Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Sweet (and not so sweet) smells are keys to past

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Brooks Peterson

Monday, October 8, 2001
Sweet (and not so sweet) smells are keys to past

What do you say we talk some sense? No, wait a minute: Better make that . . . senses. Why? Because I say so. I am, after all, the captain of this skiff.
   For reasons I can't fully sort out myself, I've been giving the matter some thought of late. Seems to me we don't really give our senses the credit they deserve. And of those senses, I submit, the sense of smell gets particularly short shrift. (Does this mean the others - sight, hearing, taste, touch - get long shrift?)
   Now, granted, in certain lines of work, olfactory prowess is indeed crucial. Take those wine experts who can wave the cork from a bottle of Chardonnay under their nostrils and immediately tell you the vintage, the overtones (of blueberry, citrus, creosote, and so on) and the side of the hill on which the grapes responsible were grown.
   But all of this is more or less by the way. Seems to me the sense of smell is at once vastly more subtle - if less utilitarian - than any of the other senses.
   This is especially the case when it comes to our memories: While a compelling image or a snippet of a familiar melody can bring an episode from the pass rushing forth (or crashing down), an aroma, however transient, has the power to propel us instantly back in time.
   Take the phenomenon we know as "that new-car smell."
   Granted, some of you won't relate to this. These days, the vast majority of new cars smell like the bottom of a test tube. How could it be otherwise, given the massive use of plastics and other synthetics in the interest of safety (and cost-cutting)?
   In the days of my youth, however, a new car - even a low-buck one - had an exhilaratin' air about it. I believe it was composed in varying proportions of enamel-painted metal, mohair, upholstery glue and - on the upscale models - intensely aromatic leather. Car salespeople had it better those days, I suspect: That scent - reinforced by glittering chrome, zoomy dashboards and wrap-around windshields - set the hook. All the sales guy had to was reel you in.
   Here's another one: lye soap. Now, as a lad I was not familiar with lye soap. However, when in the fullness of time I found myself at Fort Knox undergoing Army ROTC Basic, lye soap and I got up close and personal.
   A word of explanation: I don't know what the Army does now, but back then it built character in any number of entertaining ways. One of these was Kitchen Police, in which aspiring warriors were treated to a 16-hour day of productive toil.
   There were any number of jobs to be had on K.P. Of them, the worst was pots and pans man. In recognition of my snappy comportment and elan, I nailed down that sinecure in a heartbeat. Then my new pal, Sgt. Day, introduced me to the joys of mass-production washing, scrubbing and scraping. No sissy dishwashing liquid for the U.S. Army, nossir: We made suds (of a sort) by placing chunks of lye soap in an old coffee can with holes in its bottom. Then we hung the thing on the faucet and ran scalding water through it, generating an acrid olfactory overload I'll never forget. Haven't smelled anything like that for decades, but if I did I know it would transport me back to Fort Knox in a heartbeat.
   A symphony of odors
   More? How about eau de cotton gin? In my childhood, my parents and I often trekked down to the Rio Grande Valley, where my aunt and uncle resided. Their place was just west of Mission on what's now Old 83, and in the course of going back and forth we passed the cotton gin on the edge of town. When in action, it was a symphony of smells: an amalgam of old sweat socks, peanut butter, and maybe a whiff of burnt popcorn. I've been past other working gins since then, but their aromatic signature was but a pale whisper of that full-bodied stench of yore. The EPA at work?
   The poet Villon famously asked, "Where are the snows of yesteryear?" Good question. But we need not fret about the smells of our respective yesteryears. They are ever with us.
   Brooks Peterson can be reached by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com, or by phone at 886-3772.



Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com

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