# Smells, Aromas and Odors You Miss **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 3, 2010, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172 "2010-03-03T20:09:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172/41 "2010-03-04T18:09:48Z")
School paste Deli cured-meat smell ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172/42 "2010-03-04T18:15:54Z")
My grandfather’s house…an odd mixture of cigar smoke, old people, and old house. One whiff would take me back 40 years! Napalm in the morning…smells like victory! ---
**Author:** ![Promethea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Promethea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Promethea)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172/43 "2010-03-04T18:20:32Z")
The smell of freshly Creosoted wooden fences in the summer if the late 70s/ early 80s. I don’t think it exists for people to just paint their fences with it any more because it’s so toxic. Even back in the day my mum used to tell me to steer way clear of the stuff because it was somehow dangerous. But it was such a strong smell, I could happily smell it at some distance. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172/44 "2010-03-04T18:24:26Z")
The chocolate and honeysuckle smell we’d get in summer when I was a kid. There was a Nabisco plant about a mile away, and when the wind was right you’d get a lovely chocolate aroma. > [@Dogzilla](#): > > If you were the **smartypants asskisser** in the class, the teacher might hand you the master and send you to the office to “run some dittos” for her or him. Hey! ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172/45 "2010-03-04T18:24:51Z")
School paste is a good one! A freshly sharpened pencil. There’s a distinct smell of water from a garden hose hitting hot cement in July. I can’t quite describe it, but it’s awesome. The first burst of fresh air signaling Spring. You know it when you smell it. Rejuvenating, I tells ya. White Out / Liquid Paper. The smell of Frank’s Nursery and Crafts. Also, didn’t those purple ditto papers smell like almonds? Yeh, I miss that too. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172/46 "2010-03-04T18:30:09Z")
Ether. Not so much miss it as remember it with the strange sensation of seeing Mickey Mouse in the “That’s All Folks!” spiraling background. Getting my tonsils out in the grammar school days. ---
**Author:** ![Susie\_Derkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47774/32.png) [@Susie\_Derkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susie_Derkins)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172/47 "2010-03-04T18:30:14Z")
Play-Doh. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172/48 "2010-03-04T18:32:17Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > Ether. Not so much miss it as remember it with the strange sensation of seeing Mickey Mouse in the “That’s All Folks!” spiraling background. Getting my tonsils out in the grammar school days. Wouldn’t that be Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck? (Or was that a hallucination you had from sniffing the ether?) ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172/49 "2010-03-04T18:38:08Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > Wouldn’t that be Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck? (Or was that a hallucination you had from sniffing the ether?) That’s what was so weird. Even while I was going under and almost out I was thinking “that can’t be right!” The count backwards from 100 was cool, too. I think it was along about 97 that Mickey started his thing. I could swear (and this was before I was old enough to know better) he was flipping me a bird. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172/50 "2010-03-04T19:13:15Z")
I’m seriously considering trying to figure out how to bottle “Eau du Ditto” and marketing that ditto smell as a cologne. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172/51 "2010-03-04T19:18:56Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > That reddish sweeping compound they used on the floors in school when I was in grammar school > > New blue jeans the first day of school > Too much chlorine in the city pool > Burning leaves in the fall > Cotton candy > Hair tonic > Mentholatum Word. And… The soap from the lavatories at the grammar schools that i attended in the 60s, up thru the highschools of the 70s. Ditto on the, uh, ditto sheets. My grandmother’s house-it always smelled of freshly brewed Coffee and freshly sliced onions. My grandmother’s garage-it was separated from the house-it smelled of slightly mildewed wood. First gf’s perfume. Hippie incense- strawberry, african violet, and patchouli. Father’s Roi Tan cigars. Cigarette tobacco in the wrappers. New Crayola crayons in the box. First grade teacher’s, Mrs. Smith, perfume. Best wishes, hh ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172/52 "2010-03-04T19:41:25Z")
New tennis balls. When I was a kid, I loved ( **loved** ) that synthetic chemical smell more than anything else and would sit in the grass and sniff them until my mom would get freaked out and yell at me to quit it, but the tennis balls of today just don’t smell the same. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172/53 "2010-03-04T21:00:37Z")
The smell of my grandfather’s ‘sugar bush’ when he was boiling sap down to maple syrup… the taste of ‘maple wax’ with crunchy snow crystals attached. ---
**Author:** ![gwendee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2010, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172/54 "2010-03-04T22:06:03Z")
Rubber cement Johnson’s No More Tangles There was a business in my hometown that rendered chicken fat. I don’t exactly miss the smell, but the absence of it is just one more way the town has changed. ---
**Author:** ![Maiira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Maiira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maiira)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2010, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172/55 "2010-03-05T01:47:13Z")
That “apartment complex” smell that I always associated with going to visit my great-grandmother. I have smelled it in other complexes, but it’s just not the same without going to visit her. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172/56 "2010-03-06T09:44:38Z")
I do love that chlorine smell. I used to be nostalgic for that grandparent smell but now I ocsasionally smell it on myself and no longer like it lol. ---
**Author:** ![BACI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ce73a5/32.png) [@BACI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BACI)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172/57 "2010-03-06T11:16:53Z")
The Paris Metro. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smells-aromas-and-odors-you-miss/531172.md?page=2)