Cigarettes and beer: The heady perfume that transports me to my childhood

I remember the smell of cigarette smoke in the 1990s. It was the last time in America when you might smell cigarettes in a bar or a restaurant. It’s a smell that always reminds me of my childhood.

Nostalgia. Memories. The world that was. The world we saw, heard, and smelled.

Those were the smells of our dads. Cigarettes, beer, liquor, gasoline, sawdust, the garage. They make me smile.

I sound like an old-timer memorializing another era. But it was only yesterday, wasn't it?

Thirty years ago now.

Gas on pump two

My dad smoked. Marlboro Lights. I remember standing next to him in the gas station countless times. “Gas on pump two, and two packs of Marlboro Lights in the box.” That’s what he would always say. He would motion to the boxes with his hand or lean over the counter a little as he asked in a voice he never used at home.

He smoked in the car. The window cracked, his elbow on the door, the cigarette hanging right above the glass. I could smell it so faintly in the back seat. Just barely.

I remember late at night, on long road trips, the sight of that orange ember on the end of the cigarette in the dark night. The green lights of the dashboard and his hand on the steering wheel.

My dad didn’t smoke in the house. He would stand at the door to the garage. Crack it about six inches with his hand on the doorframe so the smoke wouldn’t come in. The smell of Stroh’s, cigarette smoke, and cold air. I remember standing in the kitchen talking to my dad right there. The smell of all those things together. That’s a memory.

Bacon and eggs

My grandparents smoked, too. Salems. They bought them in the carton. They smoked inside the house. We didn’t live too far away, and we visited them often. Sometimes we would stay over the weekend.

I remember my grandpa standing in the kitchen frying eggs in an electric frying pan, an ashtray on the counter and a burning cigarette turning to ash. The smell of syrup and bacon grease, smoke and coffee. Still in my pajamas.

My grandparents drank 7&7s at night. I would watch my dad sitting with my grandpa, smoking and drinking. The sweet smell of the 7-Up tainted by the unappealing, all-too-adult scent of Seagram's. The look of the sweaty glass. Cigarette smoke in the air.

These are old memories, places I haven't been to in years. Moments I can’t find in a picture or a video. But certain smells linger. They connect to some place behind my eyes, and I am there again. My grandpa and my dad. The smell of cigarettes.

Basics and Bud

My wife’s dad smoked. Basics. He worked out in the garage a lot. For her, it’s sawdust mixed with the smell of Basics and the faint aroma of Bud Light. Those are her memories, her dad. I knew my wife in high school. I remember walking through that garage and saying a quick “hi” to her dad as he stood back there behind his workbench.

Those were the smells of our dads. Cigarettes, beer, liquor, gasoline, sawdust, the garage. They make me smile. Our dads; they seem so big when we are little. They seem so grown and so old.

I am his age now. Do I loom so large over my son? Those smells felt so familiar, yet so strange and unappealing at the same time. Beer and cigarettes don’t sound good when you are little kid, but they are the smell of your dad.

My dad always smoked when he was working on some home improvement project. I close my eyes and I can see him putting all his weight on a screwdriver with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Muttering profanities under his breath, cursing the cheap screws.

My son won’t have the same scent memories that I do. His grandfather doesn’t smoke in the kitchen over a pan of fried eggs. His dad doesn’t request the smoking section when we go out to eat. There aren’t any smoking sections any more. Some of his memories will be the same as mine, but not these. Those scents are from another time.

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

Yeah, we all know that cigarettes aren’t the healthiest thing in the world. I’m sick of hearing about it. I’m starting to think there are a lot worse things than a pack of butts, if we are being honest.

I’ve become anti-anti-smoking.

Those scent memories that still hang deep in my nose remind me of being a kid and looking up at my dad. How he held his cigarette between his fingers and how he brought it to his lips. Feeling so little and like nothing would ever happen to me because my dad would always protect me. Like everything would always be OK. I miss the smell of cigarettes.