Mom’s Sure Cure
When we were youngsters growing up on the farm our parents didn’t take us to a doctor for every little thing that ailed us. There were these “home remedies” handed down from generation to generation. Here’s one:
I was about three years old when I came down with a terrific head and chest cold. I was all congested and had a bad hacking cough. I felt like I was going to die but that was nothing compared to the “cure” that mom had in store for me! She went down to the basement of the house. This basement was eight feet deep and 14x14 feet square. There we stored all of our canned goods homemade molasses, potatoes and about six large stone crocks containing lard and most of the pork meat from a butchered hog. She extracted a large slab of bacon from one of three crocks. She scraped off the lard and brought that slab of bacon into the kitchen. She then took a large butcher knife and proceeded to slice off the rind from the bacon. She left about 1/8 inch of fat on the rind. This piece of rind was about 10x10 inch square. She then cut four holes into each corner of the square rind. Then she tied a shoe lace to each corner. Turning the rind flat on the table with the fatty side up she proceeded to doctor it up with her concoction of medicines. Being only three years old I can’t say what all was in it but I can still recall the smell of kerosene, turpentine and Vicks vapor rub. She mixed all of these ingredients together and spread them real thick on this fatty piece of bacon rind. She then held the piece over our red hot potbellied stove and heated it up real good. I can still envision this slab of bacon rind with the strings hanging down coming towards me like in some horror movie. After testing the piece on her own chin, she pressed this gadget on my bare chest and tied two of the strings around my neck. The other two she tied around my chest. Then she slipped a pull over long sleeve shirt over me to keep everything in place.
I guess I slept like a baby. This was the one and only night I ever wore that contraption. I’m sure the night following this one was better for me. Or maybe I stifled my cough just so I wouldn’t have to endure another night with that “cure” around my neck and on my chest.