Fall smells like memories

The smell of fall (season) is the smell of nostalgia. I'm not really sure why, but walking outside on a cool, crisp early November afternoon makes a tidal wave of memories flood my brain. At times it can be overwhelming, but it's usually a pleasant sort of flood. I think it has to do with where a grew up. That area can be adequately described with one word: rural. Rural means a great deal of smells, mainly those coming from nature. Trees, plants, the ground, etc. all added to the collection of interesting smells. I've always been told that smell is the sense most linked to memory, and experience is teaching me that this is probably true. The strange thing is that even if every time I step out of the door I am met with a similar smell, the nostalgic onslaught is unpredictable. That is to say, the "fall" smell of yesterday may evoke a memory of jumping on the trampoline at age 12, whereas the "fall" smell of today brings to mind driving home from school with windows down, during junior year of high school.

In my freshman year of college, a few of my friends came up with the idea to start a band called Dirty Wisconsin. One of the tracks on our fictional debut album was to be named "November Clearly Sucks." At the time, I believe that we were simply disgusted with the classwork workload onset by the rapidly approaching end of the semester. Looking back, I'd say we were quite short-sighted. I think that November is a wonderful month, at least for myself. I have the privilege of having smell recollections nearly every day. If I were president of any country or political unit, November would be given some sort of special significance. But since I am no such leader, instead I'll just provide a bunch of good pictures I found. The following were found using Google Image Search, Flickr, and deviantART. The search term was simply "fall." Here are the ones I liked the best: