The Smell of Saturday Mornings

Olfactory memories are some of our most emotionally-powered memories, perhaps because the sense of smell is connected to the part of the brain associated with emotion. As I was walking through my neighborhood recently, I was suddenly besieged by a whiff of smell and a sound that immediately transported me back to childhood. Suddenly I was reliving Saturday mornings watching cartoons as my dad remodeled our house. What triggered the memory? The sound of an electric saw coupled with the smell of sawdust.

My dad spent years remodeling first one house and then another. He worked full-time as an engineer, but came home and built our houses during evenings and weekends. We lived in constant construction. The houses were beautiful, but it was a strange way to grow up. There were days when we only had sheets of plastic for walls, or had to climb a ladder to get to the second floor, or ate at a dining room table that had a thin layer of plaster dust no matter how many times my mother wiped it off.

Selfishly, my brother and I did little to help with the remodeling. I don't know that it occurred to us to help since we were always living amid construction. It was the backdrop of our lives. There were times when we'd be called to hold up a wall frame, or nail down floor boards, or help mix cement. But for the most part, we considered this our dad's hobby. He enjoyed designing and building his dream homes. And we were kids being kids -- living under construction.

Now, forevermore, when I smell sawdust or hear the sharp whining bite of an electrical saw, I feel like it's Saturday morning all over again. My dad is in the basement, or in the newly built family room or bedroom, cutting wood for that day's project and creating fresh sawdust. It's a heady scent; comforting. It is the smell of my childhood.