Thursday's Memories

Good afternoon to ya'll. Come on in and have a cup of coffee with me. It has been a long day for Roy does not feel well and has slept most of the day. Picked up a "bug" I think and we didn't sleep too well last night.

As I was thinking about going to the doctor, I remembered what mama gave us when our stomach was not well. It was a concoction given to us by one of our doctors whose parents had been missionaries to Cuba long time ago. It was water she boiled to sterilize, fresh orange juice, and Karo syrup. I don't remember the amounts of each but it was somewhat watered down and we got a tablespoon at a time. It worked too! Sure wish I had the recipe but if she wrote it down I can't find it.

Dr. Moseley was our family doctor whose office was in Selma, AL and we went to him if it was serious. He was a jolly, irreverent, pudgy man whom we loved. He would sit at his desk with his cigar in his mouth and talk and talk irregardless of how many patients were waiting. I don't remember him ever being in a hurry. Once he told mama she needed to go on a diet and lose some weight. Mama just looked him in the eye and said, " Well Sam, when you go on one, I'll go on one." Needless to say, neither one lost a lot of weight. Mama could always send as good as she got.

I thought he was almost magical for he would always have half-dollars to give us if we didn't cry and that was a lot of money to kids in the olden days. He would also tell me if I would come and give him a kiss on his cheek he would take ten dollars of the bill and I would. I wonder if they really took the money off the bill, but somehow I don't think his bookkeeper would be thrilled with that suggestion. Of course if a doctor did that today he would be called a child molester and be sued. Oh for the simpler days!!

He also had a statue on his desk which fascinated us and we would examine it closely each time we visited him. It was about 10 inches tall and was a cow with a most pained expression on her face. One of the back hoofs was standing on one of her tits and the pain was showing. On the base of the statue was the saying, "And you think you've got problems!" We all three thought this was the funniest thing we had ever seen. Of course since we had cows we could just see one of ours in this sad shape. Sure wish I could find one of those statues.

Dr. Mosely was a good man who helped birth Arvin and Sam, operated on our parents, took care of all three of us children and was our friend also. His son, who we called Dr. Sam, followed in his footsteps and took care of all our ills.

Thank goodness there are still compassionate, caring doctors like the Drs. Moselys who still can take care of us through all phases of our lives. We have a Dr. Tom who is like that. Thank you for caring for us.

That's about it for today and so,
Nuff said,

The Georgia Peach