Scent back in Time

The sense of smell is a powerful thing. You can be living in the present and the whiff of something can take you back decades to when you were a child. Some smells do that for me and since my childhood was such a perfectly idyllic time, I love to revisit that past.

My great-grandmother, who everyone called Granny, loved peppermint. I remember her always having a huge stick of peppermint around. When we traveled to Kentucky, my parents would often buy one of those huge sticks to bring back to her. She would get her butcher knife and use the handle to whack off a piece of that lovely sweet candy for me. I love remembering Granny so I love the smell of peppermint.

                               Me and one of Granny's peppermint sticks.

I love the scent of cedar wood. It brings to mind my Grandpa Smith. He would often sit out on the porch in a straight-backed chair and he would pull out a stick of cedar from his overall pocket and start whittling. Fragrant curls of cedar would soon be surrounding his chair and that fragrant smell brings to mind Grandpa Smith.

Now my great-uncle Bug, who was more like a grandfather to me, would on occasion smoke a pipe. He smoked some kind of cherry pipe tobacco. Sometimes I will catch a whiff of something and it will remind me of cherry pipe tobacco and I will remember Uncle Bug. I love that smell because I love that memory.

            Uncle Bug, Olen C Cantrell and Granny Mandy Moore Allen

I love the smell of rain. My grandparents’ home on Anglin Branch was nestled on a narrow ribbon of creek bottomland between steep wooded hillsides. It seems like the smell of rain so often hung in the air. I suppose the mists that so often covered the hillsides in late evenings and early mornings must have carried that scent, the scent of moist rich earth filled with promise. The smell of rain brings to mind those sweet grandparents and memories of sitting on their porch hearing the music of the rain on the tin roof.

                                        Grandma and Grandpa Smith

                       Dad sitting on Grandma and Grandpa's front porch.

I love the smell of citrus; oranges and especially lemons! They have such a fresh and energizing smell. They are strong scents without being overpowering. When I smell lemons, I can remember making a lemon pie with Grandma. It is kind of ironic how such a sour fruit can bring back such sweet memories!

I love the smell of soup beans cooking. That may seem strange as they don’t have a smell that many folks would love, but I do nonetheless. Often, I will go to visit Mom and Dad. They know that I love soup beans and sometimes when I go, I can smell those beans that Dad has put on to cook and I know that we are going to have one of my favorite meals for lunch. I imagine that the smell of soup beans will forever remind me of visiting my parents and enjoying what I call an ancestor meal with them.

I love the smell of coffee. I love to smell it as it drips through the coffeemaker. I love the smell of it as the steam wafts up from my cup. When I first open a can of coffee, I love to get close and sniff that first burst of aroma from the can as I pull the seal back. My daughter Alexandria loves to do that too. I try to wait to open new coffee until she can share that first burst of lovely coffee aroma with me. Now she lives on her own so when I open a new can. I will take two long pulls of that coffee aroma; one for me and one for Alex.

 

There are many other scents that I really love. I love the smell of baking bread, but who doesn’t! That smell makes my mouth water in anticipation of enjoying a warm slice of buttered heaven. Of course, if you pair that bread aroma with cinnamon in the form of cinnamon rolls, well that is even lovelier!

I love the smell of onions and garlic sauteing on the stovetop. I love the smell of magnolia blossoms. I love the smell of honeysuckle on summer evenings when I am sitting out on my deck. I love the smell of babies after they have just had their baths.

There are just so many scents that I find appealing. Some of those scents are just good scents and it seems that anyone with good sense should like them. Others may be less obvious because they don’t carry others back in time where they can revisit sweet memories like they do for me. I think that that may be the main attraction that a scent holds for me, whether it can act as a personal time machine!