Funny, isn’t it, when you find something not missing?

I found a plastic bin containing bottles of aftershave and cologne, some quite old.

Bay Run carried a fragrance women loathed.

I discovered it in a barber shop and had to have it. The bottle was squarish and covered with woven strips of bamboo.

It smells of bay leaf, miscellaneous spices, rum and is a fragrance you can make at home of cloves, rum, vodka, cinnamon, some “this and that.”

It is something women hate, so there is really no point.

A much older friend, a Southern lawyer, J. Wade Johnson owned one bottle of aftershave — Lilac Vegetal.

He smelled like a flower shop or an old lady’s purse.

Pinaud Clubman Lilac Vegetal came in a Victorian-looking bottle, and you can still buy the stuff.

The bottle is empty, so I either used it up, or it evaporated.

My bottle of Canoe by Dana is decades old.

It has a lavender/lemon scent and comes in a bottle with nautical flags on the label.

I splashed a little on for old time’s sake.

I’m going to use this stuff, but The Kansas Woman asked, “Where have you been?”

Nothing announces “I’m a guy” like Old Spice.

It is a manly product. When splashed upon a freshly blade-shaven face, it stings like fire.

It’s just the alcohol, and soon the reassuring scent takes center stage, and you remind yourself of your father or uncle.

Uncle Rudy Morgan used Old Spice, perhaps because he was a Navy man and the cream-colored bottles with images of ships reminded him of those days.

I dug some of his very old bottles out of the family trash dump for his granddaughter to have and enjoy.

My favorite fragrance is still English Leather.

This square, heavy glass bottle with a wooden top is very old. It came in a wooden box and carries an old-timey, manly, leathery scent with no “flowerdy” overtones.

It is an old product, dating from the 1940s.

One description of it said that the smell of it would “drop a woman at 50 yards.”

I’ve never seen one struck down by it.

Is there really something about an “Aqua Velva Man?”

I don’t know, but I still have some and women like it.

It is heavy on alcohol, but the menthol, or whatever produces the cooling feel, takes over and it is pleasant to wear.

An unopened bottle of Eau Sauvage was a gift from the 1960s. I didn’t like it, and only knew one guy who wore it.

I think Eau Sauvage is French for wild water, or maybe stump water, which was an old-timey mixer for Bourbon and moonshine.

If you’re stuck in an elevator with a guy who smells like 1963, that’d be me.

Joe Phillips writes his “Dear me” columns for several small newspapers. He has many connections to Walker County, including his grandfather, former superintendent Waymond Morgan. He can be reached at joenphillips@hotmail.com.