Favorite Smells

Lots has been going on around here including the non re-signing of Joe Maddon as Cubs manager. Much like the firing of Lovie Smith from the Bears after going 10-6 but failing to make the playoffs, I get it. Joe won the world series, but the Cubs have slowly declined since then. Most of that responsibility falls on Theo Epstein the GM for the type of players he has brought in…what they call three outcome players: home run, walk, strike out. They hit a lot of dingers but fail to do the little things to keep an inning alive, like making contact, advancing a runner, sacrificing. This year I yearned for a player like Rod Carew, Tony Gwynn, Cecil Cooper, Pete Rose or George Brett. They made contact….a LOT. Way too many unproductive outs on the Cubs and their pitching staff got old in a hurry.2020 will be an interesting year as there should be significant changes. I’d be fine dumping Bryant, despite his pedigree. We need more players like Zobrist or Hoerner who make contact and work counts. Rizzo does that as well and Heyward when he’s in the leadoff spot. Otherwise the team gets two strikes and just swings harder. Ugh.

670 The Score radio replayed an all-star game interview with Joe where they asked him a ton of questions. https://670thescore.radio.com/media/audio-channel/joe-maddon-answers-laurence-holmes-outside-box-fun-questions One of them was what are your favorite smells? That’s a great question. 

Two of my favorite smells are burning leaves and a gas/oil mix used for small motors like a boat. The former reminds me of nothing in particular, other than vacation and relaxing. You can’t burn stuff in the city, but when you travel to remote places, people there can!

The gas/oil mix smell reminds me of fishing with my dad up on Beaver Island Michigan. Not only was it vacation (though I was a kid so when is it NOT vacation really?), but it was great times with just pops and me. Mostly it was quiet time out on a lake, except for when he farted, but once in a while we interrupted the silence by accidentally catching a splashy fish. My dad was tired of me asking for help baiting my hook, (or did I just really want a lure?) so he put a huge Red Devil spoon on my line which was as big as most of the fish I had caught on any trip up to that point. Much to his chagrin, I caught a 19” Northern Pike using that spoon. Ha! I do remember catching a 16” Rainbow Trout at some point too, but those are the only two memorable catches.

Fresh blacktop has a particular smell that is always appealing to me. I remember when I was 5-6, the park district re-topped the small asphalt parking they had at the end of my street. I can’t pinpoint the other positive associations with that smell, and maybe that’s just the big one, but it was always a summertime smell and that meant fun!!