My purple cooler smells like John Barth. How's that for an opening sentence? I guarantee you that there will never be a Letter From Larry, found elsewhere here at TheKansasCityChannel.com, which opens with that sentence or, for that matter, sentiment. Regardless of all that, my purple cooler does smell like John Barth.

When I left my house late Wednesday night, it seemed like a pretty good bet...due to the impending winter storm...that I'd probably not get home again until Friday. So, in between the party she was planning in my absence, my wife packed some goodies in a purple cooler we have. Carrying this thing around certainly did nothing for me in the "George Clooney Cool Guy Sweepstakes." I suspect my dork quotient...already abnormally high...went through the roof when I picked up the purple cooler. If Barney the Dinosaur had a lunch-box, this would be it. Now, I should mention that, in grade school, I always took my lunch with me in a Get Smart lunch-box. Other kids had Superman, Batman, Roy Rogers...I had Don Adams as Maxwell Smart. As that super-agent might say, about my being a cool kid, "missed it by that much."

Here's what was inside the purple cooler: lots of Cheerios, lots of M&Ms, two peanut butter sandwiches, some cheese crackers, some chocolate chip cookies and water bottles. Something about that combination created a very pleasant odor that reminded me, everytime I opened it, of the John and Ann Barth house back in my hometown. John was a hardworking maintenance man at the Bluffview Courts retirement village where I lived as a little boy. He and his wife, Ann, lived in a big, old place in town. Whenever we visited, it was like going to a house in some fairytale. These two little, old folks in this great big house that smelled of good pipe tobacco and cinnamon cookies. It is an aroma that I will never forget...one that brings only good memories. So, somehow, the combination of edibles in that purple cooler, replicated that smell. So, that's why my purple cooler smells like John Barth and that's a good thing.

Researchers say the sense of smell is the most memory-producing of all our senses. For example, when I smell a certain cold, frosty odor, I remember the giant, open-topped freezers at the grocery store where my grandmas worked. As a kid, I would stick my head way down in the refrigerated air and take a big swig of cold. It didn't hurt that the freezer was filled with ice-cream and fudgcicles. I may have actually been placed in one by a big brother at some point. Not because I was being picked on but, rather, to startle one of the grandmas. Whatever the reason, sometimes I get a whiff of that at the grocery store and it takes me back. However, I rarely jump all the way into the unit anymore....ever since I scared the guy stocking the frozen pizzas and he called store security. I just stick my head in there.

There is some mossy, fertile smell I first got when visiting Mount Vernon when I was about six years old. I went back to school and said George Washington smelled good. It was an insight lost on my first-grade companions and my teacher...and, later, the principal. I got a little sniff of that the other day...somewhere...and I was immediately six years old. Made my clothes fit funny, but it was still a great piece of odiferous deja vu.

I think I will spend the rest of this day sniffing around and see where else I can travel in this nasally-based time machine. The nose, knows.