162 Smells of nostalgia

The Smells of Nostalgia

The radio is on BBC news. My driver’s side window is down. I smell freshly mowed grass as I drive by the old high school. The radio news is not good – hate, floods, foolish people in D.C. – but the smell of the grass makes me smile. 

No, I grin! It is the smell of field hockey, football games, and youth. I was a mean left inner on the high school hockey team.


So what other smells make me nostalgic? I remember once being amazed at a Helen Keller quote: “Smell is a potent wizard that transports you…all the years you have lived.” I pull a sticky note pack out of the desk drawer and write one thought on each one. This is so I can “assortorate” them (as my friend Walt says) into a prioritized list.

NOW, before you read any further, please make your own list. Three, four, five – it doesn’t matter. What aromas, smells, scents bring back your past?

 And I believe that the beginning of September is a really good time to do this. Perhaps, it is something about the new school year, seasonal sports, and holidays looming. Labor Day is done; the leaves are beginning to fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and then a NEW YEAR.

And I found another pithy saying - from Nabokov (of Lolita fame and some really mad, chilling stories I read in college): “Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.” I am surprised it is from Nabokov, but I like it!

Have you made your list? Are any of your favorite’s smells on my list, too? We’d love to hear your lists. Post them on Facebook or email us!

Savvy Glenne’s Nostalgic Smells

1. Freshly mowed grass

2. Bacon sizzling and coffee brewing when I wake up

3. Line-dried sheets (one of my chores was to fold the sheets off the line!)

4. Movie popcorn (smells better than it tastes actually)

5. Gardenias (so fragile, so lovely)

6. Vanilla (for baking, for candles….)



7. Chocolate - dark (thinking fudge, truffles, and cake icing here!)


8. Cinnamon (did you ever eat cinnamon toast?)

9. Swimming pools (chlorine?)

10. Real Christmas trees

11. New Cars (one can now buy new car spray)

12. Sunscreen/lotion that smells like coconut

13. Lemon furniture polish

14. Cold, clear nights with snow on the ground (something about purity)

15. Gasoline and diesel fumes (I know you think I am crazy, but this smells like NYC)

16. Fresh paint

17. Old leather (books, jackets, furniture, in a horse barn)


18. Frying Vidalia onions (only sweet Vidalias) –[too cute not to share]

19. Old Spice (my grandfather)


 20. Johnson’s Baby Powder

21. Chanel #5 (my favorite for 50 years)

Hope you, too, took a trip down memory lane for a little while. 

Glenne