Originally Posted by
Clyde1820
A piece of rope.
Some years ago, while riding along a street I'd been on many thousands of times, a strange smell floated past. A familiar smell. One that took me back 50yrs to my childhood when I used to root around grandpa's garage area. A short length of rope. Nasty, probably in that gutter for years. But it smelled identical to grandpa's garage. That old, awful, somehow comforting mix of oil, dirt, sweat, general crud, weathering, and whatever any number of animals chose to do with the thing. The old memories flashed through my head as I passed it. Took me minutes to find the thing, coming back to search for it. Weird, how certain smells can unleash a cascade of old memories like that.
In Jr. Hi, in the late 60s, I would walk by a corner gas station. It was a full service station with the bays. The parking lot was littered with cigarette buts. There was a smell of fuel, oil and solvents.
Fast forward to the 90s. I'm working in a lab using iso-octane as a solvent. The smell of iso-octane always brought back the memory of that parking lot. Still does for that matter.