There are those who say that listening to a certain song puts them right back into a particular place, like an aural time machine.

I believe that is true, but arguably more powerful is the sensation of certain scents — olifactory stimuli — that reel back the years. What are yours? Here are just a few of mine:

The Smell of Gasoline: I love the scent of gasoline. I immediately recall visits to the Texaco station with my dad in our ’53 Pontiac Super Chief. I can see him wearing navy blue canvas “camp shoes”. Dad is streaking up the windshield with the oily sponge-squeegee at the Bailey Avenue gas station, while Mike, the owner, checked the oil, tires, and filled ‘er up with high-test. “This is what a man does,” the four-year old me surmised. To this day, the smell of gasoline triggers a sense of excitement and “adventure”.

Acoustic Guitars: Open a hard shell guitar case and inhale that heady scent of nitrocellulose, glue, and tone woods. Intoxicating. Wild. In the sense of an upscale cigar store. You immediately are perfumed with the magic of music yet to be made. The promise of fun, and of the exhilaration of creativity. You remember the famous Einstein quote, right? “Creativity is intelligence having fun.”

Alexander’s Department Store (Fordham Road location): I can’t speak for the other stores, but this one? It had a particular scent, for sure. Was it the off-gassing from the 190th Street vestibule carpeting? Cleaning solvents? Rat poison? Scented O2 blasted through HVAC ducts to energize the patrons, like a Vegas casino? Whatever it was, it was unforgettable, a confluence of chemical scents that signaled the start of a deep dive into the world of consumer consumption, Bronx bargain-edition. Going to Alexander’s was like going to the beach, in the sense that the purchasing tides rolled in, and rolled out. You bought something, took it home, realized it was crap, brought it back, got a store credit, bought something else, rinse-repeat. Shopping there? It wasn’t a necessity. It was an activity.

“The Woods” (Pine Forest Edition): Nothing beats the smell of “the woods”, especially a pine forest. Understand this: I was never a deeply religious kid. Nevertheless my one time at a sleepaway summer camp, at age eleven or so, was the Boy Scout Ten-Mile River’s location for Jewish kids. It was on the border of NYS and Pennsylvania, not far from Port Jervis. Anyhoo: The days are hot and the nights are cool, for we are in the Catskill Mountains, 100 miles from the oppression of summer-in-the-city. It is my first Friday night at camp. I am told we will walk through the forest to the temple for Shabbat services. I am disappointed, for I am not observant and would rather be playing. The sun dips. The air cools. We ford streams and climb over mossy rocks, under a canopy of conifers. The air is perfumed with pine, enhanced by top notes of sunbaked wildflowers. Finally, my group, Troop 228, arrives at a hand-hewed outdoor temple. There are rows of benches in front of the ark. We file in, suddenly solemn, fallen pine cones and browned needles at our feet. The sun sits low. Fireflies flit. I breathe in, deeply. A woodpecker blasts into birch. I am tired from a day of fresh air exertion. I am calm, and at peace. And then, I look heavenward and think: “Oh, I ‘get it’ now!” For in my own roundabout way, I found religion.