“Scents of Arizona Summers”

By

Gerry Niskern

You can smell them now, can’t you? If you were lucky enough to grow up here you know every delicious smell of our state. And even if you didn’t, you’ll recognize most of the delicious aromas.

If you rolled down the car windows in the spring coming to and from work the smell of the orange blossoms was wonderful. Back when the valley was filled with groves, the citrus scent was everywhere.

How about the scent of the dust freshly watered down infield for the first pitch at a baseball game? Or the smell of the boys sweat, dirt soaked uniforms as them pile in the car to go home?

I remember the aroma of the cantaloupe sheds out on Grand Ave as you drove past this time of year. How long since cantaloupes in the stores have smelled like that? My Resident Historian used to back his pickup up to a shed and they would fill it to the brim with “over ripes”, enough for a neighborhood feast!

When I was a kid, we bought our watermelons from a house on W. Jefferson who kept them in a pop cooler. When mom slid her big knife in the dark rind, the melon split with a loud crack, releasing the sweetest aroma in the world.

The fragrance of freshly cut grass mingled with the aroma of  honey suckle and ripe figs in neighborhoods. At ll5, the smell of hot tar in asphalt was as strong as the odor of the Tamarisk trees where we kids played on the wide branches.

The exotic smell of coconut oil rose from warm bodies as teenagers sunbathed in the back yard and inside the house the smell of fresh aspen cooler pads mingled with the smell of mom pressing dad’s pants for church.

Does anyone remember when the candy counter at Newberry’s beckoned with chocolate aroma; or when the caramel corn shoppe over on Monroe tried to take your quarter. Cigars wrinkled your nose as you passed the Adams hotel (which you walked thru quickly just to cool off in the lobby) , but a trip past the Green Dragon on Jefferson emitted onions and spices of Chinese fare.

The required walk thru of the foot bath at the swimming pool reeked with heavy chlorine, but worth the running plunge in the cool water.  Which smelled better: the sputtering hot dogs or the icy cold Barq’s Root Beer from the snack bar?

But, best of all to old timers and brand new residents,  is the pungent smell of our desert after a summer rain? The scent of wet creosote mingling with the fragrant  sage is found only in Arizona!