12:08 AM, Tuesday morning. You know, I never ate library paste when I was a kid. Did you?
Last night, me, my youngest brother, his girlfriend, and my Mom were talking about games and toys we enjoyed as kids. I was amazed to find myself remembering the exact aroma of the finger-paints I’d played with in kindergarten. I loved finger-painting, though I bet I only did it a few times. Funny how the feel and smell of those slick, gooey paints have stuck with me.
There are a lot of oddly-memorable scents and quite a few bizarre tastes associated with childhood (or maybe I’m just especially loopy)...
I remember, for instance, the way glass marbles taste and sort of wetly click against your teeth when you hold them in your mouth. And I still recall the smell and yeasty taste of Play-Doh -- as well as the way it feels to bite-down on a piece of Silly Putty. The scent of crayons and the way paper tastes when you chew it up for spit-balls are still memorable -- as is the tactile aroma and muddy flavor of clay.
Of course, there are casual exploratory taste-testers on one side and hard-core oral thrill-seekers on the other. I’m pretty sure, for instance, that there was one kid in grade school (I can’t remember if it was a boy or girl) who occasionally ate their own scabs -- an act I found to be impressively horrifying.
For my part, I vividly remember what it is like to chew on a number 2 lead pencil. The way your teeth crunch through that yellow outer layer and into the wood. And how, after you chew the pencil for a while, it gets soggy from your saliva and those little yellow paint flakes start getting in your mouth. If you really chomp the thing (perhaps stressed-out over a math test or something) you might get that scary little dusty gray taste of lead...
As for library paste however, well...I do distinctly remember the scent of it (for what that’s worth). But I never tasted the stuff.
What can I say?
I’m just picky that way.
--- JWR, 1/27/98
I remember era 1970 in the fifth grade before photocopies there was a printer that used a blue ink and when the paper was freshly printed it had a most unusual aroma that I used to savor . remember dat?
I remember that well! Sometimes the ink would blur, too. And the paper had a tendancy to curl. I think the machine was called a mimeograph or something like that...
The scent was a little bit chemical, but kind of, I don't know, purple at the same time. Clean and grape-inky.
Very cool. Thanks for the comment!
--- John