Doctorin’

For some reason, Southerners are more in love with home remedies than most other Americans, it seems.  My childhood was wonderful, except for the doctorin’ habits of my close family.  (That’s where the “Help Me” image came from.)

Dad was a football coach for many years.  If you hurt yourself, this was great – about like having a doctor right there in the house!  However, he thought almost anything could be cured with an Ace Bandage, so he tried to work that in, no matter if you had pneumonia, malaria, etc. 

Grandmother was convinced that Vicks Vapo Rub was a magic potion that could cure anything.  (I could just imagine her hawking it out of a painted wagon, like an old fashioned medicine show).  If you had an earache, it went on cotton balls in your ears; if you had the flu, it went on your chest, not to make it easier for you to breathe, mind you, but to HEAL the disease.  (I once heard Chris Rock talk about his Dad’s obsession with Robitussin, trying to pour it into a cut – “Let that ‘tussin sink in, boy”; it was not hard to imagine Grandmother trying to massage Vicks into a broken leg, either).

I guess I was about 6 and had the flu when I heard my Grandmother & Dad discussing whether wrapping my little chest in an Ace Bandage after the Vicks was applied to it would heal me quicker.

Last, but certainly not least, was Mom, who thought all anyone needed for any type of malady was ‘a good cleanin’ out’.  Yes, constipation could cause cancer, I guess, and a good cleanin’ out can’t hurt with healing a broken rib, you know.  Her drug of choice for me was Fletcher’s Castoria, which must have been prune-based because it tasted like a Dr. Pepper that had sat out in the hot sun for weeks.  (Many decades later, I can still remember the taste).

As an only child, I had it pretty easy, but one thing I did NOT do was pretend to be sick.  This could cause you to be a little mentholated mummy rushing to the bathroom.