A Smell And A Memory

I am glad to see this question. When I was around 4 my Grandmother would put myself and my 2 year older than myself aunt into the car and drive to her best friend in Houston who had been best friends since the 20s in Oklahoma City.

I will never forget the smell of fresh coffee and a mans after shave that her husband used. The coffee was real and the after shave was consumable if you strained it thru a napkin to remove the dyes and perfume. In the old days friends stayed friends and we always referred to them as Aunt and Uncle s ...

As soon as you opened that front door you would smell the coffee and after shave. Only Linda and myself are still alive, Aunt Opal died in 1984 and her son the one with the cowboy hat died in 2015. I talked to Linda yesterday late afternoon and she is in a senior home near her children in Arizona.

One other thing I remember was all of us driving to Humble Tx any old morning in spring and we would stop and buy a dozen donuts and a gallon of cold Milk. Pick out a nice spot along side the untraveled road out in the oil fields and always under a shade tree we would spread a blanket and have our donuts. If the Dew Berries were out we would pick gallons of berries and go home and make fresh berry pies. :)
 

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Nathan said:
The smell of tar definately brings back memories of being along the beaches North of Los Angeles, headed up into Ventura County.

The smell of Diesel- brings me back to when I was a Diesel Mechanic in the U.S.Army, cruising the waters of the Mekong Delta.
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I was at Soc Trang AAF. Can Tho was our Bn Hq in 1968. Soc Trang was unusual in that it had 7 canals connecting and meeting in the center of Soc Trang, the smells there weren't quite like a perfume :D
 
Mat said:
I was at Soc Trang AAF. Can Tho was our Bn Hq in 1968. Soc Trang was unusual in that it had 7 canals connecting and meeting in the center of Soc Trang, the smells there weren't quite like a perfume :D
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I've lived in mid Missouri since 1975. In many places outside the city. Sewage lagoons. Lots of them. Major smelly stink. But, I can't tell you which was the worse, just too many in my memory. :)
 

To this day I love the smell of fresh cut hay in the farm fields. I used to stay at my Grandparents farm quite a few summers and help with some of the farm work. Waking up in the morning the day after the first cut of hay was done was a wonderful scent coming through the open windows. When I got into my early teenage years my buddy and I would get hired by local farmers to help bring in crops. One farmer in particular liked the way we worked so he would drive into town to pick us up before daybreak and drive us back at night or have us stay overnight. He also paid better than any other farmer.
 
Been There said:
I enjoy the smell of jet fuel from my military days.
The exhaust smell from when the fuel has been spent is also a reminder.

I also like the smell of fresh baked bread.
My mom used to bake a few loaves on the weekend for our home and the church. No other smell compares to it.
When I smell someone baking bread, I can instantly see my mom kneading the dough and putting it in the pan. There is also nothing like eating a slice of the bread right after itā€™s taken out of the oven. Spreading jelly, preserves or butter on it made it even better.
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When my Mom baked bread on the weekends in the summer she would set them on a table outside to cool. The smell would draw half of the neighbourhood kids in no time and she gladly brought out the butter and jam.
 
My dad always used Old Spice aftershave. I saw a bottle of it in a department store and had to have a sniff to take me back to the "good old days". Every Christmas my mother would bake the best fruit cake and the house smelled beautiful. Mum
always had naphthalene balls in all the wardrobes which we hated. I loved the smell of Pine Christmas trees. We had one
every year.
 
my favorite Auntie wore 4711, a German perfume . I bought some from Amazon but it just doesn't smell as good as when she wore it. Loved the smell of exhaust from cars and buses. My Moms cooking, hearty roasts, onions, gravy, and her yeast coffee cakes. Cinnamon and sugar, too.
 
I have a memory of a smell, but not a smell that brings back that memory. I'll probably never smell it again. Our grade school was right across the street from a Wonder Bread factory. When the weather was nice enough to leave the windows open, that bread smelled so good!
 
The scent of orange trees, the foliage and the blossoms. My grandmother in Phoenix Arizona had many orange trees on her property
and visits there were a happy occasion when I was a boy. Breathing in the aroma now brings back glad recollections.
 

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