A few weeks ago I was on the back deck of my father's house in Montana, tapping out a review of Dana Tabu on my laptop when my father leaned up against the deck's handrail. He still wore tall rubber boots from mucking out the horses' stalls and he held leather work gloves in one hand. “So, you're writing something about perfume?” he said.
My father used Old Spice soap on a rope, and although he didn't know it, his Oil of Olay sunscreen smelled like roses, but otherwise perfume was a foreign concept to him. When I told him that, yes, I tried to write something every week about perfume, he said, “Have I ever told you about that Peugeot I used to have?”
I was surprised. My dad has always driven big, usually old, pickup trucks…