The Smell of Nostalgia

I recently wrote about memory trickiness, exercises, and comic books. I told you about how I used specific memories of comic books to classify and 'age' other memories I had that were attached to those comics. Like that time in 1975 when we stopped at a hotel on one of our long distance trips and ended up getting to swim in the hotel pool at dusk.


My buddy Mario lists another memory technique that he swears by. Smell. It's not a new concept, I'm sure. But what may be new to you is the smell of comics. Smell has long been associated as the most powerful sense for eliciting particular memories.

But when Mario talks about the smell of a comic book, he's talking about the musty back-issue smell of slowly rotting paper. The memories and nostalgic feeling that he's invoking are of days spent pouring over back issues or re-reading his own mags.

The smell of comic doesn't particularly do anything for me. I'm familiar with it, and I think it's pleasant, but it doesn't necessarily invoke strong memories for me. I think it's because of the quantity of comic books that have marched through my life. The smell of comics doesn't hold any special attachment anymore. Not like certain glimpses and flashes that I have from particular comic books.






I think comics are unque in this era. The glimpse of a graphic that can bring forth a strong memory. Television and movies have this, but the static picture can sometimes be stronger held in the memory than the moving one. Or maybe it's just that we could spend more time staring at it.






But please don't get me wrong, I'm not immune to the smell-memory attachment by any means. There's one particular smell I encounter from time to time that suddenly sends me back to a very young age and a lonely hospital stay. Tonsils, maybe? I remember my mom coming to visit and bringing me a toy car. I remember being upset because I got a piece of sugar crisp cereal stuck in the back seat of the car and I didn't want my mom finding out.

I have strong smell-memories attached to the houses of both my grandmothers. I believe the smell is from certain cleaning fluids or laundry detergent. One is mixed with old paper, and is the smell of my grandmother Dill's basement entrance to her old house on Eagle Court in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

The other smell is some sort of bathroom cleaning fluid. And a particular memory comes flooding back of my standing at the bathroom sink at my Grandmother Lomax's house in North Carolina. I'm slowly filling the bathroom sink with water and my Mego bend-em Batman and Robin figures are in serious deadly danger.

Both of these are treasured memories. One is general feeling, the other is specific incident. They are strong.

My kids often visit their Grammy and Gramps Richards for a week over the summer. The kids get to trade off with who gets to go when. When they come back, their clothes always smell different. Having been through Grammy's washing machine during their stay. And I can't help but think that this is one of the smell's that will form strong nostalgic memories for them when they're my age.

Thanks,
DCD