Bob Sanders: Vicks was a must-have growing up

Blasphemy! We’re talking about one of the cornerstones of our great nation. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it ... But, to the beginning.

Back in 1890, a doctor came up with a concoction he called Croup and Pneumonia Salve. It sold very well. In 1895, he repackaged it and called it Magic Croup Salve. In 1912, it received the name it still bears, Vicks (they dropped the apostrophe) VapoRub, just in time for the flu epidemic of 1918, when sales rose from $900,000 a year to $2.9 million — in 1918 dollars. You can find this information on Wikipedia, as I did.

What it doesn’t tell you is how essential Vicks Salve (that’s what we called it) was to every household. It was one of the big three remedies, and if you couldn’t cure something with one of them, you were in deep, deep trouble.

There was coal oil or lamp oil, what you city slickers call kerosene. If you messed up your toe on a sharp rock in the scraped and swept yard, put coal oil on it. If you stabbed yourself with a pitchfork, treat it with coal oil.

If you performed a little operation on some livestock, douse it with coal oil to keep it from becoming infected. Oh, yes. Coal oil was good in many ways besides keeping the lamp light burning.

Then there was the biggie, the home run hitter, the court of last resort. If your regularity got messed up, or if you had one of those lingering colds you couldn’t shake, there it was, smiling in the background, looking forward to its moment of service. And you gotta omit (as cousin Artie used to say), it was good at its job. Castor (shudder) oil.

I can see it. Daddy sets the bottle of the slimy stuff on the hearth to warm. Why? Well, warm castor oil is indescribably terrible. Cold castor oil is worse, if you can comprehend such a thing. He pours a tablespoon of the slow moving liquid. “Open wide.” Your whole body recoils at the thought. You take it in, trying not to gag.

“Here’s another one,” and, “Another one. Now, grab that orange and suck, suck, suck.”

And before you could get the vile taste and feel out of your mouth, you’d be moving.

Yep, no question. It was good at its job.

But good old Vicks wasn’t repulsive. You’d stick some up your nose and swallow a little gob of it, although the label plainly says not to. “Studies” have shown that to be dangerous for kids. And Momma would smear your chest with it and put a warm towel over it, and that felt good.

OK, “studies.” You say it isn’t very effective (sacrilege!) and that it can be dangerous for kids. But I’ll keep the little jar by my bed, anyway.
Castor oil, coal oil, Vicks. How could we have lived without them?

Bob Sanders is a longtime radio personality with WAUD in Auburn and writes a weekly column for the Opelika-Auburn News.