Ethyl Remembers: Smells

It's amazing how this time of year is so ripe with smells.  You can actually smell Fall in the air.  There is a certain scent that seems to be carried on the wind.  And sometimes smells can take you back to your childhood, back to a time when all you had to worry about was whether you were going to be able to get that English theme ready to turn in on time, or whether you had time to finish the skirt you were sewing for Home Economics class.
I remember the skirt I made in tenth grade Home Ec. class.  It was a straight line skirt in light green wool.  I really liked it and wore it a lot, and I really enjoyed learning how to sew.  It has been a skill that has served me well in my life, whether it was making shirts and jeans for my boys, or neckties for my husband and my brother, or curtains and table cloths and throw pillows for my home, or stuffed animals and puppets for my grandchildren and nieces and nephews.  I have really appreciated learning the basics in school, and then adding to them as the need arose down through the years. 
I can remember that stupid theme report we had to compile before we could graduate from high school.  We had six weeks to write it, and I did mine the last weekend before it was due on Monday.  My husband to be came down to Iuka and spent the weekend  helping me get information together and typing it up at the last minute.  We were not allowed to pick our own subject.  We were all assigned to write a theme paper on alcoholism.  It was a contest with the winner getting a grand prize.  Can't remember what that award was, I only remember I placed third.  Nothing short of a miracle, considering how little time I put into it.  Oh, well, to make a long story short, I did graduate, but I have always wondered if I would have without my boyfriend's help.
But back to the subject of smells.  It's really funny how all school cafeterias smell the same.  When my sons were in school, occasionally I would go to school and eat lunch with them, and whenever I walked into the cafeteria it always took me back to lunch time as a teenager.  Especially if they were having soup that day.  I think there must be a standard recipe for school cafeteria soup.  Nowadays, the lunches are brought in by an outside firm; they no longer are prepared in the school kitchen, and I must say, they usually are a sorry excuse for anything that would appear to be half way edible.  I remember when I was in high school we had home made yeast rolls at least twice a week, and you could smell the wonderful aroma of bread baking  all the way into our classrooms.  What kid gets that today?
There was a pulp wood mill at Counce, TN.   For all those of you who have never smelled a pulp mill you will be hard pressed to understand what I'm talking about, but the odor is somewhere akin to a person who has a really bad problem with too much fiber in their diet and over-ripe rotten eggs.  Most of the time we were oblivious to the presence of this particular mill, but in the fall when the wind turned around and blew our way, it at times was overpowering.  It didn't just come and then drift away on the wind.  It came like a huge black cloud and just hung there.
My aforementioned boy friend usually came down to Iuka to see me on the weekends and we did the biggest part of our courting in the front porch swing.  It was a simpler time, and those evenings in the swing were a perfect time to talk and get to know one another.  Looking back on them, I realize just how valuable they were.  We discussed any and everything, so that by the time we did marry, we knew how the other party felt on just about any subject you could bring up.  We decided we would have two children, a boy first and then a girl.  We even picked out their names.  Not only did we not have two children, we had three, and they were not a boy and a girl, we had three boys, and we didn't use any of the names we had picked out.  But in the end it made no difference.  The important thing was we both wanted them, and we knew that about each other before we married.
My father was a huge Grand Ole Opry fan and every Saturday night he sat on the couch in our front room and fiddled with an old white radio that had seen better days until he could half way pick up Nashville and have that old timey country music blasting all over the hillside.  That was just part of our Saturday nights.  When the weather started getting chilly the old man would always build a fire in the wood stove, and the smell of wood smoke was intertwine in the crisp fall air with the sound of Kitty Wells and Porter Wagoner and Little Jimmy Dickens and the then stars of the Opry, and when the wind blew a certain direction, Counce would add it's pungent odor to the mix.  And in the midst of it all, two love sick teenagers would snuggle together in the front porch swing and dream of the day when they could ride off into the sunset together, to happy ever after and beyond.
We traveled to Pine Bluff, Arkansas recently where there is a pulp wood mill.  Ten miles from the town, you could smell the thing, and my husband of forty plus years looked at me and winked and said, 'You know what, that smell always makes me feel romantic'.  It's really amazing how some smells can  touch your heart so deeply.