Maybe you all read this the other day, an article about the foul smells up in Fargo. It says, "On Wednesday morning, American Crystal Sugar spokesman Jeff Schweitzer denied his company was the source of the skunk-like smell.
'The type of odor that's out there isn't one that American Crystal generates. When American Crystal has odor issues, we are one of the first to acknowledge them.'"
Yeah, and my dad used to blame his farts on our dog, Duke.
Besides, I know that smell. I used to live in the valley and work near one of those big mounds of rotting sugar beets and hoe in the fields where those plants grow. I am like a sugar girl. But that implies sweet, and I am often not. American Crystal sugar implies sweet, too, but let me tell you. Whoo-wee. I mean it's funny because I was just writing and thinking about that valley recently and had forgotten all about that deadly spring stink.
The article goes on, "The stench started Tuesday night. Wahpeton City Coordinator Shawn Kessel said he heard complaints of smell in his city, nearly 50 miles south of Fargo. The smell was more like feces than skunk, he said."
I remember our customers at The Tiffany Lounge and Restaurant, which butted-up right next to one of those decaying mounds, coming in to our restaurant with the most sour looks on their faces. If they weren't from around the valley they had no idea what made that smell. I believe it affected their taste buds--how could it not?--and certainly believe it affected my tips.
It even made our water smell putrid. You know those distinct combinations in our smell memory? Those that are a little like Proust meets South Park? I mean, and I know this is distasteful, but one of my college roommates had a boyfriend who slept over often and every morning he'd make a deposit in our shared bathroom and then try to cover it up with raspberry Glade Air Freshener. To this day I can't stand the smell of artificial room fresheners. Or how those dirty metal ashtrays used to smell--the ones left out on bar tables or in messy hospital reception rooms, that mix of old nicotine smashed and rubbed against aluminum. Makes my teeth hurt.
Well, the Red River Valley tap water imprinted the same kind of memory in me. I used to wash my long hair with Herbal Essence (the original, in the dark green bottle) and I distinctly remember that the shampoo never cut the smell. I walked around--we all walked around--with fishy stinky slightly jasmine-scented hair.
2 comments:
Preach it, sister of the soil. I grew up in the southern Dakota and for me, it was the pigs. My family had a pretty substantial hog farm and hoo-wee the smells. I have to say, though, that manure smells are not really offensive to me -- smells like home. But it didn't affect our water like that. That is messed up.
Hoo-wee is right! My old roomie near Wells, where I rode horses, comes from a hog-farming family. But I know what you mean. Home is home.
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