Terry Traveller – Ode Du Skunk

This explains that bottle of “cologne” I got for Christmas… – Editor

Last summer I was honored to attend a unique travel “happening” (as the hippies used to say) in Colorado.

A group of urbanites and hamsters, I mean hipsters, along with a park ranger met at the base of Mount Elbert to harness the scent of the mountains by getting a snoot full of high elevation dirt.

The expedition had an interesting purpose. Each year, the ever-rotating group of youngsters visits the location to become one with the scent iconic to the area so that they may recreate the experience in small perfume bottles sold throughout the country.

The team consisted of people with varying plant comprehension; though I was surprised to find none of their collective knowledge had to do with horticulture, instead extending to wallpaper designs, arranging bouquets, and reading labels from other perfume bottles.

These were high dollar shop attendants, debutants, and hedge-fund artists of every kind. They had apparently been chosen based on their fashion sense as each wore a similar wool cap or fedora along with a tartan scarf and skintight pants. I hadn’t been chosen; per say (my orange parka was described as a conventional attempt at eccentricity) as much as I stumbled across their path and felt it was my duty to study this strange tribe and ritual. The crack about my parka made it even more important that I give these whipper-snappers the Terry treatment.

Lead by the Grand Master (a bearded gentleman who had dressed for a paper towel commercial he must have been shooting later), we were instructed to find that which we deemed to be our “personal picture. Slowly develop your Polaroid among the glades. Become intimate with the mountain.”

Now, I lived through the 1960’s and most of the 1980s and see that I now must apologize- it was our idealism and the rebounding effects of counterculture that created this new generation of goofballs. The troupe had broken off to meditative corners of the wilderness and, lying their bodies on the earth, placed their faces firmly into the dirt to encounter the zen experience most others visitors to the area chose to experience by actually hiking up the mountain.

During the communal time I attempted to learn more by speaking with the park ranger about the strange lot, but he simply rolled his eyes and said “young ‘uns.”

Several hours later, and with the park ranger’s permission, the team gathered samples of wood, bark, flowers, grass, fungi, and moss. Back at the lab, as it was explained, the Grand Master would distill the collection down to their essence and create the annual line of Elbert cologne.

A good days work complete, the expedition team hiked back to their communal fan and drove off in search of macrobiotic Aduki Bean Soup with buckwheat crostini circles. One month later I was sent a bottle of Elbert- which was a heady fragrance of decaying moss mixed with overly sweet and saturated pine scent.

I understand that the full batch was sold quickly to other urbanities and hamsters whose parents immediately told them to take a shower and wipe that stuff off.

– Terry

Terry Traveller
Email: terry@discoveradel.com
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