation? There you go. (Is about.com “they”?)
There are three smells from my childhood that still trigger powerful happy memories for me. When I encounter them today, if I have the time, I stop and consider them carefully.
- The self-cleaning oven cycle. This was unambiguously a bad smell. It was hot and industrial. It was as if the kitchen in my house had suddenly transformed into a little area of Southern Tool, but without the pleasant connotations of being with my dad at work. My mother ran the cleaning cycle on our oven two or three times a year, but she always did it right before she started Christmas cooking and baking. So I loved the smell of the self-cleaning oven cycle in the middle of December, because it was the lead-in for two straight weeks of non-stop smellarific paradise. I sure do miss my mom. Have I ever mentioned that?
- A well-run aquarium shop. Oh, this one is just glorious. The smell of healthy tropical fish and aquatic plants is rich, clean, and primally natural. It’s vibrant. It smells like what you’d imagine “life” would smell like in a scratch-and-sniff book. I was usually one-on-one with my dad when I smelled it, so there’s that good association too. The two big places I got this one were The Fish Net in Saks, on 431 close to where I grew up in Anniston; and Water World in Decatur, just south of the Beltline on 6th Ave. Both have been gone for decades. Practically all shops now do considerably more than tropical fish, so the smell is markedly diluted.
- An old car. Until Dad got interested in his lake house, the primary thing he did with discretionary time and income was restore classic cars. We had a near-endless stream of cool stuff coming through the garage when I was growing up—Corvettes, Mustangs, a Thunderbird or two. There’s a complex smell cocktail to a classic car. The dominant smell is a sweet, warm one of gasoline exhaust untouched by emissions controls of any kind. Some of this persists whether the engine is running or not. It’s mixed with mostly interior smells—vinyl, rubber, the olfactory signature of a 30-year-old window or top motor that still works fine, but that lets you know it’s doing so. Again, this is also happy time with my dad—hanging around while he worked, or accompanying him to auctions.
Are there any particularly evocative smells from your childhood? What are they? How do they make you feel today if/when you encounter them?
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Hard to just remember them with brute force thinking, but they usually hit me like a ton of bricks when I encounter them. There is one that pops to mind – a deep south bush that grows flowers that smell like bananas. Not exactly. But close. This smell is so precise – it brings me to my grandmother’s back yard. I think of brick.patios, tinker toys and some.wierd giant legos,.pre-duplo.
Interesting observation – that this isn’t a question that necessarily responds effectively to brute force thinking. I’ve been considering my answers for a while.
I just thought of another one. The streetcars in new Orleans emit this slightly “burny” smell, most likely coming from the electrical contacts. It’s intermittent; you’ll smell it drifting in through the windows on acceleration from time to time. It smells a bit like marijuana, but it is its own distinct odor. Countless memories of trips up and down St. Charles flood in with that one, but since I will only smell it at the source of immersion, that’s understandable.