This stinky, perilous season

Thanks to politics, I’m reminded that the stink season has started. And pity to us all.

Seems GOP candidate Van Tran sent out a scratch-n-sniff mailer in his drive to unseat U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez in Orange County.

“Something smells rotten about Loretta. It’s the stench of Washington.” Yeah, yadda-yadda.
Hard to imagine how the Postal Service, TV stations and the shrink wrap called newspapers would be staying afloat without all the political offal.

But I wonder if the spin-meisters who send such chemical tripe — along with those who jam perfume scents into magazines — have thought about asthma, allergy sufferers? That their contrivances might trigger a trip to an emergency inhaler, an emergency department or a product liability/personal injury attorney?

‘Tis the season, and ’tis the San Joaquin Valley. After living here about 20 years, I was diagnosed with asthma. And ever since both I and my spouse (a Valley native) — she used to sing in choirs but can’t anymore — have come to dread the onset of fall and the holiday season.

First the flareups of the neighbors’ dirty fireplaces. Next overwhelming aromas from craft stores. Then churches stuffed with flowers, holiday wreaths and natural pine trees gathered from who knows where, hauled through who knows what and dusted with microbes aplenty. Cram a few sick people in an overheated Clovis sanctuary and, voila!, asthma attack.

I touched base with my friend and Community Medical Centers colleague, Sandra Beck, who noted that among other triggers are raking leaves (or walking through them), fog, changes in humidity, dust from books, chalk, cleaning chemicals (why add lemon scent to a presumeable “green” cleaner?). Not to mention air fresheners, and the studly folks who insist on bathing in aftershave.

“I tell people if they want to live in Fresno and plan on breathing, they need to protect their lungs,” said Sandra, a Registered Respiratory Therapist and Certified Asthma Educator.

I recall Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations in my family’s Brooklyn, N.Y. apartment. ‘Twas filled with fumes from burned turkey (my Mom, bless her soul, was a terrible cook). Those fumes mixed with smoke from cigars, candles, cigarettes – with windows closed and radiators ablazing, of course.

Until we come up with hypoallergenic churches, a vaccine against asthma (or stupid marketers) and methods to sweep particulates (and ozone in its season) out of the Valley, most of my family’s tidings of comfort and joy will come in small celebrations devoid of the treacherous seasonal stink.