Muddled Musing

I'm on an alliteration kick today it seems. ..

I received some unexpected feedback today regarding a little anecdote I related on another website, a simple reminiscence of a childhood pastime. Readers of my insignificant little story liked it enough to ask for more tales of my childhood memories. The result of that feedback is the decision to create this blog. If no one but me ever reads it, that's okay.

My earliest memory that is truly a memory is of winter night in Gander, Newfoundland. I couldn't have been much older than two. My dad was standing at the set tub in our basement at 116 Sullivan Dr, cleaning fish. I had an earache and my daddy was always able to make them go away. He hoisted me up to sit on the hot water tank so I could see what he was doing with those fish of his. I can see my pyjama-clad toddler self, sitting way up high with my ankles crossed and feet dangling, patiently waiting for all those fish to lose their innards. After he was done and had cleaned up all the guts, he took me upstairs to "treat" my earache. Sometimes he used warmed camphorated oil and a cotton ball to ease the pain. When we didn't have any camphorated oil (the odor of which I can feel in my nose as I write this) he would use a lit cigarette. [Stop shuddering, I still have both my ears. BUT!! Don't try this at home!!] The filter end went against the ear canal and the lit end went in Dad's mouth. He'd then gently blow warm smoke into my ear and like magic the pain would ease.

When it was my own turn to soothe small children with earaches, my choice of adjunct never included a lit cigarette. It leaned toward the more plebeian... Children's Tylenol and amoxicillin (or cefaclor for Adam and his resistant bugs!). Not nearly as memorable, but infinitely safer.