It was a spectacular Labor Day weekend here in Cleveland. The temperatures were moderate, the sky was clear and blue, and the sun shone on us for three straight days. Thus, everywhere I drove it was with the windows down and the music upbeat. What a wonderful long weekend to say goodbye to the summer of 2008!
I had to make several trips to and from other parts of town over the weekend, and with the windows down the breeze brought in the smells of greater Cleveland.
I passed twice thru the lower west side and experienced the nasty odor of rotten eggs that permeates the neighborhoods around the steel mills– it’s not sweet, but it always smells to me of the economy at work! I took in deep lungfuls of the chlorine-tinged air around the city pool, which always takes me back to my high school and college years of swim competition.
I drank in the smell of hot asphalt, which for strange reasons always reminds me of summer vacations at the beach with my family. At my cousin’s house for her annual Oktoberfest event, I reveled in the sweet smell of the whole roasted pig stuffed with brown sugar.
When we went for homemade ice cream at East Coast Original, I stood near the open window and sucked in the cool scent of chocolate and sugar and butter pecan. And at the Cleveland Indians’ game on Saturday evening I sat happily in an aroma cloud of popcorn, peanuts, and good old Stadium Mustard.
But the best of all was when we drove back and forth past the curve on Route 176 just north of the I-480 bypass. There is a bakery just on the other side of the tree line, and when the wind is just right… Ahhhhh! There is nothing like the smell of fresh baked bread on the breeze. Yum! My mouth still waters just writing about it.
Happiness is in the air, indeed!
