What's In A Smell?

There are any number of smells that take you back to some great memory or are simply your favorite smells and stop you in your tracks every time you smell them. When I was young growing up in Tillamook, I used to pull the cover off the grain barrel in my Grandad's barn and tip way over into the barrel because that grain smells was one of the best ever and still is.

When you walk through the Washington Park rose garden on a sunny day, the fragrance of the hundreds of roses makes you heady. Walking through most any neighborhood on a sunny day, the smell of freshly mowed grass connects you immediately to lazy summer days.


I actually attach a number of smells with my childhood. When my sister and I accompanied my mom to the grocer store, one of our favorite aisles was where they had the coffee grinders because the grinding process smelled so good. Then there was helping my dad with one of his building projects and taking big whiffs of the wood (sawdust) after he cut it on his saw. Once in a while my mom baked bread and that smell is one of the best. That's probably what I should blame on the fact that I adore eating bread. The other smell that left me drooling was the old fashioned popping popcorn, you know how the oil-based popping process smelled, especially the old theater popcorn machines, um-hm.


While in grade school, I loved the smells of both finger paints and the freshly mimeographed worksheets we were handed by our teachers. I don't know how much I payed attention to what was on the papers but I definitely got high off the smell.

At my aunt and uncles farm, the smell of newly cut hay was great if you ignored my allergies. There were also a couple of farm smells that bring back less than pleasant memories, one being the chicken coop, the other being the distinctive smell of the cow pasture, chock-a-block full of nasty cow pies, both of which abided at my Grammie and Grandad's small farm.

One of the dishes my mom used to cook that gagged me then and gags me now is liver and onions. There is no way to cover up the foul, gaminess of that one. However, she also used to burn incense that smelled exotically great. I can't really remember, but maybe she was burning the latter to cancel out the former? The other smoky smell I have to say I remember fondly was my Grandad's "Sail" brand tobacco he smoked in his pipe. It was sweet and very pleasant, much better than the smell of my dad's constant companions, pack after pack of Lucky Strikes.


One of the smells I associate with being sick is Mentholatum, which we slathered all over my dad's heated handkerchiefs to put around our sore throats. The cat went absolutely crazy over that smell too. She would bury her face in it after I took it off and roll around and around on the floor wrapped up in it. Another smell that reminds me of my childhood is a heavily chlorinated swimming pool as we experienced ours at the YMCA where all of us girls took swim lessons (yes, even my mom).

Another smell outside of our home and my school that was very unique was that of our meat locker where we went periodically in order to retrieve various cuts of wrapped meat that either came from my dad's hunting or my Grandad's steers.

Lastly, the great outdoors, specifically the pine and juniper forest of the mountains and high desert. That fresh, clean foresty smell is unique and brings great memories to mind. Campfires were another great camping-related smell but not so much if the smoke was constantly following you around. It was a better phenomenon from afar.

I'm afraid that's it for my brief foray down my aroma avenue or fragrance footpath or odor route. Here's to nose accompanied memories!