Edgar Allan Poe famously observed, “Odors have an altogether peculiar force, in affecting us through association; a force differing essentially from that of objects addressing the touch, the taste, the sight or the hearing.”

The wisdom of those words became crystal clear to me one afternoon not long ago after coming home from work late, approximately 12 hours after I had left that morning. It had been a lengthy and exhausting day, and I was mentally and physically spent.

But a split-second after opening the door to the house my fatigue magically disappeared. It was 1967 again, I was home from school, my mother had spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove, and all was right with the world.

 Actually it was 2012. My mother has been gone for nearly half a decade, and I haven’t tasted any of her delectable creations, many of which contained significant amounts of peppers, onions, and oregano, in more than a quarter of a century. But for a brief moment, a distinct aroma had sent me back to a happy, far less complicated time, setting my soul aglow in the process. My mother-in-law, who is the primary meal provider at my current residence, was preparing a dinner that included green peppers, and the mere hint of their scent was enough to transport me.

For better and for worse, smells do for the nose what sights do for the eye, or what certain sounds do for the ear. Each can prompt feelings that are nearly as difficult to adequately describe as they are easy to recognize.

It was probably spring when Rudyard Kipling commented, “Smells are surer than sights and sounds to make your heartstrings crack.”

Increasing daylight, leaves returning to trees and the sounds of birds chirping are all sure signs that winter has finally departed, but the smell of flowers blooming is every bit as evocative of rebirth as any visual or aural harbingers of spring.

Certain smells now common at this time of year didn’t always exist. While grass has probably grown each spring for eons, the smell it leaves after being trimmed is relatively new, since neither John Deere nor Briggs and Stratton existed until a couple of centuries ago. The bouquet produced by freshly cut grass in the spring is an intoxicating and pleasant one for nearly everyone who doesn’t suffer from allergies ”¦ except for the person cutting it. It’s been more than 30 years since I spent my summers pushing lawn mowers 50-plus hours per week for a local landscaper, but all the odorous fumes produced by the burning oil and gas I breathed in while doing it have stayed in my subconscious ever since.

Another aromatic welcome that periodically wafts in my direction is one produced by fast-food outlets where hamburgers are being grilled. I wouldn’t eat in one of those places on a bet, but I do crave the scent.

Oddly though, a fragrance that conjures up pleasant feelings for one person can produce revulsion from another. For some people, the smell of Parmesan cheese suggests impending gustatory ecstasy, but for others its fetid stench is an instant appetite killer. Count me in the latter group; Parmesan’s arrival in my olfactory system is reminiscent of the putrid stink produced when a certain resident of my college dormitory who never wore socks removed his lone pair of footwear in a successful effort to clear his room of visitors. That rank odor remains all too clear in the nasal portion of my sensory memory nearly three and a half decades later.

It’s easier to get people to agree on what smells bad than what smells good. It’s difficult to think of a particular emanation that is loved without exception, but nearly everyone’s nose wrinkles in horror when it catches a whiff of skunk, sewage treatment plant, sweaty hockey gear, or stale cigarette smoke. Manure, paper mills and the monkey house at the National Zoo also produce the sorts of foul effluences that are universally considered revolting.

Smell isn’t the only sense that differs from person to person. Many young people today are energized or even empowered by the reverberations produced by rap or hip-hop artists, but to many of their elders such sounds are nothing more than a cacophonous racket, the musical equivalent of fingernails being dragged across a chalkboard. And while many art lovers are enraptured by the genius of Pablo Picasso, others prefer random works produced by paint-flinging simians to anything produced by the wacky cubist.

There is no one particular sight, sound, feel or smell that all of humanity finds pleasing, which leads to only one conclusion regarding the five senses: When it comes to smell, sight, sound or touch, clearly there’s no accounting for taste.

— On Monday through Friday, Andy Young teaches high school English in York County. On weekends, he cuts grass in southern Cumberland County.