Warning - Goofy Question - Smells

[selector]

What smells evoke the strongest sentimental or nostalgic response in you?  For me, an not unexpectedly, they are both fond memories of my childhood.

First, I love the smell of puffed wheet when I sprinkle brown sugar over it in the morning.  We didn't often have puffed wheat, mostly when my parents took us back to Canada from Peru for an extended vacation every three years.  So, at Grandma's house, where we stayed, it was puffed wheat and brown sugar for breakfast, and it was such a treat.

My other is something I have mentioned on these pages before....creosote.  Through much of my early childhood, first near Sudbury until I was five, and then in Peru for the next 9 years, I was near trains....steamers first.  Today, whenever I get the occasion to stand between two rails, especially on a hot summer day, the powerful aroma evokes a strong response in me...quite emotional.

-Crandell

[SpaceMouse]

One man's perfume...

My assocociation with cresote is long hours in confined spaces treating untreated lumber against dry-rot. When I think of cresote, my chest hurts and my eyes burn.

[PA&ERR]

Horse manure and diesel exhaust...

Don't ask!

-George

[loathar]

Smoke fluid coming from my Marx steamer going around the Christmas tree. I get flashbacks of my mom yelling about the grease stains on the carpet when I smell it now.

Also-Nitro Methane (CH3NO2) I love the smell of nitro in the morning.

[IRONROOSTER]

Cinnamon toast from my childhood. The hot toast melts the butter whose smell mixes with the cinnamon aroma - boy does that take me back to bygone days when Mom made breakfast and summer vacation lasted forever.

Enjoy

Paul 

[Anonymous]

creosote and deisel fumes, train watching; compressed air, from first cab ride in NYC e-7;turkey cooking in oven;first mowed lawn of spring, alcohol exhaust from stock car days..........

[twhite]

Selector--what a GREAT thread!!

For me, it's two smells--eggs fried in Nucoa (a lot of people might not remember Nucoa, but it was a butter substitute during WWII that had a very strange, almost CLEAN odor when you fried something in it), and the very unique scent of oil-fired exhaust from one of those big, hunking Southern Pacific AC cab-forwards, as it came charging by with a mile-long train of reefers while I was growing up in Truckee.  Nothing in my book has ever matched the very personal 'perfume' of those locos.

Tom

[jblackwelljr]

My grandparents on my mom's side were from Sicily, and man, could my grandmother cook.  For some reason, whenever I smell fresh green peppers frying in garlic and olive oil, I'm back in her kitchen.

My hometown, Pottsville, PA. is home to America's oldest brewery - Yuengling. No matter where you are, you walk outside on a brisk fall morning and you can smell the hops....they still blow the factory steam whistle at 7 every morning. Takes me all the way back to last night's beer.

[Pathfinder]

Growing up on Vancouver Island and working in forestry, the scent that gets me going is fresh cut Western Red Cedar, with creosote a close second due to all the time spent on the water/at docks.

[mononguy63]

It's the smell of the motor in my old Lionel engine after it had been running a while on the basement floor and got warm. My slot cars sometimes emitted a similar fragrance.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Two things for me. The first is butter-milk pancakes with homemade syrup. The second is the smell of arc-welding. Both of these take me back to my childhood when I spent the summers with my grandparents. My grandmother made her pancakes in a certain way that only my mother has duplicated. She cooks some up now and then and suddenly I'm back in my grandmothers kitchen. My grandfather was a welder and had his own shop near the house. I spent a lot of time, taking old machines apart to find out how they worked. He taught me all that I know about arc-welding. I didn't know how much I loved my grandparents until they were gone and realized what I had lost. I have to stop now. I can't see to type.

[BRAKIE]

Crandell,For me its diesel locomotive fumes,hot oil and warm axle grease..All of those recall fond childhood memories of being track side at Union Station in Columbus,Ohio watching PRR trains roll by while I was slipping on a  10 cent Coke Cola..

[Texas Zepher]

Black powder from spent fireworks, and the oily ozone smell from sparks of the brushes on old American Flyer and Lionel trains.

