That Strange Country Smell

Run, do not walk, get your kid out of the city NOW!

My daughter did her European tour during college. Upon her return I asked her what she thought. She said "Europe smells like urine." She grew up in the South, which smells like mold and mildew. She now lives in Austin, Texas. On a visit home, upon stepping outdoors, she remarked, "My God, the humidity!

Oh, nostalgia! Brings a memory of 70 years past; Kurly was new in my Army outfit in NM, and apparently had never been west of the Hudson before his Army time. What a new world it was to him - desert winds and sand and, yes, smells, even there. We'd experienced NYC briefly, and it indeed had its own odors . . . even if they hit us rather like a sweaty castoff undergarment.

Kids of today miss a lot - consider the Barefoot Boy With Cheek of Tan, and how much of his observations are simply impossible for today's kids - themselves occupied with nothing more than the enrichments available electronically. Imagine if the barefoot (!) kid of the 19th century could've had the many worlds available to today's kids . . . and who can say which would be better off?

Kid never went to the park before? Hmmm. Metro Diary...really?

My cousins who grew up in the city might have been able to negotiate the subway fearlessly from late tweenhood (this was years ago, when parents thought it was a good thing that their 11 and 12 year olds could negotiate the city mostly by themselves).

But when they came to visit us in the suburbs, I could terrify them by taking them driving at night.

Whether a smell is good or bad -- or a street is or isn't scary -- is really a matter of experience. I wonder what the writer's son would make of the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens -- talk about smells!

Fresh cut grass -- a strange country smell? Hardly.

Having grown up in the Bronx including 15 years in public housing the odor of fresh cut grass was common. Never was fond of it.

My experience of real country smells was during trips to rural North Carolina, fertilizer, pig farms punctuated by the occasional sweet smell of flower beds.

Jeez some of the comments... it was tongue in cheek, humorous. Y'all need to chill out and relax... I had a chuckle. Thank you for the chuckle.

Come on mom, take a family trip out of NYC. Your four year old can't do it on his own.

What struck me, a suburban dweller, the first time I was in NYC, was the incongruity of gleaming high-rises, fancy upscale storefronts, and the unmistakable smell of urine.

Talk about the smell of nature....

This kid will grow up and become NYC Parks Dept Commissioner. Under Mayor Dante Deblasio.

I was in NYC taking the trip to the Statue of Liberty and by luck would have it also a large group of schoolchildren on a field trip. I was from the Midwest and had been raised on a working farm. Nature and all of it variables was old hat to me. Imagine my surprise when one of the parent/teacher helpers kept loudly exclaiming to the students, "Look at the trees, look at the trees!" I looked around expecting to see some majestic special specimens when after doing a complete 360 could only find some simple saplings and young growth trees. I just shook my head and realized how deprived the children of the city really were. Not to know and consider common and normal something as simple as a tree.

Just think, In a few years your son will be old enough to mow a few lawns. That oughta be fulfilling in several ways: Caring for nature, hard work, helping the neighbors, some pocket money -- and all the smells that go with them.

I thought it was going to turn out that the smell was horse poop.
(Of course, if some people have their way, THAT smell will disappear from Central Park West forever.)

NYC-Kid. Fresh Air is for Wimps.
"New York City. Where the weak are killed and eaten." [A sweatshirt I saw mucho-decades ago]

I'm sorry but frankly I've smelled cut grass in the park all the time.. We walk our dog in Riverside and Central Parks and every now and again they cut the grass. It's not that rare. Stop sending yer kids on play dates and such and every now and then send the sheltered child out to play in the park. Or better yet make it a family jaunt and take them yourself... Of course the countryside has smells too. But there are plenty of spots in NYC, especially on the UWS between Riverside and Central Parks...

Even at 67 yrs old, I still am casted back to my childhood in 2 small towns, (Danville, IN and Maplewood, NJ), when I smell freshly mown grass. It is still uplifting and consoling. I hope our young lad in the diary entry has more exposure to the smell of nature, including the farm. Horse/cow is heartening. Pax, jb.

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Out here in the sorta-country we recognize the smell as soon as we sneeze.

Bring the kid out West.

I grew up in Queens about 6 blocks NW from St. Johns U.

A. We had a small lawn and a good sized crab tree.

77th Road had a really large tree until the Hurricane of 8/12-13, 1955.

Cunningham Park was a mile away. Alley Pond Park a little further.

Goose Pond/Tilley Park (In front of Jamaica HS) was 1/2 mile away.

Kissena Golf Course was a short walk and bus ride away.

I saw a whole of of grass, sod, greens etc. growing up.

Trust me, as a suburbanite now for 41 years, having a big lawn is vastly over rated.

Concrete parks for baseball and basketball are just OK.

The streets were fine for stickball....except if we fell through someone's hedge. Then they got mad!!

My Dad's office was about a 10 minute walk from Central Park. That way I got to see more grass, lions, tigers, gorillas, elephants and seals.

The zoo had a whole of smells that this young man would have noticed.

I was a Pediatric Intern at New York Hospital 1971-72.

One month, as my part of my training I went to nursery school one morning a week. The school was on the roof (at least 10 stories high) of one of the many buildings on York Ave. Beautiful views down river, up river and we could watch the planes land at LGA. But no grass. :)

yeah, i also pity the kid. Shame on the parents for not taking him to the country side or at least not often enough. i was hooked on my first visit as a kid. Luckliy i also had big forested parks withing a half mile of my home in Inwood, much like a quasi-forest in the city. The "Eww" should come when a kid smells diesel, gas exhaust, cigarette smoke or other noxious odors, not from freshly cut grass.

Reason number 1 to escape from that faux environment.

Tune of “Air” (Welcome, Sulfur Dioxide)

Farewell, smells of the city
Bye bye, stinky and gritty
Fresh air, fresh air – and this is where

Smells sweet, here on this street - so sweet

Hello, freshly mown grass here
For you, people who pass here
Fresh air, fresh air – my kid doesn’t care

It’s sweet, here on this street - so sweet

He loves smells of the big city
I say oh what a real pity
Fresh air, fresh air – he scrunches his nose
He doesn’t care – well, that’s how it goes

Smells sweet, here on this street -
So sweet