Moo!

I spent most of my life growing up in Central New Jersey. We lived in Dayton, NJ for seven years. Back in the mid-eighties, Dayton was primarily farmland. Currently, it’s your average suburb, but back then, there were lots and lots of farms. In fact, we didn’t even have a supermarket. We had to travel to get to one, or go to Butler’s General Store. (Now Butler’s is a fancy schmancy restaurant/banquet hall)

Prior to this, we lived in Brooklyn. We were city folk, and living in Dayton felt like we were in “Green Acres.” It felt really rural.

Of course, being surrounded by farms meant that, at the time, Dayton smelled like farms. Namely, Dayton smelled like cow manure. I remember many hot, sticky summers…playing outside, and smelling cow manure.

They say the sense of smell is strongly tied to memory. This must be true, because now, whenever I get the slightest whiff of cow manure, I feel transported back to the summers of my childhood.

Today, I was feeling a little anxious and stressed out, so I took a long walk around the neighborhood. I passed by a house and noticed a very familiar smell. They must have been doing some gardening! Ahhh, cow manure. For a moment, I felt like all of my troubles were evaporating. I was five years old again, playing outside, and life’s biggest inconvenience was that I knew I was going to have to go in to eat dinner soon. Ahhh, cow manure.

Then I had a reality check: “Um, hello, you’re standing in front of someone’s house finding inner peace from the smell of bovine fecal matter. Time to keep walking!”

Filed under My Life, gross stuff, nostalgia |