Scents and Non Scents

Here is what the wise and witty Phyllis penned in Writing Our Memories class the day we captured scents. At 87, her sense of smell no longer serves her, but her memory does.

Although I can no longer smell, I have so many happy memories of smells. One of the great smells is of the outdoors. Going out just after it has rained. Or, if it has snowed, the smell combined with the whiteness and stillness. The smell of spring.

And the smell of fresh gingerbread when you have just come in from a hard day's sledding, to partake of a great slice of gingerbread and a glass of fresh cold milk. Or the smell of fresh lumber and of linseed oil used on skis. And then were the spices used in cooking, such as cinnamon and nutmeg. There were berries such as strawberries and raspberries, and fruits such as apples, peaches, cherries and pears.

Then there were not-so-good smells as of a skunk or a pigpen or a fetid swamp, or the Camas paper mill--althought the latter carried the town of Camas through the Great Depression.

Whether pleasant or putrid, experienced or imagined, smells have made history. What does your nose remember?