Sounds, scents and music and the memories they trigger

[SunDeck]

This morning on my way through an alley to retrieve my morning cup of coffee, I passed a refrigerated delivery truck and heard the sound of the driver opening the latch on the rear doors. The sliding latch, then squeaking of the doors took me instantly to some of the best Summers I had in college, driving a truck for Edelmann's Sausage Co. If you ever went to a festival at a Catholic church in town you may recall the big green trucks parked there, keeping hundreds of pounds of metts, hotdogs and brats cold. My job was to deliver the truck on Thursday, set it up, orient the festival folks on how to operate the refrigerator, then retrieve it on Monday. Everyone was happy to see the big green truck and I met more people those Summers than I can ever count.

Anyway, this got me thinking about how sounds, scents and music all do this to me. If I hear Joni Mitchell's "Canada" I'm instantly transported back to the apartment my wife and I shared before we got married. The smell of stale beer and cigarette smoke reminds me of Crosley and Riverfront, and so on. Memories, good and bad flood uncontrollably into my mind at these triggers and I was wondering if others experienced the same things and what their own trigger/memories might be.

[westofyou]

Smells get me and music, the smell of the little Miami near Terrace Park coupled with any song from 1978 can totally transport me out of my body

In fact I try and get down there at night every time in town just to experience it

[pedro]

There's a certain smell faint with lavender that is prevalent when it's very hot and dry out in the valley east of the Oakland hills in California that reminds me of being in HS and makes me want to crank up Judas Priest really loud.

[westofyou]

Originally Posted by pedro

There's a certain smell faint with lavender that is prevalent when it's very hot and dry out in the valley east of the Oakland hills in California that reminds me of being in HS and makes me want to crank up Judas Priest really loud.

Love that smell, also the eucalyptus up in the hills take me to 1988

[SunDeck]

The scent of freshly mowed grass on a sunny Summer morning = two a day soccer practice in high school.

[westofyou]

Originally Posted by SunDeck

The scent of freshly mowed grass on a sunny Summer morning = two a day soccer practice in high school.

Yes it does

[KittyDuran]

Mostly music... lots of oldies.

There are three that remind me of the same thing...

Bowling Green - The Everly Brothers
98.6 - Keith
Red Rubber Ball - The Cyrkle

Going down through the bluegrass of Kentucky. To elaborate... My dad is from SE Kentucky and as a family that would be our usual summer vacation, spending a week with my dad's parents. I have 3 sisters - little sis was up in the front with mom and dad (no bucket seats) and me and my two older sisters in the back. We would leave as soon as dad got off from work and changed, around 5:30pm and it would take us an hour or more to get past Cincinnati. At Lexington, it was onto I-64 to the Mountain Parkway then the backroads. All the while, dad obliged us girls and the radio was tuned to WSAI, the top 40 station in Cincinnati. At Lexington, it was mostly static, but after a few faint notes you would know the song. The three songs above were the ones I seemed to remember the most or maybe those were the songs that were on when the station would go completely silent as soon as the car headed east onto I-64.

There have been a few eerie times when I've been traveling through Kentucky (anywhere) and have heard those songs come on.

[durl]

Music is my big trigger. I can hear a song from 25 years ago and remember where I was driving when I first started listening to the CD. Sometimes it'll make me remember old friends and maybe where we were when we heard the song.

And I'm one of those people that wake up with a random song in their head. Sometimes that can be a good things, other times REALLY bad.

[Sweetstop]

Originally Posted by KittyDuran

Mostly music... lots of oldies.

There are three that remind me of the same thing...

Bowling Green - The Everly Brothers
98.6 - Keith
Red Rubber Ball - The Cyrkle

Going down through the bluegrass of Kentucky. To elaborate... My dad is from SE Kentucky and as a family that would be our usual summer vacation, spending a week with my dad's parents. I have 3 sisters - little sis was up in the front with mom and dad (no bucket seats) and me and my two older sisters in the back. We would leave as soon as dad got off from work and changed, around 5:30pm and it would take us an hour or more to get past Cincinnati. At Lexington, it was onto I-64 to the Mountain Parkway then the backroads. All the while, dad obliged us girls and the radio was tuned to WSAI, the top 40 station in Cincinnati. At Lexington, it was mostly static, but after a few faint notes you would know the song.

you could have turned over to WAKY in louisville once you lost WSAI. gary burbank was there for ages.

depending on where i was, my transistor radio was always tuned to one of those two stations.

[reds1869]

The smell of ash trees always makes me think of the time I spent in Virginia as a child. WOY's Terrace Park trigger reminded me of that; I was spending some time working at St. Thomas and the smell of Ash immediately transported me to Virginia.

[Johnny Footstool]

The smell of the first big thaw, the day the temperature jumps from 30 degrees to 58 degrees and the air feels wet, and you roll down your car windows for the first time in months, and the faint opening chords to "Cherub Rock" start playing, so you fling open the moon roof and crank up the volume just before Billy Corgan steps on the distortion pedal to announce that Spring is here.