Tampa Florida has a beautiful smell.

I first experienced Tampa, Florida in 1969. I was in the Navy and sent to Tampa to catch a destroyer going out on maneuvers in the Gulf of Mexico. I arrived early....rented a motel room on Bayshore Blvd in Tampa, about two blocks from the famous Henry Plant Hotel/Museum. I spent two days walking the city before reporting for duty. I had never been to Florida and was eager to drink in as much of it as I could.

Thirteen years later, 1982, Linda, Lisa and I packed up and moved from Indiana to the Tampa Bay Area. I bought a small trucking company and usually delivered to Tampa a couple times a week.

There is no city, that I have experienced, that has the smells of Tampa. The smell of Cuban coffee on Adamo Drive going into Tampa in the morning. The smell of the Florida State Fair...pronto pups and cotton candy. Cuban bread baking at the bakeries in Ybor City or Holsum Bakery on Hillsborough Avenue. Orange blossoms driving down Armenia Avenue when there were groves on both sides of the road or smudge pots burning in the groves when a freeze was coming. Cigar tobacco around Yrbor City. Rounding the corner from the Columbia Restaurant and catching the noon lunch smells. I also can't forget the pungent smell of Tampa Bay's floor as the Tide moved out along Bayshore Blvd.

Smells can be a powerful motivator to pull memories out of your memory bank.