Walking in the Australian bush I could definitely smell skunk. I knew there were no skunks in Australia, but that was certainly the skunk smell. It transported me to a long time ago when I was a child. I was in my grandparent's house in the Adirondack Mountains in northern New York State near the Canadian border. From my bedroom window I could see Mount Whiteface which had snow on top most of the year. Lying under my paraneh (goose down stuffed quilt) with only my head sticking out my face tingled from the cold - my frozen breath a white vapour in front of me - sometimes a musky odour would drift into the room. It was the spray of a skunk. Close up as many an Adirondack dog knows it is overpowering. A wise dog avoids a skunk thereafter. The stench of butyl mercaptan lasts for a long while. From a distance the smell is pleasant to me and brings memories of the pine forests with springy, fallen needles underfoot.The smell came from a plant called green kamala (Mallotus claoxyloides). It is also called Smell-of-the-Bush and Odour Bush. I planted the shrub in back of the house, and the occasional fragrance issuing from it takes my back to another place in another time. The sadness of nostalgia merges with the happiness of the present.

Dear David f,

Yes, certain aromas do bring back certain memories...

I wrote this quite a few years ago, it's called -
'Coffee Memories.'

'Slowly I opened my eyes,
It was morning.
The aroma of freshly brewed coffee, good and strong,
A whisper of bacon, stirred a sleeping memory...

All too vividly brought back a ship,
Sailing from familiar shores,
Tear-filled eyes of family and friends.
A distant waving of a hankerchief,
Until the coming of darkness engulfed
even the sound of sea gulls.

Home, how well remembered,
Clean sheets, the smell of cooking,
Saturday nights before a crackling fire.
A happy place filled with laughter,
A treasured link in the reality of change.

Change came swiftly, always remaining constant.
Faces, places, never two alike.
The search for truth in new experiences,
Time no longer measured, and yet.

The heart ached for the familiar
The door had not been closed.
The road back was a long one,
And much would yet be reached.

But someday I knew the path
would homeward turn and soon,
While coffee in the morning
stirred for me a memory still."

Perhaps our new found poverty will make us appreciate the simple things in life.

Dear Arjay,

"Our new found poverty?"

This is nothing.

My parents arrived in this country with only
the clothes on their backs. They worked for everthing.
And they never ever considered themselves 'poor.'
The only people that my father considered poor
were ones he considered "spiritual beggars."

Appreciate the simple things in life?

You betcha!
Always have, always will.

People who appreciate simple pleasures like a good cup of coffee do not have grounds for complaint.

Dear David f,

They may have grounds, but its not in
their ethos. They simply do what needs
to be done.

Arr...yes! The simple things in life are often the best!
But why are they?

EVO

A simple thing
Like bird on wing
But that's patently absurd
Since the wing is on the bird

David.F! Well.. the bird must be a bird! Its the ones who can not fly! may the wind carry them.

EVO

I love david f's scents of humour. He's quite the pun-gent.

CJ! That's a Canadian sense of humor! I have another name for it, but well...

SMILE.

EVO

"Kilgore: Smell that? You smell that?
Lance: What?
Kilgore: Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that.
[kneels]
Kilgore: I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like
[sniffing, pondering]
Kilgore: victory. Someday this war's gonna end... "

Evocative indeed.
Feeling a bit negative given that I have smelled nothing but smoke for the past 3 weeks.

If your nose runs and your feet smell you may be upside down.

Ah, the smell of smoke. 23% (guesstimate) of Australian women smoke, and the rest aren't all cold either.

I love Ogden Nash's ditties on smells.
But this one by Chrisopher Morley - reminds
me of the innocence of childhood...

"My daddy smells like tobacco and books
Mother, like lavender and listerine
Uncle John carries a whiff of cigars
Nanny smells starchy and soapy and clean.

Shandy, my dog, has a smell of his own
(When he's been out in the rain, he smells most)
But Katie, the cook, is more splendid than all -
She smells exactly like hot buttered toast."

When I was a little boy I became very afraid of losing my grandmother. I didn’t want her or my grandfather to die. I can remember the odour of liniment that she used on her aching body. I recall her scent of clean clothes, garden and liniment. I still have her bottle of Sloan’s liniment.

Her legs were shapeless and thick with the oedema that afflicts some old people when they retain fluids. Sloan’s helped to ease her aching body.

I asked, “Ma, why are your legs so thick?” I called her ‘Ma.’ Her children did so why shouldn’t I?

She looked at me and held me close. In a dreamy voice she said, “When I was a young and beautiful woman in Eishyshok on a starry night I went swimming in the river. The smell of cedar and the reflections in the water so took me that I was not aware of the nearby water mill until I was drawn into the water wheel. I was so battered that my legs were no longer shapely when I got out. That’s why my legs are like this.”

Of course, I believed my grandmother. She was rigidly honest and would not lie to me. It was only years later that I realised that she did not want me to think of the infirmities of age. However, I did think of age. I heard that eating eggs promoted longevity so I advised my grandmother to eat eggs. Somehow, I knew this good time would not last.