More Smell Memories

Brian G. NY · Feb 23, 2013

I can keep this tractor related, even!
When I was very young, I loved the smell of gasoline and I would step up on the plow drawbar of my Dad's Allis B, take the cap off the gas tank and smell the fumes. I swear gasoline does not smell as good nowadays as it did even 30 years ago. Fortunately, I didn't take but a whiff each time so it left no l l l last t t ting damage!
At about the same time (I was about 8 or 9) we had some neighbors who had a whole passel of kids, all except one of whom walked to the same one-room schoolhouse that I attended. The older teen-age girl rode the bus to the central school. I didn't see her very often but every time I did she would try to grab me and kiss me. She always had on the same cheap perfume and to this day every once in a while a woman (usually an older lady) will walk by and I will get a whiff of that cheap perfume and be transported back in time.
In the early years of humanity, smell was extremely important to us just as it remains so today in the animal world.
More on cheap perfume. When we were cleaning up an old dump site at my M.I.L.s a few years ago we found a lot of collectible bottles including a very small clear class one that had the words "10 Cent Perfume" molded right into the glass.
It probably dated back to the 20s or so and I'm not even sure 10 cent perfume was considered "cheap" at the time. LOL

John B. · Feb 23, 2013

I was told that cheap perfume can be smelled a mile away, the expensive perfume you have to get close to the person to smell it.

Our dog loves to chase and bark at joggers on the oil road in front of our house. She can be laying on the back porch with no way to see the road on front of the house and I have noticed that I believe she can smell them with out seeing them. Then starts barking and take off running. We live about 200 off the road.

John B. · Feb 23, 2013

I have read that a certain smell can trigger seizures for a person with epilepsy or it can prevent an oncoming seizure. Each person has their own "trigger smell" sort of speak.

Dan T in MO · Feb 23, 2013

I know what you mean. Todays gas smells too much like corn liquor.

As a kid, I loved the smell of diesel exhaust. Nowadays, even the Ford 2600 tractor seems to not smell the same. Must be that ultra-low sulpher fuel.

GordoSD · Feb 23, 2013

Or hears them. Is she a young dog?

Adirondack case guy · Feb 23, 2013

I always liked the smell of money, but for some reason it has less of a scent now a days. Pun intended.
Loren, the Acg.

CenTex Farmall · Feb 23, 2013

Gasoline most definately had a different smell. I remember dad putting premium fuel in the Chevelle and the smell of leaded gas.

Also the ruby red diesel that Grandpa used.

New cars smelled good 30 years ago. Now they just stink.

504 · Feb 23, 2013

When I was three we rented a house in town till our new house was finished. The end of the sidewalk was the black smith shop(I could pedal the trike to the end of the walk and back, without getting in trouble)I still love the smell of a coal fired forge and welding rods.

formenwhogrow · Feb 23, 2013

The smell of a dairy barn. Cornsilage, haylage, manure, iodine, etc. Thats a smell that never leaves your senses. I remember milking cows in an old tiestall barn and that smell would get in your clothes and on your hands and no soap or detergent could wash it out.
Another smell was the smell handling pigs would put in your hands. I remember helping dad cut teeth and vaccinate piglets and smelling my hand the next day at school and still smelling those hogs.

Chris(WA) · Feb 23, 2013

I do remember when I found out what a farm smelled like... When I was 14 I was in the hospital for a week with a fever. While I was there I asked my Dad to bring me a radio to listen to so he brought the transistor radio that he kept in the barn. When he brought it I remember the smell of it...MY GAWD what was that smell??? I then knew what other kids were talking about when they comented on the smell of a farm!! Up till then I had never been away fromn it long enough to recognizes it at an unfamiliar odor I guess!

THEkyroastnear · Feb 23, 2013

i posted once about the smell of aqua velva and luckies from my dad ,but there were distinct sounds too the snap of that zippo opening and shutting and after his first draw that "ppttt" noise (spitting off loose tobacco cause they were non- filter) anybody else recall that??

Jeff B. · Feb 24, 2013

ACG, your joke made me laugh. Years ago, they would say "Money just doesn't go as far as it used to. I still hear my dad saying as he dropped a wrench to the floor while bent over the hood of a car..."Damn, that's the only thing that still goes as far as it used to."

Jeff B. · Feb 24, 2013

The smell of coffee brewing in the morning still rouses memories of waking up at my grandpas house when we were kids,and only there for holidays or occasional weekends. And the smell of the air after a storm is timeless. I can smell my youth in it every time.

