I'm catching a cold; my nose seeps like a mountain rill, my throat is paved with carborundum, and my head thrums like a crowdy-crawn at an oyster festival in Falmouth. Worst of all, there is no one to coddle me in my snot-ridden distress. Nothing makes an old bachelor feel more alone and forsaken than a head cold on a Sunday.
But I was not always so forlorn when a bug took me down; for I grew up in the Land of Ten Thousand Colds -- Minnesota. Every winter, without fail, I came down with at least one sloppy cold.
Wool was the one and only protection against catching cold when the snow lay smothering the ground. I wore wool socks and wool mittens and my parka had a wool lining and I wore a wool cap with a long long peak that was wrapped around my neck like a scarf. And it all itched horribly and soaked up water like a sponge. And it didn't do a damn thing about preventing a cold; but you couldn't tell that to my mother. When inevitably I came down with a cold she always made the same accusation: I wasn't wearing my wool socks or mittens or cap, and thus richly deserved my sneezing misery.
But presented with a fait accompli, both my parents sprang into action. They started to argue vociferously with each other. Because my mother believed in the old adage "Starve a cold and feed a fever", whereas my dad was morally certain it was the other way around: "Feed a cold and starve a fever."
So while mom restricted me to thin chicken soup and crackers, with a sip or two of Bubble Up to soothe my occasional tremulous tummy, dad would sneak me contraband like Slim Jims and pickled eggs from Aarone's where he tended bar. To this day whenever I feel under the weather I develop a craving for Beer Nuts.
My grandmother Daisy would try to get me to drink nettle tea.
"It's very good for the flux" she repeated endlessly; nobody knew just exactly what she meant by the 'flux', but the tea was certainly putrid and I would never touch a drop.
Uncle Jim always suggested a shot of straight brandy. In the spirit of scientific inquiry I indicated I was willing to try it.
"That'll cure anything!" he enthused to my mother, who looked like she wanted to carve her initials on his face with a dull hatpin. Needless to say, I never got to try the brandy.
Up from the basement came the bulky glass vaporizer; a massive cookie jar-shaped contraption that was filled with tap water, plugged in, and pointed in the direction of my bed to spritz hissing steam. It turned my bedroom into a tropical hothouse where orchids threatened to bloom.
I was rubbed down with Vicks VapoRub until I glistened like a glazed ham.
I got two orange flavored chewable tablets of St. Joseph's Baby Aspirin every four hours, and all the Aspergum I wanted to chew. Which wasn't much, as the sugar never really covered up the sour bitterness.
Then there was the codeine. Oh yes; whether I had a cough or not I was dosed good at bedtime so I would drift off into an opium-induced trance for the next eight hours. No whimpering invalid was going to keep my folks from watching I've Got a Secret or The Untouchables.
Towards the end of my cold there was the psychological warfare between my mother and I as to when my sniffles were officially pronounced cured so that I could scuttle back to Tuttle Grade School again. As soon as the thermometer showed no more fever, the wrangling began.
Having been waited on hand and foot, and filled to bursting with greasy Slim Jims, I was in no hurry to rise from by sickbed. I always figured it needed about a month for me to regain my strength and stamina after my near-death experience. Mom, on the other hand, was anxious to scoot me out the door as soon as I was ambulatory again. The trick was to get me to school just as soon as possible, without the least possibility I might collapse over my finger painting and be sent home an invalid -- with my teacher branding mom for eternity as a "Careless Parent".
We started sparring the day she would waltz into my bedroom and cheerfully croon: "My, don't we look so much better today! I'll bet all your friends really miss you at school, hmmm?"
To which I would reply with a death rattle that should have garnered me an Academy Award for Best Expiring Child Actor.
"I think I'm headed for the last roundup, Maw . . . " I'd wheeze pathetically.
"Oh nonsense! You'll feel better once you have some Malt-O-Meal. Just come on downstairs and I'll let you put brown sugar on it."
This was the acid test. She was not going to bring anything up to me, so if I was hungry I'd have to navigate the stairs. Which meant I was strong enough to go back to school. Could I wait her out, call her bluff? It was mighty hard -- especially with that fiendishly clever offer of brown sugar; she usually wouldn't let me near the stuff.
Sometimes I held out until lunchtime, tottering down the stairs to be told my cereal was stone cold now so she'd have to make me a baloney sandwich instead; and since the day was half over there was no sense in sending me to school that day. I could go back tomorrow.
Yes!
Buying one more day of freedom was worth the preceding hunger pangs. Besides, as I gazed out the window I began to feel that maybe it was time after all to get out there and toss a few snowballs at the girls and get over to Van Cleave Park for some skating. Winter wasn't going to last forever.
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