BS: memories

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Jan 08 - 10:13 AM

I could be three, thirteen or thirty but the smell of going down to the river, lake or sea, always smells like fish. Its probably just algea but going down to the water smells like fresh slick fish. It smells green, not clean like pine but a little musty like warm dry wine.
Then there was my first girlfriend. Sometimes she was like tuna and sometimes potato chips. Yep going down to the water even now has a deep down sexy smell that makes me expect the scent of suntan lotion and charcol grills amid the squeals of little kids.




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jeez all these smell memories all sound like poetry if you read them right.

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 07:44 PM

A smell that takes me straight back to my childhood is creosote. We had a cabin on a remote shore of a (at one time) remote lake and we had to park next to the railroad tracks that ran between our property and the dirt road. Some of the neighbors put in railroad crossings, but we didn't. We simply had a wide grass and gravel parking spot. Walking across those tracks was the sure smell that we were at this favorite spot. Also, we were beachcombers, we fished a lot, and took ferries on Puget Sound, and any time you were near a dock or pier you smelled the creosote on the pilings. Finally, I also spent a lot of years climbing mountains and working for the Forest Service. Those dirt and gravel roads were oiled every so often to keep the dust down, and again, it was creosote or something that smelled so much alike as to bring the same reaction. So now, down here in Texas, when I come across creosote, it transports me home to Washington!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: RangerSteve
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 02:12 PM

Another smell from my younger days - The bar and grill. They don't call them that anymore. There was a smell that eminated from a bar and grill - probably just stale beer and booze - but I loved it. You walk past a bar these days and they don't smell. They used to leave the door open back then for the smell to get out. Nowadays it's costomary to leave the doors closed and the windows covered up, the reason being that you can't look in to see what kind of place it is, you have to walk in and then you're more likely to stay for at least one drink. And the smell is gone. I don't know what happend to it, but I miss it.

And the names - the one I passed everyday going to school was Geary's Bar and Grill. They were always named after the owner. Now they have sexy names like Strawberry's, Cherry's, Peach's, or Kitten's. Or names that imply antiqueness: The Rusty Nail, the Rusty Hinge, The Rusty (anything). Or trendy sounding names - Club something or other, Magic (or better yet, Magique), Pulse, or anything to show that it's now a bar and grill.

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 07:00 AM

Talking of soap..the smell of coal tar soap when I was a child..but I still use it now....was wonderful. The smell of bacon frying on a camp site at the dawn af a beautiful Summer day. The smell of fish and chips when going home from the pub. The smell of burgers whilst walking along the seafront. The scent of a woman.......good film that was.
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 28 Jan 08 - 06:35 AM

I've probably said this here before, in other threads, but the smell of pink carbolic soap or fresh cow manure will have me straight back in the kitchen of my granfers farm.

I can picture him standing over the big Belfast sink, washing his hands up to his elbows with lots of pink carbolic, chatting away in dialect (except to him it was normal, everyday English), whilst I sit at the kitchen table - big enough to seat 22 people with room to move - playing with 'Pop-a-beads' which I'd've got for Christmas. Granfer always smelt of carbolic soap underlaid with a waft of fresh cow dung...

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Barry Finn
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 07:58 PM

Heh, Heh, Bert, I'm a bit younger than you but where I grew up we had our own neighborhood war zones too.

Grapes do the same for my memories. Concord grapes. My granfather grew vines in his backyard. His father was a grape grower too, supplied the Boston Police Department with bootleg wine. Whenever I smell them or taste them I picture myself standing under the vines plucking & eating them. Now my uncle grows them in the same backyard. For me there's no grape more worth eating than a concord grape.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: JennieG
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 07:48 PM

Mint sauce - my maternal grandmother made it fresh. My mother (who didn't much like cooking and would take short cuts wherever possible) bought bottled mint sauce, and it isn't the same. When I cook lamb I make my own just for the smell.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 06:40 PM

Each spring the first whiff of lavender unfailingly zooms me back to my first boyfriend, now 56 years ago. He was never a 'serious' boyfriend- I didn't even like him all that much - but the lilacs were blooming the first time I went out with him.

Some years back I bought Pepsodent tooth paate. The first time I used it, nostalgia overwhelmed me- it is most certainly what I and my family used when I was little. Although in those days it was tooth powder.

Lovely name,'scentiments'.

