# Nostalgic smells
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [September 3, 2016, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844 "2016-09-03T01:30:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Jennshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennshark)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/1 "2016-09-03T01:30:22Z")
What “old time” smells do you find evocative and/or very difficult to replicate these days?
Mine:
-Cigarette smoke when diners allowed smoking, especially the intermingled smells of tobacco, eggs, toast, and coffee. Pretty much impossible to find in the U.S. today.
-Old houses with a slight mildew-y smell. One of the reasons I love my house so much is because it smelled like my great-gramma’s home when we walked in with the real estate agent.
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### Author:  [@SeaDragonTattoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaDragonTattoo)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/2 "2016-09-03T01:38:24Z")
I don’t miss it because it made me nauseous, but the smell of my mom’s purse when I was a kid. She smoked unfiltered Pall Malls and there was always loose tobacco in there. She would have me rummage through her purse for various items while she was driving. Lipstick, Freedent gum, coins and loose tobacco together made a heady fragrance.
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### Author:  [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/3 "2016-09-03T01:46:35Z")
I love that old house with slight mildew-y smell, it reminds me of a girlfriend I had that lived in such a house. Well I hope the smell was the house anyway…
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### Author:  [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/4 "2016-09-03T01:54:25Z")
The smell of my grandfather’s wood fired sugarbush as he made maple syrup.
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### Author:  [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/5 "2016-09-03T01:55:09Z")
Patchouli immediately takes me back to 1969.
Frankincense sends me to 1955-64, my Catholic go-to-mass years.
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### Author:  [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/6 "2016-09-03T01:56:42Z")
The smell of old public restrooms. The sort that were well-ventilated, usually with transoms and outdoor windows that were both open all the time. There was also an acrid chemical smell, like the toilets needed special sealant around their wax rings, or the smell of lead pipes leaching. Never any air freshener or even human smells.
The bathrooms in my elementary school smelled like that, and one set of bathrooms in an old building on my college campus.
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### Author:  [@JackieLikesVariety](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JackieLikesVariety)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/7 "2016-09-03T02:21:43Z")
perking coffee (the noise is nice, too)
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/8 "2016-09-03T02:41:03Z")
The smell of fresh-caught trout sizzling in fat in a cast iron pan over a campfire.
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### Author:  [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/9 "2016-09-03T02:42:08Z")
Not so “old time”, I guess, but I love the smell of the post office.
I
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### Author:  [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/10 "2016-09-03T02:43:56Z")
Not so “old time”, I guess, but I love the smell of the post office.
I haven’t smelled one in eons, but the vinegary smell of old mimeograph copies is very evocative of my grade school days.
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### Author:  [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/11 "2016-09-03T02:51:22Z")
Sorry for the multi post. Blasted tiny keyboard.
Anyway, even though I’ve been a vegetarian for 25 years, the smell of pork sausage cooking in sauerkraut is a little preview of heaven. Smelling sauerkraut and sausage cooking in my mom’s big pot was a high point of my childhood.
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### Author:  [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/12 "2016-09-03T03:04:55Z")
When I was growing up in Northern Indiana, there were acres and acres of spearmint fields just south of us. When it would rain at the end of a hot summer day, the odor of fresh, damp, spearmint would permeate the air. I loved it. Most of those spearmint fields are long gone, but I still relish the memory.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/13 "2016-09-03T04:29:00Z")
I had my tonsils out over 60 years ago, and I still remember the smell of the ether they used as anesthetic.
And the aromas (scenery, makeup, etc.) of the theater I acted in as a kid.
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### Author:  [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/14 "2016-09-03T04:40:03Z")
Burning leaves. And freshly mimeographed papers.
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### Author:  [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/15 "2016-09-03T04:47:29Z")
Crayons
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### Author:  [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/16 "2016-09-03T05:27:06Z")
Lilacs take me back home.
I love the smell of burning leaves for about a minute. I have asthma now, and a minute’s my limit.
Old books
Unlike SeaDragonTattoo, I like the smell of loose Pall Mall tobacco. Your mom and my mom must have had a lot in common, because your description of your mom’s purse could be my description of my mom’s.
Coffee perking in a percolater. That’s the sound I woke up to each morning when I was a kid. I love the smell of that coffee, too.
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### Author:  [@JWT\_Kottekoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JWT_Kottekoe)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/17 "2016-09-03T15:29:28Z")
The smell of eucalyptus evokes California for me.
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### Author:  [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/18 "2016-09-03T15:46:59Z")
The smell of burning diesel will always remind me of my grandfather’s tractor.
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### Author:  [@quiltguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quiltguy)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/19 "2016-09-03T16:08:27Z")
Not necessarily the smell of Autumn leaves, but the peculiar odor that emanated from ironing the leaves between big sheets of waxed paper.
My Aunt Mary’s house always smelled of coffee and anisette. She was always ready for company.
The clove-y smell of dentists’ offices, which seems to have disappeared.
Being able to smell the various aromas of “Sunday gravy” as I walked to church early in the morning.
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### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2016, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgic-smells/764844/20 "2016-09-03T16:14:47Z")
The smell of my grandparents attached garage. I’m not sure how to replicate it or what it even was.
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