Is there a certain smell or sound that brings back memories of your childhood?

Fresh hay, homemade bread, or my father’s aftershave. Wow, those take me back to nice places. Life was simple back then.

Yes, but I never know what they are until they hit me. The smell of cane syrup reminds me of my grandfather. We had a ritual of eating the leftover biscuits from dinner reheated with cane syrup for breakfast together.

Smell: The fear induced in neighbourhood kids whenever I brought out a new mega horn for my bike.
Sound: The weeping as the tears of envy cascaded down their cheeks leaving small puddles of despair at their feet.

Cigars remind me of my grandfather. I love that smell.

Apple pie.

Skunk – driving home along country roads. It is a surprisingly pleasant evocation.

Lol soo for me it’s horse shit and the smell of the bay. I grew up by a farm and went crabbing a lot when I was younger. Most people hate both those smells but there is just something pleasantly reminiscent about them to me.

The artichokey smell of Ponderosa pine takes me right back to summer camp as a kid.

Cinnamon Buns. My mother made them on Sundays.
The aroma is breathatking.
Reminds me of childhood days.

@rockfan How funny that you mentioned the school cafeteria aroma. I too love the smell of white bread and fish sticks and spaghetti sauce and mashed potatoes and canned peas all rolled into one.

Even though I’m a vegetarian, and have been for almost 25 years, the scent of roasting turkey, instantly takes me back to Thanksgiving at my maternal Grandma’s house, as does the smell of a gas stove (the kind with the pilot light that is always burning).

I’m taken back to my paternal Grandma’s house by the smell of oak leaves mixed with the slight scent of pine and eucalyptus. She had those those trees all over her property, and we would always visit during the summer time, so when it was warm, those scents would just pop up out of nowhere. The sound of the crunching oak leaves, underfoot, also gives me that same sensation.

My Uncle had a workshop on that same property. Inside the workshop were the delicious mixed aromas of sawdust, motor oil and WD-40. Take a big long whiff…...

The smell of sage always takes me back to my childhood, when my brother and I and all of our friends would play down in the canyons. We would build forts, and ride bikes and play cowboys and Indians down there. That was back in the day, when your parents encouraged you to go outside and play, and they wouldn’t have to worry about you. When dinner time came around, each kid’s Dad had a very specific whistle (my Dad still does it when he’s trying to get my 7 year old nephew’s attention) and that kid would run home for dinner.

In the summertime, we would be blessed with the awesome scent of hose water hitting the hot sidewalk cement. I can even see the neighborhood kids, none of whom I’ve seen in at least 20 years, and some of them, not for even 40 years.

And then there’s the combo of frying bacon and coffee. That reminds me, along with the wonderful crackling and popping sound, of camping with my Dad and my brother.

The smell of Lysol, the original Lysol, remind me of being sick as a child.

These all remind me of my childhood:
Bologna
popcorn
orange juice
Old Spice (I haven’t smelled that in years)
clean sheets
coffee
leather

doves cooing
the wind in the pine trees

By the seasons.
The smell of newly cut grass and of Spring when the earthworms come up out of the ground and you smell the newly awakened earth.
The sound of the first Spring robins singing and calling.
The stink of the Chicago stockyards in Summer. Hold your breath and breathe through your mouth.
The sound of kids playing on the beach.
The smell of bonfires made of fallen leaves.
The skittering sounds from kicking leaves as you walk through them.
The fragrance of hot cider spiked with cloves and cinnamon.
The scrunch automobile tires made on snowy roads and cars shrilly moving back and forth trying to get unstuck.

There. Is a gritty powder soap with a certain smell that takes me to the big half circle sink on my grade school. The sink was a half circle and you stepped on a lever to turn it on. 5 or 6 kids could wash their hands at the same time.

Mince pies, sausage rolls and fresh rhubarb pie in the oven.

The smell of burning sparklers on the Fourth of July.

@Kardamom Going through my older questions and I just realized that I don’t respond back to people’s great answers as much as I should.

I too love the smell of coffee and frying bacon :)

@rockfan, this was a great question. Thanks for reviving it : )

We recently went caving after a hiatus of untold years and I forgot how much I enjoyed it. Part of it was the memories brought on by the earthy smell that is the underground and the acrid odor emanating from our lamps as the water dripped onto the carbide releasing acetylene gas to light our passage.
No one uses carbide any more but us old cavers and most of the newer ones bitch about the smell.
What do they know.

Some “bad” smells are very wonderdul : )

Honeysuckle has the most gorgeous scent of long summer evenings