A Whiff of October Memories

I recently walked into a room and smelled my grandma’s perfume. They say your sense of smell is the strongest sense and it’s certainly the case that it’s the most evocative. Smelling that perfume reminded me of my grandparents both of whom passed away some time ago.

I remember their yearly visits when I was a kid when we lived in Louisiana. They were snowbirds who came south to flee the winter in the great white north. By the Great White North I don’t mean Canada I mean Iowa. However, to a southern boy it’s all the same.

This perfume smell jolted me back to a collage of childhood memories. I remember sitting high up in a tree and watching for their car to turn on to our street. I’d wait for hours feeling the breeze and straining my eyes to be the first one to see their car arrive.

I remember seeing Grandpa behind the steering wheel of their Oldsmobile as he slowly pulled into the driveway. His Sunday suit would be hung up in the backseat blocking one window.  He and Grandma always looked just a little bit older every time they got out of the car. But they were always just as full of hugs and smiles.

It seemed like their visits always came in October. I have distinct memories of postseason baseball being on TV and playing backyard baseball with Grandpa. They never stayed for long, but those short visits made a big impact at least in my memories. It seemed that life at the house during those visits became a little less fast paced. There were special differences in the way we did meals, whether that was all sitting down for lunch or the fact that there were oatmeal raisin cookies for dessert. And there was always coffee and continued visiting after a meal.

I had no problem getting behind the inclusion of extra cookies at mealtime but some of my grandparents’ ways struck me as strange. My grandma always referred to the couch as the Davenport. I didn’t know that was a brand name sofa at one time or that it had taken on a generic name and for a while definitely thought it was a city in Iowa.

Grandpa falling asleep in the living room after lunch was another strange experience as a kid. I mean, who can just conk out like that when there’s so much to do outside? I guess we had a comfortable Davenport.

I think, like many grandkids, I wanted a special relationship with my grandparents. I didn’t see them often or understand their generation or many of their ways -- but they were my grandparents. Grandkids want to be special in their grandparents’ eyes and I know I tried to endear myself to them when they were around. But it wasn’t necessary. All grandkids are already special to their grandparents without even trying.

Clint Black sang, “a melody can bring back a memory,” and that’s certainly true. But as far as memories of my grandparents go, nothing does it like that perfume.