Thrusday Three: Three Senses of our Past

Terry is getting all nostalgic and has a few questions about the sights, sounds and smells of our pasts.

A rose by any other name…

Would still probably not smell like a paper mill. Or something. I was trying to come up with a good introduction for today’s “Smells Like Home” Version of the Axis of Weevil Thursday Three, and, well, that’s about the best I could do.

ANYWAY, prompted by Monday’s reminiscence about the comforting smells of childhood, Jim Smith (an alias, I’m certain of it) suggested that this week’s T3 deal with not only the smells, but also with the sights and sounds that you remember from your youth.

SO, take a moment and open up your memory vault, then answer these three questions:

1. What smells do you most closely associate with your childhood home or hometown?
2. What landmark do you remember about your hometown that no longer exists?
3. What sounds do you recall distinctly from your childhood?

Take a moment to think about those and either leave a comment below, or a link to your blog.

1) I had a very rural childhood. We were one of the few houses on a dirt road in Litchfield County, CT. Our home was surrounded by woods and cow pastures. So the scents of my childhood have a country theme. The smell of new mown hay, the dusky warm scent of cattle, the earthy rot of the swamp across the road and the sharp tang of chlorine from our swimming pool bring me back. We also spent a week or so every summer visiting family on the shore in Massachusetts so I’ll add in the smell of sun screen and of mud at low tide.

2.) There used to be a wonderful life sized model of a horse in front of the local feed and hardware store. It was on wheels and it would be appropriately dressed for the weather and season. I think the horse is gone now, but the store is still there. My elementary (East Street Elementary) school is gone as well. I tried finding it a while ago, but it is no longer. The corn fields and pastures are slowing disappearing around our old homestead which saddens me greatly.

3) I remember the great crashing booms of thunder as the storms would pass over our house (as I mentioned before our house was on a magnetic ridge and all the storms would end up right over our house) and the long rolling rattles of thunder when we were down by the beach. The sounds of crickets, spring peepers, bull frogs and the buzz of grasshoppers are also figure in my childhood. The only sirens I remember were from the bomb drills in middle school. Instead of duck and cover we would troop across the road to the neighboring Kimberly-Clark plant to shelter within its bowels. It was always an odd experience as we sat in small groups in the starkly painted white interior.

And that was the sights, sounds and scents of my childhood.