Something doesn't smell right

During the next two years of political speeches and candidates' pledges and arguments with their party and with the other party, more than once someone will say, "Something doesn't smell right." I would more likely say that something doesn't sound right, I don't like to smell something that doesn't smell right.

In our zeal for recycling and saving compost materials, often an odor will arise that not only makes me feel bad, it will make me want to quit saving all those cat food cans and those morning banana peels.

Odors bring back a memory to me quicker than anything else. Some are very unpleasant memories. Others are great. I have two opposite memories concerning cigar smoke. My Uncle Ches, who was a U.S. Army Colonel, smoked a cigar. None of the men in our family smoked. I'm not sure if it was for a health or moral reason. More likely it was economic. Therefore it was exciting to have this boisterous colonel wandering around the house always with a cigar in his hand. It was fun when he and my Aunt Gladys were visitors. He would say outlandish things while she was trying to hush him up. That was the summer that my oldest sister, Miriam, was doing the cooking (except for breakfast).When we were all around the ample noon meal table Uncle Ches remarked that he liked Miriam's meals better than Mama's. Then he yelled out, "Confound it, Glad, quit kicking me!" I didn't really like Miriam's meals because she put too much seasoning in everything but I wouldn't have dared to say anything one way or the other. Everyone laughed and I don't think Mama was too hurt by his remarks. She could put up with him and his cigar in order to see her baby sister, Gladys

Several years later I was a new Army bride returning from Ft. Riley, Kan., to Columbia, to finish my last quarter of college before going to live with Lester in Junction City. It was the ending of World War II and the buses were very crowded. I was lucky to get a seat next to a window but right in front of a cigar smoking soldier. I don't think he was even an officer, but he was puffing away on that cigar all the way to Kansas City. At first I thought it was nice and thought about Uncle Ches. But it wasn't long before the cigar smoke and the crowded hot people in the bus began to really bother me. This was before rest rooms or air conditioning was in buses. As I said, I was next to a window. I opened it a little to get some fresh air, the bus swerved from something, and my good manners left me and I used the half opened window. Naturally the force of the wind did not carry my sick stomach away, but right back on me. I didn't have time in Kansas City to do much about my mess or I would have missed the bus to Columbia.

When I got to Columbia it was way past curfew for girl's housing, but my landlady left the door open for me. Her bedroom was right next to the front door and she "sensed" my predicament. I think she thought I had been drunk. I rushed upstairs to the one bathroom that served 11 girls and took a quick bath and washed my hair. Oh, that soap and shampoo smelled good! I have never liked the odor of cigar smoke since then.

Now, many, many years later I have discovered that spoiled meat, like in the compost jar does about the same thing as that soldier's cigar did. Here I can do something about it and get rid of the cause. I may sit outside for a while afterwards and smell the roses. Mine have passed their prime however and it is a wonder to me how terrible the water in a vase of roses will smell after they have started their decline.

Maybe that's why so many people make the remark about something not smelling right in the campaigns. What first started out as a sweet smelling promise when the campaign was new, began to decline as the campaign goes on and begins smelling bad like the rose's vase of water when the rose is no longer pretty.