The Scent Of Memories

Posted in Smell-O-Rama |

By Less Lee Moore

Music can evoke memories so intense that it can be painful to listen; the feelings linger long after the needle leaves the turntable. But scents are more primal, often both more and less specific. So what do memories smell like?

My paternal Grandmother, a.k.a. Maw Maw Alice, kept a bottle of Mentholatum next to my bed at all times. As a child, I was plagued with sinus problems and allergies and I didn’t fight swabbing this on my nostrils in quite the same way as I did with Triaminic cough syrup. I stayed at my grandparents’ house nearly every weekend until I hit my teens. Percolated coffee, stewed chicken, mashed potatoes, and apple tarts were popular items in her kitchen, and I’ll remember the way they smelled until the day I die.

Maw Maw Alice had arthritis and would frequently use what she referred to as “the balm Ben-Gay.” She also used Camay soap and Coty Airspun powder and I still recall the aroma of her bathroom after she used both. In fact, I probably inherited my intense sense of smell from her. She had a violent aversion to vanilla perfume. When I lived with her in my twenties, I couldn’t use anything vanilla scented. It gave her migraines, though she didn’t call them that.

Strong odors bothered me frequently. My other grandma—nicknamed “Nutzie”—worked the snack bar at Paradise Lanes bowling alley. I couldn’t bowl, but I could play video games, so I spent many Friday nights there wasting quarters on Centipede and listening to my Walkman. One afternoon, they cleaned the bathrooms with a toxic blend of antiseptic and orange deodorant. It stunk like Napalm and gave me the first migraine of my life, only I didn’t know what those were. No one, except Nutzie of course, believed me when I said the orange stench made me sick. I was a nervous, imaginative child and “normal kids” didn’t act that way, said Nutzie’s friend and Scrabble partner Evelyn, who didn’t truck to kids with special problems.

Vintage arcade photo © Jon Wiley

Paradise Lanes was one in name only. Like any bowling alley of the 70s and 80s, it reeked of cigarettes, of the peculiar grimy smell of bowling balls, fountain cokes, French fries, and jalapeno peppers. Though I’ve never picked up the smoking habit, my predisposition to lung cancer has probably been assured.

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