On The Smell Of Skunk And The Self-Critical, Sentimental and Discursive Meanderings It Prompts

There are a lot of dead skunks on the roads of the Texas hill country these days. Each time I smell one, I think, man, I really miss Gallia County. That’s right. I have a sentimental attachment to the smell of skunk and I associate it with southeastern Ohio. It reminds me of my younger days when we’d go to the family reunion near Rio Grande, Ohio (where it’s inexplicably pronounced “Rye-OH-grand”). I don’t know why, maybe it was the time of year that we had the Jones Family Reunion on Raccoon Creek, but I always smelled a skunk.

And come to think of it, we used to drive through there to go to Point Pleasant, West Virginia when I was a kid because my grandpa had a motel. I think it was a hotel, not a motel, but he always pronounced it MO-tel and I like that better. I would smell skunks then too. He took me up on the gravel-covered roof of that MO-tel one time to see the killdeer nests and I distinctly remember the smell of skunk. We also used to cross the bridge up above Gallipolis — the bridge in the spot where the mothman was sighted and the previous bridge collapsed back in the 60s. I wonder, does the mothman smell of skunk? Some people call bigfoot the “skunk ape.” It’s not just me, there is something enchanting about the smell of skunk. Ask any bigfoot researcher.

I was thinking about this the other day and about how life can take you places you’re not expecting. Here I am driving outside of Austin smelling skunks and thinking about Gallia County, Ohio and Point Pleasant, West Virginia.

But my fascination with skunk smell goes deeper. Sometimes I have to turn the radio down to smell skunk as I drive. Have you ever turned the radio down to smell something? Admit it. You’ve done it. It makes no sense. For example, you’re driving through the country talking to your brother, discussing when and how to locate sauger in the smaller streams leading to the river when it hits you. That high-pitched, fresh green smell.

“Hold on, wait.” You turn down the radio, inhale, “Smell that?”

It wasn’t so he could hear you. Some generic country song was barely noticeable in the background anyway. Are there connections in these neural regions? Is it a rare neurological condition like “face blindness?” It is not really a type of synesthesia, which is more of a blending of senses or the way one sense sparks another — in this instance the senses are at odds. I do have a color deficiency. Maybe I should get an MRI while smelling a skunk and they can see if there’s something wrong with that part of my brain. Surely insurance would cover that.

Every time I smell a skunk, I think to myself — maybe it’s because you popped your ear so bad that one time. That time you could hold your nose and squeak out your ear. That must be it. Your hearing and smell have been forever linked by your poor decision making in your 20s. Too many jumps off the barge docks of the Ohio River.

No, you’re being neurotic and judging yourself again. It’s just a focus thing. You make your environment silent so you may focus. Whatever it is, you don’t think you’d want to live in a place that doesn’t have skunks.

So there it is, the conversation I have with myself every time I smell a skunk. Maybe it’s weird. But I bet I’m not the only one. Come clean, you know you like the way it curls the bones. Turn the radio down and sniff.