Sunset over Lake Michigan
There are things so soothing, you shouldn’t be driving a car when they take hold. Take the sweet aroma of honeysuckle, lilacs, mint, basil, rain, a river, wet dog or a hundred other things that magically take you back to another time and place.
It’s all a state of mind of course, but some things can be so overpowering they leave room for little else …at least for a fleeting moment.
When Seamus hunts in thick cover that brushes his coat, leaving briars, dead grass and twig pieces stuck in his matted fur that requires an hours work to get it out without causing him too much pain; neither Seamus nor I look forward to the ordeal – actually, Seamus, subconsciously, probably does. But that smell, that pungent odor that fills my nostrils, is like smelling pipe tobacco of a certain brand, reminding me of happy times spent with old men who tried to teach me to appreciate the outdoors. They are gone now, but the smell of Cherry Blend Pipe Tobacco brings them back, like the smell of a wet dog brings back happy times afield, sloshing through marsh and bogs in search of bonasa umbellus and woodcock.
Driving down a country road after a romp with Seamus and “She Who Must Be Obeyed” along the shore of Lake Michigan at sunset, I was so mellow and content that smells of cut grass, fresh plowed fields, flowering bushes along drainage ditches and even the pungent smell of a dairy farm set my mind adrift to another time and place. It was like being home – white socks pointing skyward as I recline in my leather recliner – drinking two fingers of bourbon from my favorite glass. Unfortunately, neither lasts very long.
TD
My waxed cotton jacket smells good and it does the same thing for me.
Too bad the wives don’t get that.