We had a neighbor when I was growing up who knew everything.
She had views on cuisine, child development, horticulture and insect management. I have no doubts that if you started a conversation on quantum physics she would speak with authority about quarks, neutrons and inherent problems with the space –time continuum as viewed from our vantage point in West Pratt.
Her main strength was folklore. She could whip up a poultice to treat fever blisters, canker sores, boils and planter’s warts. She had an elixir for shin splints, neck cricks, gardener’s elbow and flatulence. She could treat most of your everyday maladies but drew the line at diphtheria and plagues, leaving those to professional doctoring.
However she did come up with one remedy that stands out in my mind.
I was in the fourth or fifth grade at the time and had come down with chickenpox. No big deal. You usually let the ailment run its course and it was over in a week or so. My condition was no different, except I was supposed to go to a fall festival dance at Dora Elementary School. I didn’t want to go with those big honkin’ pockmarks all over my face and neck. I had seen kids with slight defects mocked and jeered unmercifully. I hated to contemplate my fate with pockmarks all over my face.
When mom explained my dilemma, our neighbor immediately came up with a solution. The neighbor started to explain all the particulars of an untested cure that she had heard about through her medicine man grapevine. I could see doubt seeping into my mother’s eyes as she said, “ uh-huh, I see.”
Mom was a pragmatic woman and her “bull malarkey” detector went off frequently when she conversed with our neighbor. I was in such a state that mother was willing to try anything. She proceeded with the unconventional remedy.
The next morning mom instructed me to take my shirt off and lie down in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. She then (and I’m not pulling your leg though my mother always denied it) got our Rhode Island Red rooster from the pen, set him down in the kitchen and shooed him until he flew over me as I reclined in the doorway.
Then came the task of removing the rooster from the house. She had to chase that freaked out rooster all around the house as it careened off the china cabinet, the mantle, TV and every window as he tried to escape. Mom finally cornered him in the bedroom and took him back to the pen, but not before there were tail feathers (and worse) all over the house.
The neighbor’s theory was that when I woke up the next day the chicken pox would be gone from my body.
The next morning I got up with great expectations, but when I looked in the mirror the red splotches were still there.
The following day I was supposed to go to the dance and mom went to plan B. She put some of my sister’s makeup on my face and neck to hide the pox. I was the brunt of some very cruel jokes. My “date” was kind enough not to mention my malady and even chided the most vocal tormentors into silence.
Our neighbor was a kind soul, and to her credit, she did cure a lot of aches and pains in our community back then. I should point out that she never guaranteed the chicken therapy would cure my pocks.
