Friends, it’s warm and going to rain — this weather is gonna make everybody sick! Granny used to say that the weather changing back and forth is just bound to make everybody sick!
And how many of y’all remember that old homemade cough medicine! Whew! That stuff was rough!
I don’t remember my Mom and Dad ever making it, but PawPaw and Granny sure did! And if they ever heard you cough, you were gonna get some!
Granny would have to dig around in the cabinets to get it, because she kept it hidden! I didn’t know why back then; we sure weren’t gonna drink it up! Then after she found it, she would pour you some in a big spoon and you had to swallow it down!
Good Lord, that stuff burned! It’d burn the hide off your throat all the way down! But it stopped your cough!
Years later, we found her recipe for what we called her fire water. It had whiskey in it, and honey, lemon, and peppermint. It was mostly whiskey I think now, but it did the trick! But whew, it tasted awful. I mean make your eyes water awful! We got to where we wouldn’t go around Granny if we had a cough! But you know how hard it is to not cough, when you really have to!
I asked John Barry if he had something similar, but he said they used to give him mineral oil when he had a bad cough! I asked him if it worked. He said “Yes! If they give you a bunch of mineral oil, you wouldn’t cough because you were afraid to!”
And life goes on, on thompson hill.
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