Ah, spring, where art thou? This thought would be on most minds throughout the nation by now, I would think.
What a winter this has been for many, and we so far have been the lucky ones.
I’m in the process of saying goodbye to a touch of a head cold and sinus. Every time I cough, it brings back memories of my grandmother Josie Mae’s mysterious homemade cures.
As an 8-year-old, while living with Gran and my two teenage uncles, Jack and Shannon, I became quite ill one winter. I can still see Gran’s stout little figure in front of the kitchen blackwood range, stewing onions heaped with brown sugar and only God knows what else, until it became syrup. In thinking about it today, I have an idea she may have slipped a little medicinal something in, like a teaspoon full of brandy. I only know it wasn’t too hard to take.
Next, Gran wrapped my sore throat in one of the uncle’s wool socks over a glob of rubbed-on Mentholatum. The sock was wrung out in cold water to draw the inflammation as it warmed from my body heat. A little unpleasant, because I think Gran grabbed the first wool sock she came to and I don’t think it was the cleanest.
The iron teapot steamed the kitchen up as she poured it into a big pan for me to sit with a towel over my head and breathe deep. Then, down in bed for a few days sipping her special concoction syrup. And if good, I could listen to the radio soap operas — a real treat back then. I was good.
In a week’s time I was feeling quite well. My head was clear, I could breathe easily and my cough disappeared. Gran was happy I could resume my chore of peeling potatoes and doing dishes. You didn’t sit around in my day watching TV and playing with high-tech doodads all day. A good potato peeler was about as high-tech an instrument as we used. That meant we didn’t have to peel with a paring knife and cut fingers. To this day, I still think a good potato peeler is a great addition to my kitchen.
There were other times when Gran took care of family members. If the cough grew deep, then garlic was crushed into lard and rubbed on the chest like a poultice. She used the “all-mighty mustard plaster” on Uncle Jack when it was thought he was on the verge of pneumonia. He came through it just fine and mean like always (I didn’t like him very much; he was a bully).
If one could afford it, honey was used like an antibiotic. Folks didn’t have that word “antibiotic” in early years, but had discovered its use in the healing process.
I wish I had some of Gran’s old recipes today instead of always relying on modern medicine. The old-timers were making and using natural things to treat ailments because it was all they had from generation to generation. Then, in later years, people didn’t have the funds to run for a doctor during hard times so folks did what they could and somehow most did manage to survive.
With the cost of medicine today, maybe we should get back more to nature and revive some of the old treatments our forebears used. Only, I’m not too sure the public would appreciate all the odors that come with them.
We have become so dependent on modern medicines and treatments that we have forgotten there was a time we didn’t have them, or we’re so young we don’t even realize there were other ways. Today, we call it alternative medicine. Life really is a circle — what is new is old and what is old is new and ever changing.
— Contact columnist Jacque Thornton at jacquejt@centurytel.net
