It's been a nostalgic kind of day . . .

Not the whole day, but it certainly started that way.

I went out for a walk this morning (One of my NY resolutions I've actually been able to stick with - especially the past 3 months) and noticed it was a particularly hazy today.

Thanks to all the fires going on here in Northern CA, our air quality has been pretty crappy, although it A LOT better than it was a couple of weeks ago.

Anyway, I headed out and noticed a familiar smell. It's not one I've noticed in quite a while, but it's very familiar because I used to smell it virtually everyday throughout High School.

The smell of smog.

I grew up in So CA, Orange County to be exact, and our air quality was not the best in the world. It didn't always used to be like that. When my parents moved down there in the mid-1970's the air was great considering we have moved from the San Fernando Valley. Of course we were also covered in farm land (strawberries and oranges were plentiful) and there wasn't a building taller than 3 stories as far as the eye could see.

At the beginning of the urban sprawl (around 1979) I started going to school in Laguna Beach so the air quality there was always good (except for the occasional brush fire like the one in 1981).

But when I started HS back in my hometown the air quality started to shift. It wasn't unusual to have it be nice in clear in the morning (my view of the Saddleback Mtns from my bedroom window was completely unobstructed), to have a pale gray haze covering them by the afternoon.

Since I was a runner in HS and played soccer for three years, I spent a great deal of time outside during that time of the day.

And it was not fun!

I knew a number of girls (other athletes) who developed asthma during this time. Although I never got that bad, I had good days and bad days.

Today would have been considered a bad day.

But what really brought me back was walking down a main street by my house where there was a patch of Honeysuckle and tons of Pill bugs (I used to collect them - much to my mom's chagrin) crawling all over the sidewalk in front of me.

The combination of all those things made me feel like I was 9 years old again.

And although I could have done without the smog . . . everything else was pretty cool. :)