Friday's Memories

Ya'll come on in for a hot cup of coffee. I have my coffee and my cat in my lap and ready to go. We are having a lot of sickness around here and thank goodness we have avoided it. One of my friend's little girl was so proud that she had strep, flu, and sinus infections. Her daddy only had 1 illness and she had 3. Kids are hilarious sometimes, but her mama wasn't laughing.

With all this flu, cold, sore throat and coughing, I remembered a country doctor, Dr. Dixon, who was our doctor. He lived in a really small place named Alberta, AL and his office was a small 4 room, white, wooden building in front of his home. There was a little front porch, 2 rooms on the front and a large and small room behind.

One of these small rooms was his apothecary where he mixed all his medicines. I don't remember him ever giving us a written prescription. He would take down his mortar and pestle his "magic" bottles and mix up, pour or put in a tin, and give it to us. Most people say you can't cure a cold, but he could. One of his magic elixirs would cure your cold within 2 or 3 days. Don't know what was in it, but it worked.

Every spring we always had to make a visit for we would have boils on our knees from playing under the house, crawling around on our knees (That is another posting). Now if you have never had a boil, you are lucky, fortunate and blessed. It is like a huge zit that hurts. Mama would put hot compresses on them and try to "draw" the puss out - I know it is gross - but if she couldn't succeed, we went to Dr. Dixon.

Off to his little room he went and brought out a little tin of black salve which smelled like tar. Now that may have been what was in it, but mama would start putting that stuff on us and low and behold, it would draw that stuff, the redness would go away and we were healed! Amen and hallelujah! It was almost like a miracle or voodoo and Dr. Dixon was the magician. Sort of like Harry Potter - a wizard,

The next medicine was not the one we liked for unlike a salve, it was a tonic. This magical tonic was to cleanse our systems and had lots and lots of iron. It was to cleanse, heal and make us strong! However, it tasted terrible and we hated to take it. But again, it worked and we could crawl around under the house playing with our cars and trucks and not have those horrible boils.

We loved Dr. Dixon, for he was a short, pudgy, jolly little man who always gave us a sucker, especially if had to give us shot. Once we all had sore throats, coughs, etc. and we were told we were going to see Dr. Dixon. Now my middle brother, Arvin, had an unholy fear of needles and began to beg not to go. Mama and daddy assured him shots were not involved in this trip so he hushed the racket. But, not true when he looked down our throats and saw infections in all our throats.

You can guess what came next. Out came the long, big, thick needle to inject penicillin which took forever to be injected. You tried not to cry, but that needle was huge and it took at least 5 minutes for it to get inside your body. Sam and I took our shots with only big tears trickling down our faces, but brother Arvin set up a howl during his shot and when he was handed his sucker, he threw it across the room.

Now my daddy was a calm man, but when he saw that, his blue eyes turned steely, the teeth were gritted and the mouth was awfully tight. He looked at our brother and with gritted teeth told him to get in the car. Now we knew what was coming and our long ride home took forever and not a word was said.

Our mama was usually a jolly, talkative, sweet lady, but that ride she was speechless and she kept looking a daddy with daggers in her eyes for she knew what was coming and we did too. When we got home we went straight in the house, but daddy took my brother out behind the house and he got a SPANKING. Our mama was furious and she, for the first time in my life, gave our daddy a sermon while she hugged and loved on Arvin. I kinda remember things were not lovely in our house for a few days, but mama never could stay mad with daddy for too long.

Needless to say, Arvin's, fat little bottom was sore for awhile and he got lots of special attention from mama and us for we all felt very sorry for him. After that, he NEVER threw a sucker or anything else at any adult.

Dr. Dixon was our healer, our magician, our pharmacist and our friend and I fondly remember that little man who helped raise us up.

Nuff said,

The Georgia Peach