Strange Source of Nostalgia

It's interesting to me that the most vivid memories I have are often tied to smells. By the time this post is finished, it's position, directly next to my previous post, will seem ironic.

A couple of weeks ago, someone at work made a mistake. It wasn't a major mistake. It wasn't even work-related. This person decided to pop some popcorn in the microwave. Unfortunately, they fired up the microwave and then forgot about their popcorn until it had passed the brown and stinky stage and had gotten quite a ways into the flaming stage. Without thinking (seems like a trend), this person took their flaming bag of smelly burnt-ness and threw it into the nearby freezer. This turned out to be a big mistake. The freezer sucked in the smoke created by flaming over-buttered popcorn and has since been recycling the stench throughout the refrigerator and freezer.

The microwave was declared a loss and discarded. Soon, we should be getting a new freezer. This turned out to be an expensive mistake. The whole work area was pretty stinky for the remainder of the day. The smoke was pungent in my nose and made my eyes water. The facilities people opened doors and used fans to try to dissapate the odor. It worked pretty well, but the small break room still smelled awful.

Since then, they have been trying different things to remove the smoky smell. One of the attempts at stench removal was installing an air freshener that has been pumping out a somewhat vanilla-scented air. By now, you're probably wondering what memories could POSSIBLY be brought back by the smell of air freshener and burnt popcorn. That "freshened" air, combined with the strong smoky smell is pretty darned close to the smell of Mr. Stadtfeld's pipe tobacco.

Mr. Stadtfeld taught music (assistant to Mr. Grover Peterson, I believe) at Lewis and Clark Junior High while I was there. He was extremely cool--he drove a red Karman Ghia, a sweet little two-seater sports car made in Italy and marketed by Volkswagen. I was often hired to babysit the Stadtfeld's two sons, the oldest of whom was only 2 or 3 years younger than I was at the time. When I say "babysit," I really mean "play Atari 2600 games with" and "make sure they don't do permanent damage to each other or to anything of value." The only alcoholic drink I ever consumed was a tall glass of 7-Up or Sprite, provided by the boys I was babysitting. I took a couple of large gulps (I was thirsty!) before the burn hit my throat and I realized that these two boys couldn't be trusted not to delve into their parents liquor cabinet. They had poured a good amount of schnapps into my 7-up.

One of the perks of babysitting for the Stadtfelds was an occaisional trip to the nearby ski resort for a day of skiing. All the way up and all the way back (about an hour each direction), Mr. Stadtfeld would smoke his pipe. He was courteous enough to open his window a crack to keep the entire car from filling up with smoke. But I'll never forget the sweet, smoky smell of Mr. Stadtfeld's pipe tobacco.

Tobacco smoke is something I smelled a lot when I was growing up. I found out that there are a ton of different "flavors" of cigarette smoke, most of which, to me, smell nasty. A couple of varieties didn't turn my stomach as much as the others, but I'd never seek out the smell of cigarette smoke. Even worse is cigar smoke, especially the smoke from cheap cigars they give out in Vegas casinos. It's a smoke that I cannot stomach at all. But pipe tobacco isn't as harsh as cigarette smoke or as nauseating as cigar smoke. It was something that, although I didn't seek it out, I could handle having around so long as it didn't get too strong. It is a smell that instantly brings back vivid memories of nights babysitting for the Stadtfelds.