It's funny that a random smell can take you back to childhood. It's even funnier (or odder, as the case may be) that I discovered this particular childhood smell in the locker room at the Georgia State University Student Rec Center, where I swim, row and run.
The unmistakable smell is root beer flavored Bottle Caps, the hard candy I enjoyed while playing Little League baseball when I was 8 or 9. The place is the urinals in the men's room. For you ladies out there, maintenance workers often put strainers across the urinal drains so cigarette butts (these days, chewed gum) don't clog the drains. The university changes them out monthly, and they recently purchased new ones that smell like bottle caps. I know they change them monthly, because the new ones have the month printed on them.
Nothing like reliving one's childhood while taking a leak...