A blast from the past.

Liza and I shared this memory in teasing this morning and I said that I needed to blog about it one day.  Then I remembered that I had.  It gave me an idea. I think I'll repost some of my favorite blog entries on crazy Saturdays like today.  Here's one!

Old wive's tales? Seriously?

I was visiting with my mother on the phone this morning and somehow, we got to talking about how as a little girl, if she’d get a cold, her mother would give her a spoonful of honey with a drop of turpentine in it. Turpentine, yes, that’s what I said.

We remembered a few of the old home remedies - some from the deep south, some from the hills of West Virginia. They used to say that if you wanted to go into labor, drink some castor oil. My granddaddy would place a butter knife under the bed in the same direction you were lying to stop a bloody nose. He also would rub a cut raw potato on warts and supposedly, they’d go away within a few days. Did people really believe these things? I do remember lying on Grannie and Granddaddy’s bed with the knife under me. My nose did stop bleeding eventually. Gee, would it still be bleeding if I’d not had the knife there? ;)

Look at all the cures for hiccups...you can drink water from the wrong side of the glass (sort of upside-down). OR. You can say the word "One" slowly right after the last hiccup and the next one will never come. OR. Just say when the next one is coming. "Now." right before it comes and it won’t come. And there’s always the "Scare them right out of you" approach. For the record, that none of these have ever worked for me. Where the heck do these things come from?

Remember the old story of the woman who cut the end of the ham off before putting it into her pan to bake. One day, her daughter asked her why she did that. She said, "Because my mother did it." Not knowing why, she called her own mother and asked her why she did it. "Because my mother did it." Curious, she called great grandma and asked her secret. Great Grandma didn’t even have to think about it. "Because my pan was too small and the ham wouldn’t fit in it." I’ve always loved this story!

A few years ago, Liza came home and was completely distraught that the boy she was dating had questioned her behavior while driving. He’d noticed that whenever a bird flew in front of her car, she’d beep her horn twice. Never once. Always twice. Why? Because I taught her to. Why did I beep twice whenever I saw a bird flying near the front of the car? Because the summer that Doug and I were married and living on the ranch, I asked him why he always honked twice for birds and never once. His response, "Because birds have a sense that allows them to judge the distance of the oncoming car. So if you honk once, they know where you are and the second honk lets them know how quickly you are approaching and they will get out of the way without getting hit." Okey dokey, then. Keep in mind that this was when I was a city girl from the south living on a real life cattle ranch and still trying to tell the difference between the horse and the cow. For almost thirty years, I’ve been beeping twice at birds and explaining this scientific fact to anyone who ever asked me why. It was only a few summers ago, when Liza’s friend questioned her, no, he mocked her, for beeping twice, calling her bluff on it that I learned the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

She came home very upset saying, "Mom! Tell him about the birds sixth sense!" I tried to explain it to him. He mocked me! When Doug came home, I said, "Babe! Tell him about the birds!" Doug got this look on his face. I knew that look. It was the "Busted" look. Doug told me this to tease my naivety all those years ago and had been enjoying my belief of his teasing for decades!

Turpentine? Seriously? Honk twice? Nooooo! Maybe that’s where all these old wive’s tales began. Maybe they aren’t really old wive’s tales, maybe they are silly husband’s tales! Enough said.

There are no ordinary moments.

I was visiting with my mother on the phone this morning and somehow, we got to talking about how as a little girl, if she’d get a cold, her mother would give her a spoonful of honey with a drop of turpentine in it. Turpentine, yes, that’s what I said.

We remembered a few of the old home remedies - some from the deep south, some from the hills of West Virginia. They used to say that if you wanted to go into labor, drink some castor oil. My granddaddy would place a butter knife under the bed in the same direction you were lying to stop a bloody nose. He also would rub a cut raw potato on warts and supposedly, they’d go away within a few days. Did people really believe these things? I do remember lying on Grannie and Granddaddy’s bed with the knife under me. My nose did stop bleeding eventually. Gee, would it still be bleeding if I’d not had the knife there? ;)

Look at all the cures for hiccups...you can drink water from the wrong side of the glass (sort of upside-down). OR. You can say the word "One" slowly right after the last hiccup and the next one will never come. OR. Just say when the next one is coming. "Now." right before it comes and it won’t come. And there’s always the "Scare them right out of you" approach. For the record, that none of these have ever worked for me. Where the heck do these things come from?

Remember the old story of the woman who cut the end of the ham off before putting it into her pan to bake. One day, her daughter asked her why she did that. She said, "Because my mother did it." Not knowing why, she called her own mother and asked her why she did it. "Because my mother did it." Curious, she called great grandma and asked her secret. Great Grandma didn’t even have to think about it. "Because my pan was too small and the ham wouldn’t fit in it." I’ve always loved this story!

A few years ago, Liza came home and was completely distraught that the boy she was dating had questioned her behavior while driving. He’d noticed that whenever a bird flew in front of her car, she’d beep her horn twice. Never once. Always twice. Why? Because I taught her to. Why did I beep twice whenever I saw a bird flying near the front of the car? Because the summer that Doug and I were married and living on the ranch, I asked him why he always honked twice for birds and never once. His response, "Because birds have a sense that allows them to judge the distance of the oncoming car. So if you honk once, they know where you are and the second honk lets them know how quickly you are approaching and they will get out of the way without getting hit." Okey dokey, then. Keep in mind that this was when I was a city girl from the south living on a real life cattle ranch and still trying to tell the difference between the horse and the cow. For almost thirty years, I’ve been beeping twice at birds and explaining this scientific fact to anyone who ever asked me why. It was only a few summers ago, when Liza’s friend questioned her, no, he mocked her, for beeping twice, calling her bluff on it that I learned the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

She came home very upset saying, "Mom! Tell him about the birds sixth sense!" I tried to explain it to him. He mocked me! When Doug came home, I said, "Babe! Tell him about the birds!" Doug got this look on his face. I knew that look. It was the "Busted" look. Doug told me this to tease my naivety all those years ago and had been enjoying my belief of his teasing for decades!

Turpentine? Seriously? Honk twice? Nooooo! Maybe that’s where all these old wive’s tales began. Maybe they aren’t really old wive’s tales, maybe they are silly husband’s tales! Enough said.

There are no ordinary moments.

Comments

[Tammy Judd & co.]

awesome!! :) Loved it!!