<p>That special plastic/rubbery smell of baby dolls always reminds me of Christmas and childhood.</p>
<p>Oh my, theses are wonderful moments…
Mine is the smell of cedar driftwood. If I get a whiff of it, I am transported to summers on the beach, long, long ago.</p>
<p>Oh, yeah, Coppertone = the shore. And the scent of apple orchards reminds me of the last part of that drive. Orchards long gone, I suppose. </p>
<p>Two of mine are: patchouli oil. Never fails to trigger the image and memories of exotic, slightly daring young men I knew. Yeah, it was the Woodstock days; maybe that’s what Parent1986 is looking for.
And, to my delight, as these become more prevalent in the US: the sound of a moped or Vespa- instantly takes me right back to Europe.</p>
<p>Love the smell of Hawaiian Tropic suntan oil, makes me think of sex. I used to visit Daytona Beach a lot, “back in the day”</p>
<p>Evocative songs - Crocodile Rock mentioned unthread makes me happy no matter what. In my living will, I have – and this is no joke – a provision that says if I am in a vegetative state, and do not respond to that song, then it’s time to pull the plug.</p>
<p>And when I saw McCartney this past week, I got teary during Hey Jude. I was a little girl when it came out and I believed in the way only little girls can that the Beatles had written it specially for me, because my middle name is Judith.</p>
<p>Boy that was a Proustian moment! I remember the summer I was determined to read Du Cote du Chez Swann in French. I read it every night before going to bed and before the end of the summer I was dreaming in French.</p>
<p>Sewer gas actually reminds me of my childhood in Hargeisa, Somalia. Because water was so scarce we used the gray water from the kitchen to play with in the back yard, water plants etc. It frequently had that slight rotten egg smell to it. We made these elaborate towns with Legos, matchbox cars and “mud roads”. Loved Hargeisa, it was a wonderful place for a kid to spend a few years.</p>
<p>Music “Psycho Killer” takes me straight back to my first year of grad school.</p>
<p>My high school best friend’s mom wore “L’Air du temps” - whenever I catch a whiff I think of her. So elegant, so French!</p>
<p>Betadine or Hibiclens brings me back 29 years ago to when my oldest was in the NICU for 8 weeks. We had to scrub going in & going out because she was in isolation since they were not sure what the matter was.</p>
<p>The animated film “Ratatouille” depicted it perfectly when the arrogant restaurant critic was transported back to his mother’s kitchen when he ate the rat’s perfect rendition of a classic ratatouille.</p>
<p>My dad had a very vivid one: When he was a young man in the army just before the start of WWII he shipped out to a base in a Philippines. The march the military band at the docks played as his unit marched marched down to the harbor and boarded the ship was Under the Double Eagle. When he returned to the US nearly five years later, after months of fierce fighting followed by 3.5 years of suffering in Japanese POW camps, by coincidence the march that the band played as they docked and were greeted in honor and celebration was Under the Double Eagle.</p>
<p>For the rest of his life he loved Under the Double Eagle because it evoked both the wistful memory of his leaving the US as well as the joy of his miraculous return.</p>
<p>Arlo Guthrie’s song, City of New Orleans, which I used to hear on the bus when I was in a strange new city, on my way to middle school. (I don’t know why they played music on the school bus.) Something about that melancholy tune and lyrics takes me right back to that sense of aloneness and traveling… And you don’t hear that song much these days, so it hasn’t been diluted by overplaying.</p>