Valley Forge, Gettysburg, and the Heinz Factory

July 12, 2013

My memories of childhood are sketchy at best, but I recall some field trips taken by school or scouts around the Pittsburgh area.  When Teresa Heinz Kerry was mentioned in the news recently my mind instantly flashed back to the vinegar floor of the Heinz factory.  Much more intense than all other floors, all the people wearing special gear, this aroma burned right into the brain as we ran to the next floor..ketchup, pickles or something.  I have a strong memory of the noisy metal stairs and the warning about the vinegar before the tour began.  We always wondered about the people who worked on the vinegar floor full time. After the tour we all received plastic green Heinz pickle pins, much prized.  I think I still have mine, someplace.

I have to say that Gettysburg and Valley Forge are a total blank in my memory.  I think we went to them on the PA Railroad, and maybe we went when the leaves had color.  I don’t remember anything about how they looked, but am sure there were cannons involved.  George Washington….Abraham Lincoln….I am not sure that I really differentiated all that well at the time between presidents of the United States or wars in history.  There was no smell associated with these battle fields visits.  There must have been a strong attempt to educate, but it couldn’t compare to the pungent vinegar floor, where we learned where our food was made and got pickle pins.  I was nostalgic upon learning  that Heinz does not make anything in Pittsburgh any more.  Factories are no longer  the economic engine of the ‘burgh.  Now it is health care, like Blue Cross and hospitals; of course the petroleum industry is booming in western PA.  Iron City repurposed, no steel, no coal, no ketchup…..it will never smell the same. The connection between olfactory senses and memory is a strong one.