The smell of Avon’s Skin So Soft bath oil (the original scent) reminds me of a trip to Venezuela I took when I was fifteen. We used the bath oil as a mosquito repellent as we chopped down undergrowth with machetes, built a bridge out of mud, hiked through knee deep rivers during the night. Ah, good times, good times.
Last night before the trick-or-treaters came around, my husband and I carved our punkins. When I pulled the top off, and reached in to start pulling out the stringy bits, the smell just took me back to childhood, and past Halloweens- good memories. When I was a pre-k teacher, whenever we’d let the kids play with playdough, that smell would remind me of childhood also.
When I was growing up in The Frozen North, one of my dad’s church members who had retired to Florida would send us a case of citrus fruit during the holidays. The smell of grapefruit still makes me think of Christmas.
I have a similar reaction to diesel fumes, but (obviously) it brings forth a different memory. I get instantly transported back in time to my late teens. I spent seven consequtive summers on the road with a drum and bugle corps. After each show, there would be buses galore with engines running, all waiting for us to climb in and head to the next show in the next city.
Just last week, after our local High School’s football game my wife and I walked past the opposing team’s school bus. She commented on how awful the smell of diesel was… and I had to relate to her how much I loved that smell.
As a foodophile the olfactory memories for me are legion.
[li] Baking bread (my Danish grandmother’s kitchen).[/li]
[li] Garlic (my aunt’s kitchen in Sweden).[/li]
[li] Dried hay (the fields and hills of my childhood home).[/li]
[li] Slightly damp wool (my highschool girlfriend’s er… uh, we’ll just say, my highschool sweetheart and leave it at that).[/li]
[li] Mothballs (my grandparents’ clothes closet)[/li]
Remember that your nose can sense many more types of smells than your eye can detect different colors.
The smell of gasoline reminds me of my childhood. We spent a lot of time in the car.
The smell of banana bread reminds me of my mom.
Emeraude reminds me of my grandmother and Old Spice reminds me of my grandfather.
The smell of baby powder reminds me of the dogs of my youth (long story).
The smell of newspaper reminds me of my dad.
The smell of rain doesn’t so much remind me of anything, as much as it takes my breath and forces me to stop in my tracks. I have to close my eyes and breathe it in deeply when it starts to fall, especially during those rare summer thunderstorms in Tennessee. Is there anything better than those last few seconds of mind-altering, shockingly oppressive humidity and heat before the rain starts to fall and the anticipation of the smell that’s about to come? And when it starts to slowly hit the pavement, and the world turns into a sauna…oh yeah. That’s the stuff.
When I was fifteen, I went to a Day on the Green concert. Five bands, Metallica was headlining, Soundgarden was also playing, I forget the other bands. At the time, I was more-or-less anti-drug. Never done any, didn’t plan to. A little bit into the first band, somebody behind me lit up a spliff, and I was instantly transported back to my first house. My parents had a little wooden box they kept on the top shelf of a kitchen cabinent, and they used to take it down for parties. I always thought it was just tobacco, 'cause I didn’t know you could smoke stuff besides tobacco. In that instant, when I caught that whiff of marijuana smoke, I suddenly realized my parents used to be pot-heads. A month later, I tried pot for the first time.
I lived in France when I was 2. Although I didn’t think I remembered anything from then, when we went back 7 years later, I recognized the smell from the coal-burning engines.
And I second the one about perfume. I’ve smelled old-lady perfume on young women.
The smell of harvested prunes being dried by sunsweet. A real sickly sweet smell I got for 8 summers growing up in Colusa County, CA. I had been gone 20 years, drove through a while ago and was instantly transported back in time to that nasty smell from a nasty childhood in one of the armpits of america
Walnuts . . you know the golf ball sized things that fall from the tree. You peel away the green shell to get to the nut. My grandma used to make walnut cookies with them. I bought a house with a walnut tree on the lot line; and was I surprised when I first caught a whiff of those walnuts. I had totally forgotten about those wonderful cookies.