Smells hold powerful positions in our memories.... Popcorn and bullshit transports me back to the 1970's and Poplar Bluff, Missouri. I remember a poor farm boy (his family lived near Puxico, Missouri), and when I say poor.... I mean rural poverty, they raised everything they ate, thus they never went hungry, but their clothes' patches....had patches. I don't think they spent much on soap and I doubt the boy had any dreams other than being a small farmer after spending his days being a large farmer's hired hand.....
This poor farm boy would work the auction ring (age 8, maybe 9 years old) for pocket change). You could tell the auctioneer felt sorry for him, and tried to help the family whenever he could. Well, one day they boy was eating a bag of popcorn, when he somehow dumped some of the precious treat on the ground. Then before God and everyone the little boy cautiously picked up pieces of popcorn from the top of a pile of cow poop, then ate it....... If I ever smell popcorn and cow manure in the same sample, the memory returns. That little boy would be a man about 60 today.....I bet his immune system is strong.
The smell of Copenhagen snuff takes me back to Jon Barry's Training Stables.... Megan Rogge was 4 years older than me, and a bad influence. She introduced me to Copenhagen, .....a habit that took me 25 years to break. Hmm, Megan would be 62 these days.....I wonder how long she used that nasty stuff? Or if her kids ever found out? It's hard for me to realize that Megan is probably a grandma now.....I remember a 19 year old cowgirl, dippin' Copenhagen and jamming to King of the Road.
Cigarette smoke, takes me back to Jerry Wolsey's offices.... I think I was about the only one that did not smoke in the office, and you could walk through the place without reeking like a cheap whore on Saturday night. In the 1990's a law passed that said buildings had to have 30% of the building be smoke free....... at Wolsey's we declared the 30% smoke free area would be from 7 to 10 feet above the floor......
So why am I talking about smells...... because 2 smells remind me of my dad (fresh cut wood and hay bales). This week I was coaching football, on an all synthetic turf field, probably 20 miles from the nearest hay field and yet the smell of freshly baled hay over came me. It was like I could sense my dad's presence.....
This is where you get to make fun of me...... a smart man would never tell you the story I am about to relate....but as God as my witness this is true. A few weeks after my dad passed away, (it was a hot July day) I was cutting grass on the farm when I looked over and out of the corner of my eye I saw my dad standing.
There was an Ash tree on the farm that my dad planted, and loved to rest under watching his pigs crunch on corn. I saw my dad standing there, it took me a second or too to realize that should not be happening because he was dead.......but he was there.
A week or two later I saw my mom walking very fast, nearly running toward me and I asked her what was wrong. She said she couldn't tell me because I would have her put away..... I said, you saw dad.....? She wanted to know how I knew.... so I explained I had seen him too. Mom told me her story, it was much like my story, only she claimed to have seen him from behind, watching him for over a minute. Then when she called his name, he turned, look at her and waved......then faded away.
I saw my dad one more time, in December of 1999...... I have not seen him since, but this week on a football field in St. Louis, Missouri I felt his presence and I smelled hay bales as surely if we were back on Uncle Ernst's farm working........
Smells are a powerful memory....capable of transporting us through time and space. Are these stories real, did my mom and I have the same delusion in the exact spot...... In 1999, when I saw my dad walk through a wall to inspect my new home was it......well what the hell was it? Why did I smell hay and why did it instantly make me remember my dad.....
Life is a funny thing, so many things we cannot explain..... and we don't have too. It is my life, my stories and what they mean to me is just that, mine. I do not need you to believe, I lived it.
Some stories cannot be believed, you have to have lived them to know they are true...... Ask Tony about the arm that tried to steal Roger..... Ask Chad about the Bigfoot on Bloomfield Road...... Ask the police officers about the St. Clair Triangle UFO...... Ask your family and friends that tell stories they can't explain.....
What story do you have? What smell transports you through time and space....... It doesn't have to be magic, maybe it's just the smell of fresh cookies out of the oven taking you back to grandma's house... Maybe the smell of sweat mixed with leather puts you on a horse.....or maybe you gag at a whiff of Mad-Dog 2020.
I hope you like my stories, but the honest truth is, I could care less....I can't smell them or you.
