Over lunch the other day, I was talking with a friend about memorable toys that we played with while growing up. We touched upon one of the keys ingredients to these memories: smell.
Lincoln Logs when they were made of wood, not plastic. That new car smell of a Matchbox racer fresh out of the box. The fragrance that the melting styrene plastic sheets made when you switched on the Vac-U-Form heater, just before you flipped it over onto the form and hit the vacuum pump switch. I imagine that I lost a few brain cells from inhaling those effervescent long carbon chain molecules. That doesn’t hold a candle to the airplane glue I used for putting rubber-band driven balsa wood airplanes together when I was a little older. And among the millions of possible smells that the New York City Subway emits, there is one that I catch every so often. It’s usually in summer, before the heat becomes oppressive. I can only describe it as an alchemy of cool breezes from deep within the tunnels mixing with the charged air from the third rail, being forced out of the station and on to the street just as you head down the stairs to catch a train.
The past retains much of its lasting quality thanks to the power of an aroma, transporting me back in time by the mere wisp of fragrance. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does it’s amazing.