Mother would drop me with whoever would keep me as I grew up, and this was loads of fun for me.

Mama and Dad Goin frequently drew the short straw and got me most often, even though Grandmother McKinney lived next door in Denton. In fairness, she did have a rooming and boarding house to run.

Mama and Dad Goin knew how to keep me busy by giving me tasks to do, and my weekend reward would be a nickel (buffalo head) of my very own to spend at the drug store.

I would walk very slowly down the dirt roads in Aubrey, always passing where your bunch lived for a visit. You and Mary Ann would usually ignore me and run away, but your mama was alsays sweet and someone was usually about with a tall tale. When I wore out my welcome, I’d head over to the wonderful coolness of the drug store, with its marble topped soda counter, tiny marble topped tables with twisted wire chairs, and ceiling fans.

It was wonderful to come in from the searing Texas summer sun to the coolness of the drugstore. At that time, there was no air conditioning, No, not anywhere in the state. The first A/C in Denton county was installed in the Texas Theatre by Carrier.

Years later, when I bought my antique high-rise home in Galveston, I had ceiling fans installed. This was before the energy crunch (yes, kids, electricity used to be 8 - 10 dollars a month) and my contractor told me I wouldn’t like them. I held my ground, remembering the drug store’s coolness on the hottest summer day. At that time, 1972, ceiling fans were not in fashion and I had to order them from Sears.

I remembered when Granny Rachel got so mad at Sears, because they quit making the high button shoes she wore, and I was glad they still made ceiling fans.

But I got my ceiling fans which put me ahead when the Arabs put the squeeze on us and our bills skyrocketed. (Do you really think we’d be in Iraq if their gross National Product was Kumquats?)

And it is due to that wonderful drugstore. When I wandered in, Mr. Simpson knew exactly what I was going to have, no matter how I looked about. I would carefully check the stock of penny candies in jars, considering future purchases.

After I cooled off under the ceiling fans by wandering around, I requested a chocolate ice cream soda. It came in a wonderful tall glass filled with real ice cream, covered with chocolate syrup and polished off with soda. It was served with a spoon and I ate it slowly, savoring every bite.

I am beginning to drool as I write this – gosh, it was good!

I didn’t really mean to write this much, but it is funny how childhood memories help us in later life.

Love, Cousin Billie

To Bouncer:

Remember how medicine always came in those glass bottles in the thirties? This was long before the age of plastics.

After I bought this house in Galveston in 1972, I was digging in the yard and uncovered a small glass bottle. I recognized it as a medication bottle of long ago, so I washed it off and there was the raised lettering in the glass on the vial that said Phenolax Wafers Upjohn.

I remember the things were pink and tasted dreadful.

Most medicine did, back then. The bitter taste was most often thought to be masked by the pink strawberry flavoring that tasted nothing like strawberries. The bitter taste was usually Phenobarbitol. It didn’t cure anything, but you didn’t mind being sick so much.

I’m sure Mr. Simpson dispensed these medicines, but I never got any of them in Aubrey. As you noted, we were all poor in the thirties and everyone used home remedies.

I denied being ill at Grandmother McKinney’s until I fell over, because her remedy for everything was a teaspoon of turpentine with sugar in it. Awful stuff.

While all of us cousins tried to develop something at Grandmother Goin’s, because her sovereign remedy was a nice cup of spice tea with a shot from her Paul Jones bottle (that really contained 100 proof white lightning).

I remember all of us were jealous of your ability to burst into tears on cue and sob loudly, so you got the tea and sympathy. We would have murdered you, but we never got by with anything because someone was always watching us.

Childhood scrapes that got infected got bread polticies. This consisted of biscuits wrapped in a dishtowel and soaked in water, then the poltice was squeezed of excess water and applied to the infected area.

But Mr. Simpson did sell the mercurochome applied to the wounds serious enough to stop our play and the cans of dry mustard used in mustard plasters. Serious coughs and colds got mustard plasters applied to the chest.

Love, Cousin Billie