“Scents of Summer”

By

Gerry Niskern

Are you planning a trip back home this summer? Are you going to visit family and friends, or is your trip really about capturing the memories of “the good old summertime?”

While walking past a newly moved lawn the other day, it occurred to me that the charisma of summertime is all in the smell. Think about it. Does that fragrance of freshly cut lawn remind you of rolling down grassy banks with your cousins amid peals of laughter? Or perhaps the aroma of grass was mingled with the scent of the dust freshly watered down for the first pitch in your baseball game. You can smell it now, can’t you?

After the game nothing was better than the tangy citrus scent of cold lemonade unless it was the first icy gulp after a hot game.

If you grew up here in the valley, surely you remember the aroma

the cantaloupe sheds out on Grand Ave as you drove past this time of year. How long since  cantaloupes in the supermarket smelled like that?

Speaking of melons there used to a family on West Jefferson, around llth Avenue, that sold the best watermelons in the valley. They kept them cold in large soda pop coolers. After much thumping and checking for sugar spots, your mother selected her melon.  They always plugged it for her. No need. They were all winners. Everyone gathered around the table at home. When she slid the knife into the dark rind, the melon split apart with a loud crack releasing the familiar sweet aroma.  It was heaven.

The fragrance of honey suckle and roses mingled with the ripe figs in our neighborhood. When the temperature hovered at 115, the smell of hot tar in the asphalt while we were bike riding was even stronger than the pungent odor of the Tamarisk trees as we relaxed on a wide limb while cooling off in the shade of the branches.

Summertime always sent older sisters out into the back yard seeking a tan. Soon the exotic smell of coconut oil rose from warm bodies. Inside the house the fresh, clean cooler pads made from shredded aspen wood meant summer was here.

Saturday brought the scorch of hot iron on the damp cloth as mom pressed dad’s pants for Sunday church. If you were allowed to go downtown on Saturday, the candy counters at Newberrys or Woolworth on Washington beckoned with chocolate aroma. And if that didn’t take your quarter, then the Carmel corn shop on Monroe tried.

The odor of cigars wrinkled your nostrils if you stepped into the lobby of the Adams hotel, just for a peek, of course. A trip past the Chinese Green Dragon that emitted the wonderful aroma of onions and spices on East Jefferson wasn’t on the way to anything, but the giant green neon dragon was fascinating to watch.

If the movie theatre was your destination, the smell of freshly popped corn beckoned.

Sunday afternoon meant family picnic time at Riverside Park down on South Central Avenue. The swimming pool was great. Then again, wading through the footbath that reeked with the smell of heavy chlorine you were required to walk through before entering the pool was gross. After a cool swim, the sputtering and popping of roasting hot dogs mingled with the vinagery smell of Mom’s potato salad. We washed it all down with a bottle of Barq’s, root beer, orange or strawberry.

The summer week was complete.