It was the winter of ’42 when the Tanaka’s logging camp shut down for a few months because of a bad winter. This was not good, so to make it through the winter dad packed up and took the family to Spokane. Grandpa Wimer had ended up there after he and Fanny had escaped the depression in Canada. Maybe he was right about the US being the Promised Land, he had work and hopefully dad could fine a job also.
Dad soon found a job, which was good, but being only a child of four, such things were of little concern in my small world. The things that really mattered were to see the milk bottles that the milkman left on my Grandma’s front porch, all frosty with their long white necks of frozen milk rising above the bottles tops, still wearing their caps. To a four-year-old milk bottles wearing caps was a pretty cool thing. And what fun to play with the firewood left in the driveway by the big truck. And how much fun it was riding around in Grandpa’s big black Packard car. And to watch the iceman bring in the big blocks of ice to place in the icebox. And having Christmas that year with Grandpa and Grandma, and best of all, my favorite aunt, Aunt Florence.
Of the things that mattered in my world, not all were fun things however. I love orange juice to day and I liked it when I was four. But for some reason when my mother gave me a glass of fresh orange juice I remember bringing it up so fast that the living room carpet was the only thing that could catch it. Vomiting was not something I was particularly fond of doing, then or now, and I am not sure my Grandma was big on cleaning a rug that was puked on, although she probably had plenty of practice after raising 12 kids of her own.
What really made my winter in Spokane a real downer was that my mother decided that it was a good time to remove little Bobby’s tonsils. Of all the remedies that had been used to keep me alive so far, this was the most drastic, and probably a wise decision as I had just about died of pneumonia as a baby.
It seemed that every winter I got a chest cold so bad that my mother was in despair. Remedy number one in her world was Vic’s Vapour Rub and my mom just loved it. But I hated it. She used to smear it all over my chest, then wrap me in a piece of my dad’s old wool Stanfield underwear, just to make it more unpleasant. And then it got worse. Try putting a wet rag around your neck to draw out the poison. The clincher was to wait until you were sound asleep and pack your nose with more Vick’s Vapour Rub. And I am not done yet there was always the really big one, the ace in the hole so to speak, “Buckley’s Mixture.” No medicine cabinet should be without it. One teaspoon of that would scare the bugs out of anyone, whether you survived the treatment or not was of little consequences. It went like this, open your mouth, swallow quickly, be prepared to give your last gasp, uncross your eyes, give a big shudder and if possible continue breathing, proof that you could survive maybe even a cold.
A four year old usually thinks of doctors and nurses as nice people so I was not afraid when my parents took me into the waiting room of the hospital. I began to get a little worried however when they wheeled me into the operating room and tried to put a smelly black rubber thing over my face. The fear really increased when I felt like I was suffocating, and I desperately needed some air. At last I took a big breath only to have my head start spinning round and round as I floated upside down, in what appeared to be brown poop, finally “nothing” and then I woke up in my bed with a terrible sore throat.
The nurses kept trying to get me to use the bedpan but I was to embarrassed, even though the curtain was closed, I knew the smell would give me away. Boy was I plugged up after four days in the hospital.
What I did like very much was the ice cream that the nurses gave me in a Dixie Cup anytime I wanted it. I loved ice cream, and I still do. I guess that made it all worth it. But I was still glad when my mom and dad came to get me.
I had to go to Spokane last June. This would have been helpful advice.
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