After wheezing and coughing for the last several days, I finally broke down, went to the doctor and got some medications to help me feel better.

You know, it’s nearly criminal what one has to pay to get over a cough these days. A couple of prescriptions can set you back -- make you think of tapping in to your 401(k).

Years ago, old folks knew what potions to give you to cure anything that ailed you.

If you had a cough or a cold, you were rubbed with Vicks salve. A little Vicks dabbed under your nose and on your chest and you could smell Russia from your house.

If you had an upset stomach you would be given a warm cup of sassafras tea or a couple of tablespoons of Pepto-Bismol.

When I was a child, if you stepped on a nail while running barefoot, kerosene was swabbed on the wound to prevent lockjaw.

If you were constipated or had a fever that wouldn't break, you would be given a couple of chocolaty of Ex-Lax blocks. If that didn't move you, you would have to swallow a big oily gulp of Castor oil. When necessary, my Mother would call out the big gun -- a good old-fashioned enema.

I remember getting a hold of a pack of chocolate Ex-Lax when I was a child and candy was hard to come by. Lets just say I learned early what the Energizer Bunny means by "still going."

Back in the day, if you had a sore throat, you gargled with salt water and sucked an orange-flavored baby aspirin. I must say that I have lived in the state of Florida for over 30 years now, and I have yet to taste an orange that resembled those aspirins.

And if you were determined to remain sick after best efforts were exerted to cure you, there were stronger medicine that were given back then -- medicines with scary names, like Black Draught, witch hazel and 666 (three sixes).

Simple cures that seemed to cure simple illnesses.

Old medicines have now largely gone the way of vinyl records.

So, I was prescribed an inhaler, a steroid pack, a cough suppressant and a nose spray. And of course I was prescribed an antibiotic to cure the bug. And, being a woman, I was also given the little pill to cure the problem that the antibiotic pill will cause. Modern medicine!

I left the pharmacy drive-thru feeling like I had been jacked at an ATM. I even had to give up the emergency hamburger money I was collecting in the bottom of my purse. Still, I managed to choke out a "Thank you" to Bonnie and Clyde behind the glass window as I drove away.

But I will go home like a real modern woman, read the pamphlets that tell me the medications may cause me to grow hair in odd places or pee green or have a heart attack and die in my sleep, and take the meds as advised.

Next time, though, I might try 666.
***
D. Barbara McWhite grew up in York County, S.C., and lives in Orange Park, Fla., with her husband and cat. Her column, Speakeasy, is published each Tuesday.

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