I grew up in a small town on the Rock River in southern Wisconsin. The river had a distinctive smell... mix dead carp with algae, and you'd get close. I had been gone from home for about ten years, and the first night back, I walked downtown to see the old place. About a block from the river, I could smell it. I swear that if I was a thousand miles away and someone gave me twenty different bottles of river water to smell, I could identify my home town river with ease.

Jerry