{"id":12723,"date":"2013-02-26T19:19:27","date_gmt":"2013-02-27T00:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/?p=12723"},"modified":"2024-10-04T13:32:08","modified_gmt":"2024-10-04T18:32:08","slug":"name-that-smell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/name-that-smell\/","title":{"rendered":"Name That Smell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Smells have a way of sticking with people. Everyone knows when they drive past a petrochemical factory, a paper mill, a landfill or a sewage treatment plant. The geographic location becomes lodged in one’s mind with a full set of highly-charged negative associations. I’m going to toss all of those aside. Instead I’m flipping the equation by recalling my favorite spots along the roadways that actually smell nice<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smell is highly subjective so places that invoke a strong positive reaction with me might annoy or even offend others. Enjoy the scents I mention or plug your nose. Either is fine. I don’t mind. Then feel free to mention your favorite roadside olfactory memories and their locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chocolate<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Hershey<\/a>
Hershey Chocolate Factory<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I used to attend an annual event each autumn in Hershey, Pennsylvania (map<\/a>) which is indeed the corporate headquarters location of the Hershey Company, the maker of those famous chocolates of the same name. Milton Hershey founded the company in the early 20th Century and built a chocolate factory in his hometown, Derry Church<\/a>. The town changed its name to Hershey later as the chocolate company became so successful it literally put the settlement on the map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Factory tours are not readily available to the general public. The closest an average tourist such as I could get to that cocoa nirvana was visiting Chocolate World,<\/a> a simulated<\/em> factory tour. Nonetheless, tiny chocolate-scented molecules escaped and permeated the town, and one could get a wonderful Hershey whiff if one were lucky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Freshly Cured Tobacco<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"IMG_1440.<\/a>
Philip Morris – Altria<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I am NOT a smoker. I’d really rather not breathe someone else’s secondhand cigarette smoke either and I’ve become increasingly sensitive to the odor as fewer and fewer places allow public smoking. Freshly cured tobacco, however, is a completely different story. In a previous article on the Virginia Smoking Ban<\/a>, I described my olfactory enjoyment outside of the Philip Morris – Altria plant (map<\/a>):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I used to drive the length of Interstate 95 through Virginia frequently. I recall the smell of tobacco as I drove through the area south of Richmond. This wasn\u2019t burning tobacco or cigarette smoke, but rather the sweet smell of tobacco going through the manufacturing process. It\u2019s a smell I suppose one either loves or hates \u2014 I rather enjoyed it \u2014 but it\u2019s difficult to miss as one passes through this section of the Interstate. The smell can be detected before one actually sees the cigarette logo spire in front of the massive Richmond Manufacturing Center of the Philip Morris company.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It does seem strange that I enjoy the odor of an unburned product while completely disliking its smoke. I can’t begin to reconcile it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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mmm… Doughnut!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n