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The
Pretty Blue Bottle
By
Pamela
Perry Blaine
©
October 2005
This
time of year the weather changes and many people begin to complain
of
colds and sniffles. The
children are in school and bring home germs
that
their parents and younger siblings catch from them.
Some people put up
with
it for a time, trying
over-the-counter remedies while
others
rush off to the local doctor’s office.
When
I was growing up, a doctor was not called unless it was absolutely
necessary
and at that time many local doctors, at least in rural areas,
still
made house calls. Although I
suppose that is a thing of the past,
it
seems at least that it kept contagious illnesses from being
passed
around through crowded doctor’s offices.
In
our family, Momma always tried her home remedies first and if that
didn’t
work then the doctor was called. Many
people used home remedies
and
various “cures” that were passed down from previous generations.
I
learned early on not to complain too much or I was in for some of
Momma’s
home remedies. However, Mommas have a way of knowing
if
you are sick even if you don’t say anything about it.
Momma
had many home remedies including the well known, chicken broth
but
the home remedy that I remember most was the one Momma used
for
a cold, sore throat, or congestion. It
was called “a greasing”.
At
the first sign of a cold Momma would call to us at bedtime, saying,
“Before
you go to bed, come on in here by the stove first and
let
me give you a greasing.”
A
greasing meant that Momma was going to get out “the cloth”.
The cloth
was
kept in a drawer where it was placed after Momma washed it after
the
last time we got “a greasing”. It
was just a piece of thick flannel that
had
been cut from an old worn out flannel nightgown or flannel sheet.
It
was cut to fit on the chest from shoulder to shoulder and
extend
down to about the waist.
After
she got out “the cloth”, the greasing began.
Momma would get
out
that familiar pretty blue bottle of Vicks VapoRub and smear that
smelly
stuff all over our throats and chests.
After we were properly
greased,
she would hold the cloth up to the heating stove for a few
moments
to allow it to get good and hot. When
it was just the right
temperature,
Momma fastened it around our necks with safety pins.
The
cloth so very warm and comforting. In
my mind I can still feel the
warmth
of that old stove and hear the soft popping and clicking sounds
it
made as I stood there basking in it’s warmth while Momma rubbed me
down
with Vicks VapoRub. We
would put our warm flannel pajamas
on
over the warm cloth and then we were tucked into bed with lots
of
cozy blankets. The pungent
fumes from the Vicks VapoRub did help
to
open up our stuffy noses but whether or not it cured us, we
sure
felt like we had been “doctored up” good.
The
next morning Momma would insist that the Vicks VapoRub be
washed
off completely because we couldn’t go outside with it all
over
us. Vicks VapoRub was a
strong menthol-like salve and it felt cool
when
the air hit it. Momma
probably thought it would make us sick if we
left
it on but for some reason I got the idea that I would surely freeze
to
death if I didn’t wash it off and the coroner’s report would
read
“Cause of death: Vicks VapoRub”.
Sometimes
if one of us had really bad congestion, Momma worried that
we
might get pneumonia so she would put a blob of Vicks VapoRub in
a
pot of hot water and we had to lean over the pan with a towel on our
heads
and breathe the fumes. Thus,
the first redneck vaporizer came to be.
Momma
often told about the time that my brother got into the Vicks VapoRub
when
he was just a toddler. The
pretty blue bottle was just so attractive to
him
and somehow he managed to get the jar opened.
Momma found him
sitting
on the floor with most of the Vicks Vapo Rub smeared all over himself.
He was taking deep breaths that sounded like Darth Vadar with
a terrible cold.
He
was breathing with his mouth wide open because the strong fumes were
taking
his breath away. Momma
quickly bathed him and he was
none the
worse
for the experience but Momma was more careful not to leave the
Vicks
VapoRub where he could get to it after that.
We
thought that Vicks VapoRub smelled powerfully strong but we
got
used to it. Momma often told
us how fortunate we were to have a
medicine
that smelled so good because as a child she had to wear
something
called an asafetida bag that was worn like a necklace around
the
neck. Momma said asafetida
was some kind of plant resin that smelled
something
like a skunk and was sometimes mixed with sulfur, garlic,
pine
tar, camphor, and no telling what else. She said that children wore
this
bag at night while they slept and some children were even sent to
school
with the asafetida bag dangling from around their necks.
It
was thought that this would keep children from catching diseases.
It
was probably true because no self-respecting germ would want
to
go near them. According to
Momma, it would be difficult to catch
anything
at all since there wasn’t a soul who wanted to be downwind
from
a person wearing the odorous asafetida bag.
After
I had children of my own, Momma gave them “a greasing” too if
they
happened to be at her house when a bad cold struck.
I guess
these
home remedies do get passed down because I used Vicks
VapoRub
on my children too and they are all still living. I
don’t know if
it
was the Vicks VapoRub, the chicken broth, the warm cloth, or the
extra
love and attention that made us feel better but recover we did!
My
children would be the first to tell you to “watch out for Momma”
because
there
is still a pretty blue bottle of Vicks VapoRub in my medicine
cabinet
and “the cloth” is still around here somewhere.
“There
are some remedies worse than the disease”
Publilius
Syrus
By
Pamela
Perry Blaine
©
October 2005
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