KIP in MX · Feb 24, 2013

Spray planes spraying defoliant on cotton. You never forget that smell! And anything to do with alfalfa harvest. Cutting, baling, and stacking bales in a barn. And the old diesel fuel. I still get to smell that where I work because there is no ultra low sulpher diesel here and it's still less than a buck a gallon.

60 acre hillside · Feb 24, 2013

As a child I could smell a sycamore tree from some distance on the way to the swimmin' hole. Also remember the smell of the Hardware store that sold shoes, harness, paint and lubricating oil. Even the one room school had a smell of the lunch buckets, chalk, crayons. and the oil on the floor. Maybe we have destroyed some of our senses from the thinners used in painting TRACTORS.

Tx Jim · Feb 24, 2013

In my youth I liked the smell 0f freshly mold boarded soil. Also a horse had a distinctive smell.

Fergienewbee · Feb 24, 2013

My beagles often stand with their feet on the kennel screen and bark at something. Don't know if it's a deer, rabbits or what. My house beagle stood at the window barking and a couple of minutes later a deer walked by on the other side of the lane. All the windows were closed.

My mom cut shoes and I remember the smell of cow and horse hide leather. When the changed to pigskin, the smell was different.

Larry

hawkeyeford · Feb 24, 2013

always enjoyed the smell of gunny sacks, (burlap sacks), that grandpa had hanging and lying around in the barn.

pete black · Feb 24, 2013

the interior of a new car from the 60's and 70's.
army canvas tent.
moth balls smells on clothes.
as a kid there was a merita bread bakery, fresh bread smells for a mile around.
hershey, pa. the smell of chocolate.
ozone after a light rain.

rdandersom · Feb 24, 2013

Sweaty cows and the lime we spread on the floor of the tie stall barn.Fresh manure from a dairy cow can put a smile on my face.I can still hear the vaccum pump and the pulsaters and the tie chains.

buickanddeere · Feb 24, 2013

Smell memorys of sorts.
The pig barn at home, well it always smelled like pigs.
We would walk into the barn on the up wind side and the pigs without seeing us would turn. While sniffing and knew we were there by scent. How they could smell anything other than what was stuck on their noses is beyond me.
After being home for a couple of days between day to night or night to day shifts at work. Showering before leaving the farm. Shower the next moring before going to work. Shower at the end of work. Shower the next morning, four showers.
Then at work the next day.There would be some radioactive job that required wearing sealed air supply protective suits. After a minute of two in those suits I could smell that pig barn. The hog odor was still stuck on my skin.
Have to wonder how many times in crowds I thought was all cleaned up but still smelled of barn. In particular if any perspiration was involved.

JRSutton · Feb 24, 2013

the smell of starch from whenever my mom was ironing - brings me way back to 5 o6 6 years old.

Hay hay hay · Feb 24, 2013

Everyone smelled better at church on Sunday than they did Friday night. The Saturday night bath was a ritual in most houses.

The Dukester · Feb 24, 2013

Fresh cut alfalfa hay, brewing coffee, and my Granddad's. 30-60 Rumely Oil Pull running on Standard. Power fuel..just like distillate in a John Deere.

greygoat · Feb 24, 2013

In the 1940's, my Dad, a railroad engineer,would
take me into the Roundhouse, full of Steam engines
It was a scarrey place! the steam engines growned
and rumbeled, just sitting there, it was if they
were alive! Sometimes a pressure valve would pop
and almost scare the pants off of ya!
And, oh, the smells, coal burning, hot oil, hot steam ! In later days, I got a job, in that same
CB&Q Roundhouse, and it still smelled the same,
even though the Steam engines were gone. 65 years
later I still like the smell of a farm steam
engine, or Milwaukee Road 261, or a Union Pacific
Challanger going through Logan,Iowa at 60 MPH,
a few years ago. The sound and the smell were
overwhelming. And I think of Milwaukee Road #1
pulling the twin cities Hiawatha at 100 MPH, in
1936, just think how many times per minute those
pistons were going back and forth,(Do the math..
80 inch diameter wheels going 100 MPH)mechanical
perfection..made in America..Pride in Workmanship!

Hendrik · Feb 24, 2013

I vividly remember the smell of Granddad's yard when it started raining lightly after a long dry spell during the summer.
Another one: the distinctive smell of the leaves of black currant bushes.

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