Pat Smith: Learning Curve

Pat Smith

Greensburg — I may have mentioned this before, but some of my favorite reading comes from the Foxfire series of books. Published during the ’70s, they are a culmination of interviews with older people who grew up during the so-called primitive times in the mountains of the Carolinas and Tennessee. What started as a simple school project led by a high school teacher who felt his students would learn more by doing than simply reading, grew into a nationally recognized series of books that have sold millions of copies. These publications serve a two-fold purpose. They gave students the experiences of personal interaction with the older generation as well as learning the complexities of structuring their material and publishing their work while putting in print some of the old methods used by the previous generation for their survival.



Are the old ways, primitive as they seem to us today, perhaps better than our fast pace lives of today? By all accounts, those old timers interviewed seemed to think so. In fact, I’m beginning to think we’re missing the boat by having almost everything we need available to us either in cans or at the local super discount stores. They made their own clothing, grew their food, made whatever tools they needed and used them to construct their homes and till the land. Well, most of them used mules to pull the plows, but compared to todays lifestyles, they were tough enough to go bear hunting with a stick. For instance, they depended almost entirely on home remedies to cure everything from arthritis to dropsy. I don’t know what dropsy is, but it sounds pretty serious to me. One recipe for that ailment is as follows:

3 quarts of apple vinegar, 9 bunches of black snake root, 3 bunches of sinaker snake root, 3 handsful of stare root, 2 handsful of worm wood, and 45 new nails. Put them all in an iron oven and set it in the corner by the fire for 9 days ‘til it works. Strain to remove foreign matter (that’s a classic understatement) and in the same oven add a bottle of rum, one pound of sugar, and set it on a slow fire. Simmer it down for four days. Take one spoonful at a dose. Eat no fat meat or drink sweet milk. Keep out of the rain and dew.

Hey, you can’t knock it. Have you seen anything on the shelf at your local drugstore that claims to cure dropsy?Of course, in all likelihood whoever takes one spoonful won’t be around to take another. That’s a sure cure. Another surefire remedy is for cramps.

“To cure cramps in your feet, turn your shoes upside down before going to bed.”

Laugh if you want, but I’m going to try that one the next time I get a foot cramp. I wonder if you have to use the correct shoe for the affected foot?

After reading about sure cures for fever, heart trouble, hiccups, and packsaddle stings, I settled on the remedy for gall bladder trouble. “Take a spoonful of pure corn whiskey and Black Draught.” If my gall bladder acts up I’ll pour out a spoonful of the whiskey, throw it over my shoulder and drink the remains of the bottle. That will show that modern man does understand some of the old ways of home cures.

I’ve read on the methods used to make wagon wheels, how to dress a hog (yeah, yeah, go ahead — say it), how to construct a moonshine still, and planting by the signs. I’m even beginning to feel like an expert on midwifing. But, the one subject that caught my eye was washing clothes in an iron pot. Since I have problems trying to make a modern washer and drier do their job, this seemed like a simple solution to the problem of stubborn stains. The first requirement is to construct a battling bench. Apparently this bench is used to hammer the stubborn stains out of the clothing after it has been boiled. Next comes two paddles, a short one and a long one to be used to dig the clothing out of the boiling pot. Build a fire under the iron pot and bring it to a boil. As the water heats, alternate rinsing and whacking the clothes on the battling bench to remove most of the heavy soiling. Boil the clothing for 20 minutes in soapy water while stirring constantly. Run the clothing through three rinses in two separate tubs. Hang them out to dry and take a liberal amount of gall bladder medicine.

After reading this section I now know why the two most common clothing colors in those days were black and white. They’re the only ones that could stand up under that kind of hammering.

Next comes spinning and weaving and wagon-making. By the time I finish with the series I should be self sufficient, dressed in dull black clothing and drunk. But I won’t have gall bladder problems.

Now ain’t that somethin’?



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Daily News Columnist Dan Graves can be reached via an e-mail relay: dan.graves@cnhimedia.com

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