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Bert
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 06:38 PM

Perhaps that was a silly question Barry 'cos when I was about three or four it was the air raid siren for us. We'd have to get under the dining room table.

We couldn't go down the shelter because it was full of water. The water table in Cranham, Essex was about two feet down and there was no waterproofing available for the concrete in those days.

Dad used to soak his dart board in the shelter, very proud of his solid elm dartboard was Dad. He was an air raid warden (unfit for the army) and when he was on duty on quiet nights the wardens used to play darts in their hut.

During the day he worked at the docks, kinda like being on the front lines, 'cos the mammoth crane in the river was a prime Luftwaffe target. They used to curse that bloody thing every time there was a daylight raid.

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Bert
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 06:27 PM

My Gawd Barry! Where were you living!!!

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Barry Finn
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 06:24 PM

Memories from sounds.

When ever I hear the short rapid fire of a 22. it brings me back to when I was probably 6. I was lying in my parents bed with my mother & sister & we heard the sound of maybe a dozen feet running through the project court yard then a secession of pistol shots then another set of a dozen feet. I remember my moter rolling us off the bed & onto the floor & telling us to get down & stay down.

I don't ofetn hear gunfire these days & I don't much miss the sound either.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 05:49 PM

Scentiments

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Bert
Date: 27 Jan 08 - 05:48 PM

OK. we need a word for these smelly tasty memories.

smellories maybe

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 10:10 AM

The smell of where I grew up is complex but visceral. One year I took a road trip right before the holidays, driving down through Oregon and California and up to Nevada before traversing back across the desert in eastern Oregon then through the Dalles and back up to Puget Sound. All of the towns along the way had trees and lights, but it didn't seem right. Then when I got to Olympia I smelled it--the salt water along with the conifer trees in the region, and the lights and decorations worked, it felt like xmas. And any time I get back to salt water it feels like I can really breathe again.

Coffee--my childhood memories of coffee perking on the stove, and of my parents sitting at the little kitchen table with the speckled blue melmac cups of coffee. Dad drank his with sugar and milk, and there was always a little left in the bottom of the cup so I could get a careful taste, leaving the few grounds on the bottom of the cup. I've never been a coffee drinker except for back then.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Bert
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 10:03 AM

Another smell that always takes me back to the Forties.

Fresh Concrete brings back memories of Air Raid Shelters. They all smelled the same until long after the war - then they got to smelling of stale urine.

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 07:25 PM

Art:

I had the honor of playing for Sam a year or so ago. Scripps through him a blowout celebration for his 90th birthday. He was laid up in a wheelchair, and not up for dancing or playing himself, but you could see his eyes light up when you played one of his favorites, and he'd mouth the words along. It was an honor and a joy to see him.


A

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: number 6
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 06:56 PM

Whenever I detect the odor of diesel exhaust fumes I momentarily find myself standing on the corner of Princes Street and Waverly Bridge, Edinburgh.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: RangerSteve
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 06:48 PM

Going into town with my mom when I was about 4 or 5 years old, down a road lined with elm trees (both sides and on the median), past a potato farm, the ruins of a Catholic church that had burned down years before I was born, getting into town and usually having to wait at the railroad crossing for a steam locomotive to pass, the crossing gates had to be lowered and raised by hand - and finally to the 5 & 10 store where they sold everything you needed back then and had a lunch counter with great grilled cheese sandwiches. They sold toys that not only contained lead, but were made almost entirely of lead. When I got older, about 7, I could go into town with my older brother to see a matinee at the theater. 5 to 7 cartoons, and a double feature. And you didn't need to be accompanied by an adult. And it cost 25 cents. Horror movies were scary back then, not gross, the way they are today. There was a place called the Sweet Shop, some tables and a counter where you could get burgers, sandwiches and ice cream sodas. Every town had one theater, with one screen only, kid matinees on weekends with a different double feature on Sat. and Sun.

The above mentioned potato farm had been abondoned due to a potato blight that hit Long Island (something called a golden nematode - I loved that name, it sounded like a B-movie monster) so the farm was open for exploration for us kids - acres of unexplored territory, it bordered on the church I mentioned above, with the remains of an orphanage, which was more territory to explore. These days, kids would never be allowed go there.

The elms were removed when the road was widened, the railroad was electrified and elevated through town, the 5 and 10 store went the way of all of those stores, the theater was renovated and turned into a multi-plex - no kids without an adult- the farm and orphanage were turned into a shopping mall. The Sweet Shop, but some miracle, is still there, or so I've been told.

