Smells, like songs, take us back to a particular place and time. Amazing how important smell is to our quality of life. I can’t imagine life without smell. The good, the bad, and the foul smells all are part of life. As I think back through my childhood there are many smells that trigger memories. One in particular is the smell of souring beer in empty bottles in my friend Little Henry’s basement. We would pass through from time to time and go past a partial case waiting to be returned for money or exchanged. I never forgot that sour smell and to this day I have no desire to even taste a beer!
Sour Beer and Apple Pie (Childhood Details)
Smells like songs takes me back
Calling up forgotten files in my brain
Bringing up times gone by
Two little boys running through his basement
Case of fermenting bottles on the floor by the door
Carling Black Label his dad’s beer of choice
Waiting to be returned for an exchange fee
The smell of dirt under the back porch
Powdery dry never feeling rain
Freshly plowed ground turned over each spring
Disked fine and ready for garden planting
Wafting from the chicken house
Ammonia strong enough to clear a head cold
Even stronger when it came time to clean the floors
Fresh sheets with fabric softener windblown dry
On long clothes lines stretched like cobwebs
Across the back our yard
Fresh alfalfa hay lying lifeless in the field
A unique aroma when baled and stacked in the barn
Coal in the mine damp and dank
Waiting to be dug and hauled to the surface
Creating sharp and acrid smells when turned to ashes
Coke ovens belching out untamed gasses
Gray black clouds rising into the sky day and night
Creating acid rain and burning our eyes
Dropping soot on the roof as water runs into our cistern
The earthy smell of wet clay squishing between my fingers
Shaped into bowls or creatures unknown
Fresh out of the oven Mom’s homemade apple pie
Making me salivate like Pavlov’s dogs
Apples sweet and sour rotting on the ground under the tree
Drawing bees and wasps to savor the fermented juices
Yeasty smell cutting into a fresh loaf of bread
Still warm soft as a memory foam pillow
Spread with fresh yellow homemade butter
Purple lilacs blooming on the bush each spring
Better smell than any fifty-dollar perfume from Paris
Smells from the trash we burned in the back yard
Out next to the pit hole where cans and bottles died
Fresh green mint tea leaves pulled from the stalk
Brewed into iced tea sweet and refreshing
A one of a kind smell the outhouse at church and school
Stinky stalactites building rain and paper decorate them
Hot scalded chickens ready for picking in the back yard
Burnt singed hair burning off of bare chickens in the flame
Smells of the locker room after gym class at High School
Baskets of sweaty gym shorts tee shirts and a jock strap
That new car smell brought home for the first time
From Fike Cheverolet in Masontown
Smells are so important in our experience of living
Without them life would be not nearly as pleasant
*******************************************************
Beer Ad Photo: Bing Clip Art
Pie Photos: ipkitten@blogspot.com
Roth Poetry 