Wednesday, June 14, 2006
A Whiff Of The Past
They say.....wait a minute, now.....who is "they" in "they say," anyway? I think it's you. You probably think it's me, dontcha? Anyway, they say that smells trigger memories faster and more often than any of our other senses. That sure seems true with me. Once in a while, when I'm visiting someone who uses natural gas appliances in his home, I'll catch that faint odor that accompanies burning gas, and it takes me back to my Grandma and Grandpa at the old Lewis Ranch between Vaughn and Roswell, or to the old Hood Graham ranch house that''s now gone. At the Lewis Ranch, we had those old gas heaters that attached to the wall. To a six-year-old, they were 10 feet tall and four feet wide. In real life, I'm sure they were a bit smaller. When they would fire up, you would hear that sudden whoosh sound as the pilot light ignited the flowing gas. Then a soft boom, followed by that ticktickticktick sound as the metal in the heater began to expand from the rising temperature. Those old heaters are pretty much all gone now, replaced by much safer electric units and heat pumps. For some reason, that smell and those sounds remain one of the most comforting memories of my childhood.
TFMCD and I walk out to the car once in a while, and when the wind is just right, we catch that distinct bovine odor that so often accompanies dairies. While our neighbors are saying "Ugh!" and trying to fan the smell away from their faces, TFMCD and I just look at one another, breathe it in, and say "Home!" We grew up within a few miles, definitely within olfactory range, from the old Glover Packing Company in Roswell - in other words, a slaughterhouse. Growing up with those smells is like growing up poor. Poor kids don't know they're poor, and kids who grow up with smells don't really smell them.
Yesterday, a nice fellow came out and installed our new dishwasher and "micro-hood" - a word I didn't know existed until I owned one. This morning, I popped the new microwave open and caught the smell of virgin plastic or whatever it is that accompanies new appliances, stereo components, and the like. I was immediately drawn back to a Christmas when I was little fart, I'm guessing it was 1963. I say that because my parents were still together at the time. It was in 1964 that they divorced, and the lives of my mother and her three sons went into a tailspin. In some ways, we never recovered from it. In others, we were strengthened.
Anyway, that Christmas, I got a couple of really cool gifts: A "Tiger Joe" tank and a "King Zor" dinosaur that rolled around the house while I "hunted" it with a dart gun. If I hit it in the correct spot with a dart, it would turn towards me and fire a plastic ball back at me. I remember getting up that Christmas morning, seeing my Dad in the kitchen making coffee, and then finding the gifts under the tree.
They had that same smell as my new micro-hood.
I really don't care much about micro-hoods, microwaves, or ovens in general, but I loved Tiger Joe and King Zor. Those were the so-called "days of innocence." I always thought that to be a hokey old cliche term. Looking back now, thanks to the smell of a new micro-hood, I know what the term means. For an eight-year-old boy, the dark clouds were only just beginning to gather.
Those were the last few days and weeks before our worlds imploded.
Too young to remember Tiger Joe? Here's the old commercial for I saw a zillion times every Saturday morning. It doesn't translate well to 2006, I'll admit. But in 1963, it made an eight-year-old boy drool.
Many thanks to LikeTV for the Tiger Joe clip, spookshows.com for actually knowing what a King Zor is, and to timewarptoys.com for that cool picture of Tiger Joe. You made an ol' Parrothead's day!
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TFMCD and I walk out to the car once in a while, and when the wind is just right, we catch that distinct bovine odor that so often accompanies dairies. While our neighbors are saying "Ugh!" and trying to fan the smell away from their faces, TFMCD and I just look at one another, breathe it in, and say "Home!" We grew up within a few miles, definitely within olfactory range, from the old Glover Packing Company in Roswell - in other words, a slaughterhouse. Growing up with those smells is like growing up poor. Poor kids don't know they're poor, and kids who grow up with smells don't really smell them.
Yesterday, a nice fellow came out and installed our new dishwasher and "micro-hood" - a word I didn't know existed until I owned one. This morning, I popped the new microwave open and caught the smell of virgin plastic or whatever it is that accompanies new appliances, stereo components, and the like. I was immediately drawn back to a Christmas when I was little fart, I'm guessing it was 1963. I say that because my parents were still together at the time. It was in 1964 that they divorced, and the lives of my mother and her three sons went into a tailspin. In some ways, we never recovered from it. In others, we were strengthened.
Anyway, that Christmas, I got a couple of really cool gifts: A "Tiger Joe" tank and a "King Zor" dinosaur that rolled around the house while I "hunted" it with a dart gun. If I hit it in the correct spot with a dart, it would turn towards me and fire a plastic ball back at me. I remember getting up that Christmas morning, seeing my Dad in the kitchen making coffee, and then finding the gifts under the tree.
They had that same smell as my new micro-hood.
I really don't care much about micro-hoods, microwaves, or ovens in general, but I loved Tiger Joe and King Zor. Those were the so-called "days of innocence." I always thought that to be a hokey old cliche term. Looking back now, thanks to the smell of a new micro-hood, I know what the term means. For an eight-year-old boy, the dark clouds were only just beginning to gather.
Those were the last few days and weeks before our worlds imploded.
Too young to remember Tiger Joe? Here's the old commercial for I saw a zillion times every Saturday morning. It doesn't translate well to 2006, I'll admit. But in 1963, it made an eight-year-old boy drool.
Many thanks to LikeTV for the Tiger Joe clip, spookshows.com for actually knowing what a King Zor is, and to timewarptoys.com for that cool picture of Tiger Joe. You made an ol' Parrothead's day!
