The Senses

From Louisville I remember the smell of summer rain steaming off the hot asphalt street outside my house and the smell of White Castle buns. Also the smell of autumn leaves in piles on the streets as we jumped and rolled in them, and then the even better smell as they burned. 

From Boulder I remember the early morning whistle of a steam train that still ran in the vicinity, and the utter silence of the street outside our house as a heavy snow fell one night. 

From SoCal I remember the distinctive, but not exactly pleasant, smell of the ozone in the smog and riding my bike across the Valley with alternating eyes closed because of the eye irritation. (Most years we get a few days in San Francisco, usually in October, when the wind blows from the east or northeast instead of from the ocean to the west and we are treated to the novelty of warm, polluted air. The smell of ozone in this air takes me right back to my youth in the Valley -- like a modern version of Marcel Proust and his Madeline and tea). A better recollection was the wonderful smell of printing ink that I would ladle on to the school’s press -- this ranks right up there with the asphalt and creosote. Also the beautiful, blood red sunsets over the ocean. And the somehow unique look of SoCal canyon roads from Laurel to Topanga to those around Lake Arrowhead. 

Hollywood is good at finding SoCal locations that look like anywhere else in the world, but I don’t think you could find locations anywhere else that would look convincingly like SoCal canyons. When I watched the movie Laurel Canyon I had to stop and re-watch the few second-unit shots of the road up the canyon because it brought back so many memories.

From Arizona I remember the wonderful smell of all the gasoline I pumped at the car wash and the intoxicating aroma of citrus blossoms in March back when the Valley of the Sun was still carpeted with orchards. In late summer there's the delight of a monsoon thunderstorm both in the mountain forests and in the scorched desert. (Someone else will have to rhapsodize on the wonders of the desert.)

From San Francisco there's the familiar summer fog that flows through the Golden Gate or over the Peninsula's gaps or ridges like a cloud too heavy to soar into the sky. Of course there's also the reek of urine on the sidewalks late in the dry season when it's been months since the city last got a good bath. Just a little further afield, there's the quiet freshness of redwood groves in all seasons but especially in the winter when the paths are lined with clumps of hibernating lady bugs.

I know that there are people who can't stand the smell of cilantro or garlic, but I love both and will loiter in places rich in these smells as well as wherever bread is being baked. As a vegetarian, I've already said too much about my love for the smell of BBQ ribs, and those BBQ chickens you used to be able to buy at supermarkets were almost as bad.

For a total sensory experience, it's hard to beat the final set at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in Golden Gate Park. (Though you can also make an argument for Emmylou Harris' sound check when the park is empty and it's just her voice breaking the early morning stillness.) By this time I'm dead tired having worked three long days. Since this is early October, the sun is out for a change and the last, magic rays of the day are just touching the tops of the beautiful, tall trees around Speedway (now Hellman) Meadow as hundreds of thousands of people listen reverently to the final strains of music and Emmylou's haunting voice echoes gently through the park.

But here's the oddest one: There is a grand old SF store called Gump's. I've never purchased anything there, but I walk past it's main entrance several times a week and the smell that wafts out onto the sidewalk is just delicious. I have no idea what it is -- the smell of wealth perhaps. But I savor it every time I pass by.