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Manure

The Source

The blond little seventh-grade girl looked straight at me and answered, “Manure!” The class giggled. It was a game I often played with my Jr. High students. Clichés are the thorn in the side (sorry about the cliché) of all writing teachers and in order to break them out of their hackneyed syntax I would sit my students in a circle then tell them, “Name a smell that most people consider to be bad…an odor. .. but when you smell it, it always reminds you of something good.” I was trying them to smell out of the box. Every year and with every class, someone would name “manure.” Remember, Triopia is still a chiefly farm community. But the surprising thing to me was that every year, in every class, such a response would bring a half-dozen nodded agreements. Of course the kids went on to explain that the smell of animal dung reminded them of the farm and if grandpa and grandma lived on a farm then the sense memory was especially pleasant. They liked the smell of manure. I think that the sense of smell is perhaps the most powerful stimulus to trigger an emotion…more than the sight of grandma’s apron or the sound of Uncle Bob’s laughter. Smell. It clicks a memory switch deep in our soul and transports us back to.. .well…somewhere. Schools and health departments spend millions guiding youngsters away from a life of tobacco use, but the number two answer among my students was always cigarette, pipe or cigar smoke. They readily associated the smell of burning tobacco leaves with a long-lost relative. You can make your own assumption on why they’re now dead, but still when I occasionally smell pipe smoke I’m back on my grandpa’s lap reading the funny papers. Gasoline is another contender for the top ten list. Perhaps smelling the fumes from the pump as dad pumped gas reminded them that a treat was often awaiting them at the checkout counter of the filling station. I’ve personally been a huge fan of sniffing diesel fumes. When you travel in Europe the city streets teem with the smell of diesel, so I get my nose down to the tailpipe of a school bus and take a deep whiff I’m immediately transported to London’s Piccadilly Circus or the Champs Elysees in Paris. Of course, this will cause of busload of preschoolers to stare. Connie is my friend and a wonderful teacher. To deaden the usual smells that accompany Jr. High students, she burns incense in her classroom. I can’t pass Connie’s class without my mind reeling back to my college days. Yes, there were nights they did more than milk cows and build fence at Illinois College. There’s perhaps nothing more revolting than the odor of sweat and unwashed garments, but is there an ex-jock alive who doesn’t pause a moment while passing a locker room, catching one more whiff of the days back when we’d suit up and walk out onto the field or court for our adolescent version of the Super Bowl? I used to think that all grandmas smelled like chicken grease. I swear, I did. Oh, there’d be an occasional whiff of violets or Ivory Soap, but my grandmother’s predominant fragrance was that of fried chicken. My buddy Gary’s grandmother once came to a PTA meeting smelling of shrimp. I thought she was a fake. Of course this smell-fest can have the opposite affect. Surely the most pleasantly fragranced business in any town is the flower shop. When I walk in the door of a florist I think of but one thing: a funeral home. I once actually banned a certain perfume from my classrooms. It was called “Poison” and was all the rage among Jr. High girls a decade or so ago. To me it smelled exactly like the fly repellent they used to spray in the 4-H barns at the Griggsville Fair. They’d spray at night, the very time I was trying to sleep at the foot of my Angus heifer’s stall. Christian Dior still sells it for $61.95 and ounce. And it still smells worse than my heifer. I am not hard to please, I don’t make scenes, after 39 years in the classroom I have learned the art of tolerance, and if you put me in a restaurant booth in which the neighboring diners are eating liver, cooked cabbage, and clotted tofu I will not complain. But if lady behind me be adorned with Poison perfume, I’m sorry, the flies and I will be leaving shortly. Spring is coming. After this long and slippery winter, God owes us a good one. Look at the spring flowers if you must, listen to the return of the songbirds, but don’t mind me. I’ll be sniffing.

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