Dumbo

26 x 40” Acrylic, foil, and Resin on panel
In Private Collection

A la recherche des odeurs perdues

I remember loving the smell of leaded gasoline. There was a comfortable sweetness to it. I much preferred it to unleaded.

My family used to run a Texaco “fill-up" station in my rural hometown. That poisonous, combustible fluid represented a connection to the larger world to me. Because of the power and reach of OPEC, you never had any idea where your gasoline was coming from… Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, or maybe Angola, or all of them combined in one powerful punch piquant. It was our most exotic import and the source of much of our income.

They say it may have dropped my IQ as many as 7 points due to my constant exposure, but it was an imperceptible thing to lose, like hair or stranger’s names. I don’t “miss” whatever quotient I might have had. But I think back to that time and I wish I could have at least slowed the sweet decline.

Effective January 1, 1996, leaded gasoline was banned by the Clean Air Act for use in new vehicles other than aircraft, racing cars, farm equipment, and marine engines, but by that time the damage had been done and I was on to destroying my brain cells with much more intention.