Tapping Memory

SMELL/LOCKER ROOM The smell reminds me of long hard hours of practice and work. Of brotherhood and the power of a team. I spent most of my childhood and teenage years playing a variety of sports. I have tried my hand at almost all. Football, basketball, soccer, track, tennis, golf, swimming, and volleyball. As time went on I honed my skills and narrowed down the list of those that I actually competed in. By my senior year I was focusing mostly on football, soccer, and track. The smell of the locker room is usually consumed by and overpowering aroma of sweat and smelly feet. There were those who would leave their dirty jerseys and laundry in a locker for weeks at a time. The smell sometimes creeping its way to the hallway in which case the coach would demand that something be done. It was a smell that one eventually found comfort in. If the smell did not exist then perhaps we weren't working hard enough at our practices. It was the smell that reminded us of the hard work we were putting in. It was a different smell depending on the sports season too. You could really get down to the specifics if you wanted to. The fact that distance runner's shoes smelled ten times as worse as a sprinters. Or that a lineman's shoulder pads were heavier than a tailback's and therefore held more sweat. Girls would dismiss them all as a general "stank" but, the brothers I shared the locker room with saw differently. The smell was a measure of our success in an odd way. It brought us together rather than drive us apart.