OF A GOLDEN AGE

On my lunch break yesterday I applied my car’s new license-plate sticker and then walked to a sandwich shop. As I turned a corner, a familiar smell hit me: farm-animal manure. A beat later I remembered that for the first time in my life, this smell did not fit in my environs. Ha! After a life in small towns I’m ruined. Once, years ago, my brother and I drove through the country on our way to the Mississippi River. He wrinkled his nose and said, “It smells like pig shit here.” I said, “I’m used to it,” and he said, “Never, never get used to it.”

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