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: topical tom
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 05:21 PM

Other smells of my childhood were those of new scribblers (exercise books), erasers, Vicks(not so great!), and Smith Brothers cough drops.Wood smoke as we had a wood stove like our neighbours at that time and the smell of wet socks and mittens drying on the oven door.

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 04:33 PM

My first thought about the starfish was this, "I wonder if he was called Onan?"
G

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Newport Boy
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 04:22 PM

Memories triggered by smells seem to be more powerful than others.

My first, from late 1930s, is of the yeasty aroma from the 3 breweries in Cambrian Road, Newport. Although they're long gone, I still see Cambrian Road whenever I pass a brewery.

The smell of a steam locomotive (rare these days) brings back memories from a couple of years later, standing with my Grampa on the railway bridge, watching wagons being shunted below.

But the most persistent, surprisingly, is from 1955. At college in the east end of London, I took the tube to Wapping station to walk to the "Prospect of Whitby". The narrow cobbled streets and the towering spice warehouses on a cold, damp November evening - I still see the scene (now much changed) whenever I open a jar of spice.

Phil

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 04:11 PM

I used to play Asteroids and drink machine coffee when I was in college... years later, like 2o+ years later, I saw an Asteroids screen saver - and suddenly, I could TASTE the machine coffee. It was weird.
Yes, fun thread!

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Art Thieme
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 03:59 PM

There's a vas deferens between a shaggy fish story and a shaggy sperm story.

Amos, coming from Chicago (no pun intended!) and hanging out as the tide went out, the sun rose, and a truly alien world was slowly presented for my perusal, well, it was like finding a whole new fantasy landscape peopled with examples of life like I had never before encountered. Folksinger, Sam Hinton, is a marine biologist who worked with Scripps Institute in California, as well as being a musical mentor of mine for the last 60 years almost. You can be sure we have several levels on which we can discuss stuff. Them's fond mamaries as well.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 03:39 PM

I was waiting for the awful pun you were waiting to make about sizzling starfish sperm, Art. I guess there is none, which is why I couldn't guess it? Sure sounded like a shaggy fish story, there...



A

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: gnu
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 03:36 PM

For me, it's the smell Johnny Cake... cornbread. Takes me back to six years old, lying on my back beside Dad in the hallway while we had our cold feet against the heat register after a day of ice fishing on the Bay of Quinte.

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Art Thieme
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 03:29 PM

In another thread I mentioned that a big memory for me is the smell of burning starfish sperm. It was on the Oregon coast in the town of Depoe Bay. When starfish are removed from a tide pool, they react as if it is low tide and release the stuff. It dripped onto an oil stove we had and sizzled as it wafted to our noses. And I can conjure that up whenever I'm so inclined. Yes, a real fond memory of a good time in our lives---1967.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Sorcha
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 03:27 PM

As my parents would only take a thermos of coffee in the car on road trips (short or long) all 3 of us were rather forced to learn to drink it at an early age, and black at that. Neither parent could abide white, sweet coffee.

I remember learning to drink coffee at all when I was about 6. Dad had taken some scouts to an areak skeet shoot and the concession stand had only coffee as a hot drink. I wanted hot chocolate but no joy. The stand person put lots of milk and sugar in the coffee.....and I was on my way. Drank it white and sweet for about a year, then weaned myself off and on to plain black so I could have some of what was in the grownups thermos bottle!

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Emma B
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 03:15 PM

We never had anything as 'exotic' as coffee when I was a child - apart from the bottle of Camp at the back of the cupboard - but I have warm memories of the smell of roasting beans in Coopers in Liverpool on a cold winters day (the shop is just a memory now too)

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 03:07 PM

The only distinctive coffee memory I have is of a certain lady with whom I regularly drank coffee laced with Amaretto and whipped cream. The lady's been out of my life for almost 25 years, and it's been almost 20 years since I've touched anything with alcohol. But I'm sure the smell of it would have an effect. It would either make me very sad or very horny, I don't know which.

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: topical tom
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 01:43 PM

My memories of coffee as a child was my mother putting the coffee into a tin pot and ,after adding water, bringing it to a full boil on our old woodstove.There would obviously be a few grounds in the coffee but what a delicious aroma it gave off.Obviously I was not yet an addict at that age.
Another memory of warmth and security at home was the sound of potatoes boiling on the stove, especially on a Sunday morning.Dad would take out his strop and straight razor(which would cut a hair at a touch, his sharpness test)and proceed to shave,almost never cutting himself, a miracle in my eyes.
Sorry for running on so long but memories are so pleasant and precious. I agree, this is a great thread.

