Every summer, my folks took the family to Ocean City on the Atlantic Coast. 'Twas before the days of air-conditioned cars and my heart always leapt to my throat when I caught the first whiff of the salt air.

On the downside, I live about 15 miles from a paper factory and when the wind is just right, I can smell the factory. The factory is in the center of a little town and people live there to my amazement. Of course, if you spend much more than a half an hour in town, your olfactory nerve shuts down so you can't smell the factory.

We former country folk laugh at the new suburbanites who move next door to a farm and then complain when fertilizing is being done. We tell 'em its the smell of "fresh country air". 'Course even suburbanites know cow poop when they smell it. We're trying to pass a law to disallow such complaints since the farmers were here first, and you do have to put it on the ground and spread it all around to make things grow.

Roger in Baltimore