Mosquito Protection, Light, Tractor Power, and Medicine
We had no screens on the windows, and without air conditioning (not even an electric fan) they had to be opened. But what could you do about the mosquitoes? Sometimes we bought Gulf spray, which came in a little can with a pump attached to it, but there was no way a little bit of Gulf spray would hold off the hordes of insects. So we outsmarted them. The mosquitoes bred in those water drums and we knew enough entomology to figure that out. Just because we were poor doesn’t mean we were dumb.
You could poor a little bit of kerosene into each barrel. Actually we didn’t call it kerosene. The official name was “coal oil.” I never figured out why. Kerosene is a petroleum product, not a coal product. The “coal oil” formed a thin film on top of the water and cut off the oxygen supply of the mosquito larvae, and presto there were no more mosquitoes. But you have never tasted bad water until you’ve tasted water laced with “coal oil.” I mentioned this practice to Ann and she had never heard of it. I guess they must have developed more sophisticated ways of handling mosquitoes in Waco.
“Coal oil” had other uses too. The tractor – an “Old Regular Farmall” from 1923, had a low compression engine, which would run on kerosene. The tractor had a starter tank that held about a gallon of gasoline. You started the cold engine on gasoline, and as it warmed up you switched over to the larger tank filled with kerosene. Of course it also provided light. We thought we were really making technological progress when we finally got an Aladdin lamp.
Coal Oil also had medicinal purposes. When I had a sore throat or a bad cold, my mother usually soaked a rag in turpentine and tied it around my neck. Sometimes I had to go to school like that, and I’m sure the odor greatly reduced my popularity. It also prevented exposure to other diseases since no one wanted to get close to you.
On top of that it made my neck raw. But there were times when we didn’t have turpentine, so she would substitute “coal oil.” You were also expected to ingest it. Just to make sure you got a good dose of it, Mama would take a spoon full of sugar, pour a little kerosene (or turpentine, which ever one happened to be handy) and force me to take it. It must have worked because I survived it all. You’d be surprised how much better you can feel in a day when you know what the next cold treatment is going to be. Ann missed out on the kerosene treatment too.
In those days, it was generally believed that medications had to either taste bad or hurt in order to be effective. Castor oil and Black Draught were among the medicines of choice. They were some of the best preventative medicines available. Usually one dose would affect a cure. You didn't want to have to take it again, so you said, "I feel fine."
If you got your skin cut and ran the risk of being infected, no one thought about getting a tetanus shot. I don’t think anybody ever heard of tetanus, or if they had they figured it was something you got in Chicago, not Elmdale. But they did guard against infection. They had a liquid medicine called methiolate. Whatever methiolate touched quickly turned bright red and it stung like bull nettles. (If you’ve never been stung by bull nettles, let me just say it hurts somewhat). It was believed that the sting of the methiolate pulled the infection right out of your body. When kids came to school with red blotches on their face and arms, they were always viewed with respect. They had received battle wounds and the methiolate swatches were their purple hearts.
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