The Smell of Diesel in the Morning

It’s a common occurrence for a smell to bring up a particular memory. For me, the smell of diesel brings back a swath of years filled with sights, sounds, and emotions from the early 70s.

My family moved to upstate New York when I was just shy of eight. I was born and lived the first chunk of my childhood in Queens, NY, about a block from the El (elevated trains). You could hear trains going by, along with the general bustle of people living their lives in the neighborhood. The sounds had, and still have, a comforting feel. They weren’t generally intrusive, simply the background of my early life.

Like the smell of city buses with their puffing tailpipes driving by on Queens Boulevard.

It’s guaranteed that anytime I am out of the small, rural town I now call home and in a city with enough traffic that I catch a whiff of diesel, my mind immediately goes to…

• Stopping at a Sabrett hot dog cart with my mother to get lunch, always a dog with orange onion sauce and a Yoo-hoo.

• Standing on the corner, minding a Kool-Aid stand my brother set up, but had me act as a living advertisement since I was younger and, apparently, cuter, and more likely to convince passerby to drop some change. I never did get my cut of his profits.

• Frequent visits to Central Park and the Natural History Museum, the two forever connected in my mind to the point that when my family goes to NYC now, we almost always stay within a block of both.

• Being led by the hand through Times Square, pre-Disney-fication, with every other shop advertising peep shows, live dancers, and similar offerings that both confused and attracted my attention with their neon lights and seedy men outside looking for likely customers.

Deeper than the mental images, though, are the unspoken emotions of that time for me. Objectively and statistically speaking, New York City in the 70s was more dangerous in general than it is today, as were many big U.S. cities. But for a seven-year-old, even one whose home life was more than a little wobbly, it was a place and time of safety, consistency, and love.

What did I know or care about what was happening in the world or even a block or building away from our five-room apartment? I was hugged when I was sad or hurt, fed and clothed decently, and had toys and a giant black and white Zenith TV that pulled in six channels – for you youngsters, that was a big deal: the three networks, two city-based channels, and PBS.

I do come close to that old feeling at times. Sitting around the dining table, playing an interminable family game of Parcheesi (my son’s strategy is to block anyone else from moving past a certain point) and taking turns telling bad jokes, sitting and talking on my front porch with family, watching my kids, grown and not so much, open Christmas presents. It’s a narrowing of my view, essentially, to what is important and worth hanging around for. As good as it is, though, it isn’t quite the warm cocoon of young innocence when the biggest worry was whether or not I would be home in time to watch The Magic Garden, or if Santa would bring me the G.I. Joe Action Tower I asked for.

Ah, that feeling of comfort. Think I’ll go put on some early Christmas music, start a pot of sauce, and bake some bread.