Somehow, the earliest parts of my childhood (like Frank's, in Maine) are all populated by stinky smells.

I don't remember where, but there used to be a paper mill right on the highway (Rt. 1) somewhere between Kittery and Portland. Wow, it stank. Years and years later, when I was in college and we roadtripped up to Dixville Notch in NH, we passed through the mill town of Berlin and those not-from-around-here had to breathe through the Dunkin Donuts box. I was oddly nostalgic.

Before that, though, were the salt flats of Machias, way up the coast near Canada, when the tide was low. There was some kind of bridge from one part of town to another that went over the marshes, and the whole area smelled like farts.

I think my least favourite outside smell is sugar cane. My father still contends it doesn't have a smell, but when you mix its sweetness with car exhaust, I get headaches and need to vomit.

Actually, the smell of freshly manure-sprayed fields is kind of pleasant to me. It tells me that the cycle of growth is starting again and we will be getting fresh vegetables or animal feed from the field later in the year. It has potential. Not that I'd want to have to smell it all day long, although I did live across the road from a barnful of heifers for three years. You get inured to the smell of cow poo after awhile. My favorite smells are lilacs, the ocean and baby powder (with or without baby, but better with.)

My cousin Steve grew up in Northfield, MN, which is, despite what the package says, the home of Malt-O-Meal. You can usually smell different production days, but the most obvious is when they are making chocolate Malt-O-Meal. Everywhere you go in town the air smells like chocolate Malt-O-Meal. It swirls, and ebbs and flows around you, and the people smile a little more often.

One thing I miss from when I lived in CA is flowers that smell pretty. Flowers in Alaska generally don't smell, or at least not much. We do have lilacs, but you have to bury your nose in them. The local flowers that do smell, smell bad. I suppose that's no surprise with skunk cabbage, but chocolate lilies, which are beautiful and should smell nice, smell like a rather more unpleasant brown thing instead. My mom picked some before she new, and put them in the house where the warmth brought the smell out. Bad idea.

up until about 20 years ago Hills Brothers had a roastery perched right on the edge of the Bay

I can't believe I missed this. We didn't go over the Bay Bridge often as a kid, but you would think that I would have caught it sometimes. Bummer.

eta: oh, and topic, um... can't wait for the smell of film on the bdm!

The forest around Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park is the best smelling forest ever. I wish the scent could be bottled and carried around.

Zoe might smell ever so faintly of jasmine....

And I bet Mal smells GREAT. All hero-ey and stuff.

Not sure about Mal, but I hear good things about Nathan's smell.

Years and years later, when I was in college and we roadtripped up to Dixville Notch in NH, we passed through the mill town of Berlin and those not-from-around-here had to breathe through the Dunkin Donuts box. I was oddly nostalgic.

Okay, this just made me laugh and laugh and laugh.

Before that, though, were the salt flats of Machias, way up the coast near Canada, when the tide was low. There was some kind of bridge from one part of town to another that went over the marshes, and the whole area smelled like farts.

Oh yeah - marshes are wicked stinky. But I can top that. I can't remember if it was due to red tide or some other oceanic event, but the smell of dead, bloated pogies in the height of summer pretty much tops the list of the vomitous.

Though I heard those who got a little too close to a whale necropsy on Nantucket got a similar stench.

I hear good things about Nathan's smell.

Bunk-bound, that's me.

Plus. The Wonder Bread factory of my 3rd grade field trip smelled strongly like burning rubber. Once they told us how 'fun' it was that you could make pencil erasers out of the bread (just roll it into a ball and wet is slightly)...complete with demonstration...I swore off the stuff.

Come to think of it, it always felt like rubber in my tumbly.

Now, I'm off to sniff Nathan in my dreams.

Oh yeah, I grew up in a coastal town that suffered (and doubtless still suffers) from awful red tide. The smell was terrible--exactly like diarrhea. I couldn't understand why anyone would buy the houses right along the worst stretch of beach, but they sold for lots of money. Craxy people! A lovely ocean view is not worth the price of not being able to open your windows all summer long.