If we're allowed to reminisce, I like the smell of burning leaves also. It would be interesting to know if it's because I really like the smell, or because I like fall, and the smell of burning leaves is something that happens in fall. Likewise with wood smoke. A little bit (but only a little bit) of the right kind of wood smoke reminds me of being in a cabin in the mountains in the winter with a fireplace for heat. I even like chopping wood.
My paternal grandparents lived in city where many people in the 1950s were still burning coal. My grandfather died in 1960 when I was 10 years old, and one of the few memories I have of spending time with him is helping him stoke coal into his basement furnace. These days I don't often smell coal smoke, but if I do, I am instantly transported back to visiting my grandparents and helping stoke the furnace.
I suppose there are psychologists or other social scientists who have studied the association between smells and memories, but I haven't done any reading about this. I only know that some smells constitute a very strong trigger of old memories for me. Without burning leaves, wood smoke, and coal smoke, etc., what smells will trigger what memories for the current children when they are adults? If we eventually get our ambient air as clean as people say we should, there might not be ambient smells for the current or future children to latch onto. What will trigger memories for them?
As for the healthy food fanatics, I have a friend who won't put sugar in cookies or any dessert, won't put any salt in his homemade bread, won't put real butter in anything. I decline his offers to eat the "wonderfully healthy" food he prepares. He keeps saying I'll get used to it and eventually prefer it.
I can't imagine preferring eating cardboard over the bread that I make, and my refrigerator has real butter in it. And some evenings... as someone else on this list once surmised I might do... sitting down with a shot (or two) of a good single-malt Scotch whisky is just what the doctor ordered.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu [mailto:phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of LaMontagne, Bob
Sent: Thursday, February 04, 2010 11:19 AM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Burning wood... was Glaze Ice
God I miss the smell of burning leaves in the fall. You can't live forever - I'd rather smell the leaves.
Bob at PC
Grumpy this morning because the food Nazis on campus have replaced the complimentary doughnuts in the faculty lounge with fruit - I'm sick of people telling me how to live my life.