The Nose Knows

Most of us have certain sights and sounds that remind us of certain things and past events. And with some of us, certain odors will set our minds to remembering. Following is a list of scents and what I associate with them.

Baby oil -- Days at the beach in the sixties and seventies. My sister used this stuff as tanning lotion

Gasoline -- Taking long trips with my family as a kid

Newly mown grass in the fall -- Late afternoons at marching band practice in high school

A lit match -- My mother when she'd first light a cigarette

Coffee/Frying bacon -- Saturday morning breakfasts as a kid when my father would make breakfast

Vanilla extract -- My mother baking at Christmas

Cocoa butter -- An old lover

Valve oil -- High school band

Gun solvent -- Being on the police department

Pine/bayberry candle -- Christmas

Beer -- College parties

Fried Chicken -- my father's sister

Burning leaves -- Fall

Hot chocolate -- Winter

Apples and/or Cinnamon -- Fall. Halloween

Chlorine -- Summer

Fertilizer -- Spring

The smell of dirt/earth on a summer night -- the South

Hot tar -- recess at my first school

What are some of the memories you associate with certain smells?