My maternal grandmother lived in Erie, Pennsylvania. I visited a number of times growing up (late 70s), but I only ever remember visiting in the summer.
For someone transported from the southern parts of Texas, Erie in the summertime seemed a bit chilly. I now live in Cleveland, less than one hundred miles south and west of Erie and there are times in the summer when I'm transported back. Back in time, back to Erie, back to the front and back yards of the house with the African violets on the tables by the chair and windows.
Today, for example, my youngest and I went for a walk around the block. It's been a cool summer and yet there's something about a couple of warm days followed by a cool one that brings out certain smells.
It's that standing on someone's sidewalk, smelling their grass grow. A particular type of short, weak grass that looks nice cropped low. It might even be the exposed dirt that an edged sidewalk shows next to that grass. It's that mix of oaks and maples and sycamores (with a spruce mixed in for good measure) cooling off in the evening breeze.
And there are sounds along with these smells. Sounds of cars a few blocks away, but none on your street. It's the voices of folks from a distance, talking with one another, greeting one another as they pass on the various sidewalk slabs: sandstone, concrete and blue stone.
But mostly it's the smells.
And I'm nine, all over again.
Comments (3)
I'm reminded of a visit one time to the Dupont family museum which I think is in Wilmington, DE. It was during a break from a seminar I was attending at nearby St. Andrews School with Independent School Management (ISM). I was with a group touring the old family mansion when suddenly the guide we were following opened a door to a stairwell. As she did, a wonderful scent came wafting up the stairs that immediately wisked me back in time, maybe 30 years earlier, to my grandparents' home in central Pennsylvania. I don't know what it was - but it was a "smelling summers past" sort of experience I'll never forget. Joy!
Posted by Dad | August 15, 2009 8:40 AM
Posted on August 15, 2009 08:40
Oh, those smells and scents that transport us places!
There are certain days and temperatures when a visit to my third-floor office places me in Grandma M's spare bedroom upstairs in Erie. Or when the scent on a breeze through an open window has me back in your old bedroom in Harborcreek.
Posted by Jeffrey
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August 28, 2009 12:03 PM
Posted on August 28, 2009 12:03
Jeffrey, you touched my heart with your memories of your grandmother's, my mother's, home. It was a very special place that your grandad built for us.
I thought of a memory smells connection I had several years ago when I was with Doug and Chris. They were driving me to the airport in Atlanta, and we stopped to have lunch and "fried green tomatoes" at the Whistle Stop Cafe where the movie was made. After lunch we walked through a couple of old home that had been transformed into boutiques. I walked into one and the overpowering smell was of my grandparent's (your great-granparent's) home in Moncure, NC. They were old homes in the south with black potbellied stoves in every room for the winter, and all the windows and doors open in the summer. My guess is it was a combination smell of those things, including pine trees and flowers and maybe a little mold thrown in, too. I was instantly transported to their home where we visited every Christmas. It was a wonderful instant visit to a home of pleasant memories.
Posted by Aunt Diane | September 7, 2009 10:42 PM
Posted on September 7, 2009 22:42