[SteamFreak]

The smell of evergreen in the Adirondacks, as well as the smell of the cabins; steam locomotive smoke, both real and American Flyer, and a certain kind of printing ink that both my sister & I have loved since we were kids. You don't come across a book or magazine with it too often, but it has this almost smoky petroleum odor that is one of the best smells in the world. Friends used to think we were mental patients when one of us would run to the other saying something like "It's one of those great smelling books!" and we'd both stick our noses into it. But the odor doesn't last long once the book is opened, so it's a fleeting pleasure.

[RoyalOaker]

Old canvas/tents and campfires.  

Reminds me of great family vacations when I was a kid,  years in the Boy Scouts and new vacations with wife and kids.  Somehow,  everything is OK when I smell these two things together.

[MisterBeasley]

Funny, I was thinking of the "bay" part of my Moose Bay layout today.  I had the idea of getting a bucket of clams and putting them under the layout to put that ocean smell into the trainroom.  Not sure the women folk would approve, though.

[simon1966]

The smell of leather and oil that is so characteristic of a 50's era British car.  They may not have run very well but they sure looked and smelled good!

[Anonymous]

The smell of freshly showered ***.its the best!!!!

[selector]

Thank-you sooo much, everyone, for taking the time to reply.  It is more than I had hoped.

Warm regards to you all.

...and, say a blessing for Grandmas and Grandpas, wherever they are.

-Crandell

[tstage]

Smell (reminds me of) - A few have already been mentioned:

• Horse manure (horse stable)
• Spent firecracker smoke (4th of July)
• Creosote - docks on the river
  
• Moth balls (blanket closet at home)
• Pine wood chips (kindergarden playground)

Tom

[metalfrog]

creosote...the smell from my old marx trains when i was young.....and the pouring or melting of steel at the foundry here in my hometown.terry.......

[Virginian]

Salt marsh and coal smoke.  Duck hunting and steam engines.  Good things.

Oh yeah, and "Golden Autumn" perfume.

[usersatch]

Creosote and diesel exhaust for me, too.

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Anybody recall advertisements quite a number of years ago in MR I beleive for model railroad fragrances?  I think it was named something like Old Fatory Airs.  I recall they must have had quite variety of scents for a layout. One was barn yard manure I think.  I never got any of the stuff. I suspect not many other people did either.

[ChessieFan13]

well for myself .........There is an old bachmann uboat that i have had since I was 5 and after running it a while it heats up and gives off this electrical type hot smell that takes me back to my granddaddys house and the very first layout that we built together. 

Stilll when I run the loco it gives off that smell.   L love that loco.

J.W,

[hdbob]

fresh cut xmas trees is my favorite smell

It takes me back to my childhood in the Bronx NY, there was a rail yard nearby that had fresh cut trees for sale i recall walking thru there picking out the "right" tree . my dad and I would bring it home(parkchester) then it meant that xmas was soon, and in turn it was time to bring out the old LIONEL set to run under tree and around the cocktail table also hoping that "santa" would bring me another piece to add to my set!

bob

[trainfreek92]

Im only 14 now so I guess im not really remebering a bygone era. But anyway. The smells that remind me of my childhood are, The smell of an old car. My dad has a lot of older cars and I have always enjoyed them. 2nd would be Popcorn made in a 40 year old popper by my Grandpa. Happy modeling. Tim

[AntonioFP45]

Hmm.

I guess there's no NYC subway train riders from the 1970s here......

Monon63 the smell from your Lionel motor if, if I'm not mistaken is OZONE.

As a kid I remember riding the #2 in the Bronx with mom and sister often.  Whenever we got off at our destination, we always waited for the train to leave.  Each time after the train left, my sister and I would inhale the air deeply and say "ahhh!"   We had no idea what that scent was, but we liked it.

It was the late Chester Holley who explained to me that electric motors can produce ozone. 

[jep1267]

This is a good thread. For me it would be the stuff (liquid vinyl?) from the Creepy People that my older brothers had...ya know the one with the metal molds. I don't know what the stuff was (some kind of carcongin no doubt) but every once in a while I'll catch a wiff of it from something and it brings me right back to that time.

J.P. 

 

[on30francisco]

The smell of ozone created by the sparking of Lionel trains running on their three rail track and the smell of the ink on a newly mimeographed paper.