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 12:33 PM

I've never been anywhere near Caversham, so I can remember it fondly. I do remember a certain place in West Central Illinois and odor of Jack Daniels or Jim Beam or...and the sounds of the college "girls and boys" and...never mind. My memories are turning to lechery.

Coffee. Irish coffee in Killarney in the Great Southern, chatting with the President of the Junior Chamber and his wife until all hours.

Long hours on the bridge, hands gripped tightly around a steaming cup of coffee as we watched for U-boats, the icy North Atlantic squall soaking...wait, I was in the Infantry and I wasn't even born until the Battle of the Atlantic was over. How about a wonderfully hot day in the Wisconsin woods, toting a .30 caliber machine gun up a ridge just as the temperature dropped from the 90sF to the 50sF and we were hit with a violent, violent thunderstorm and us with no raingear? The hot coffee and cinnamon rolls that night, combined with a DRY field jacket for shirt, was some of the finest clothing, food and drink I've ever had.

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Raptor
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 12:07 PM

What a great Thread...   Thank you for starting it.

Raptor

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Anne Lister
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 11:39 AM

Good grief .. people here who know Caversham? We lived in Ilkley Road, Caversham, when I was a tot - my first primary school was Caversham Road. There was an old lady at the end of the road who kept cats, and her house was always full of the scent of boiled fish. And then there was an American family a few houses down who had a daughter about my age called Karen - my Mum took ages trying to persuade me to say her name in an English way rather than with an American accent!

And we had memorable picnics at Peppard Common.

Anne

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: wysiwyg
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 11:25 AM

Black coffee with lots of sugar sitting around the restaurant table feeling VERY grown up after work at the movie theater, with the other "grownups" who were kollidge boys spouting expertise in metaphysics. Much like Mudcat. :~) But with more necking.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: alanabit
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 11:21 AM

The German name "Simon" would be pronounced like the English sound of "Simone". So your memory is obviously working! I think what he was making was "Quark", which has always been quite popular here.
So you know Peppard Road in Caversham? I used to know it well in the seventies, when I worked at Borocourt, near Peppard. I spent many happy hours at the nurses home - and I am not saying any more than that!

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 10:44 AM

I remember when I was a child and living in Peppard Road in Caversham, not so far away from Marlow. There was an ex POW staying at the convalescent home where my Mother worked. His name was Simone or it sounded like that, and he had stayed on in the UK rather than go back to Germany after the war, this was about 1949, and he lived in the old stables, which he'd converted himself, very nicely too.
He used to let a bottle of milk go 'off' the drain off the whey, and sprinkle sugar on the curds and eat them. I used to be fascinated and yet repulsed watching him eat this stuff.
I also remember watching lots of red squirrels running along the wall behind the home.
All alas gone now.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 10:39 AM

WHat a fine picture.

Oddly enough, certain smells of black coffee bring me back (not quite so far) to my young manhood, cradling a hot mug on the conning bridge of a steam-powered ship running along the Med toward Piraeus.

Tobacco has a similar effect -- certain kinds of cigarette smoke flash me into a scene in the woods of Connecticut in early Spring, with snow patches still marking the edges of the clearings, and the river out back in full burble.


A

Subject: RE: BS: memories
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 10:38 AM

Burned toast one day and something took me back to the breakfast table when I was about three or four. My grandmother and grandfather were there clear as day. The memory went away after just a few seconds.

Subject: BS: memories
From: Bert
Date: 22 Jan 08 - 10:33 AM

Just woke up and had a cup of coffee. I usually drink it black without sugar, but this morning I put some sugar in it for a change.

ZOOOM! it took me straight bck to 1946. We were living on a farm at Little Marlow in Buckinghamshire and there was a German prisoner of war camp on the farm.

Us kids used to chat to the prisoners through the wire and we'd go into the village for them and buy them cigarettes. 5 Weights or Woodbines was all they could afford at a time. One day, when the guard wasn't looking, they invited Dad and me into the camp and made us coffee. They didn't have any milk so I had black coffee with sugar in it for the first time. The taste of it still brings back the memory of going into their camp.