Tag Archives: oak

Calamine

Calamine: (n) a soothing lotion or ointment consisting primarily of zinc oxide

It is not that teenagers believe themselves to be invincible, but rather, they have not traveled to see enough road kill to know when to avoid
 the vultures.

Such was my case at age fourteen.

I found myself in the wilderness of Oklahoma, which literally had no civilization other than a few locals, who believed that God had placed them on top of this mountain because they were “The Chosen People.”

The solitude and seclusion opened the door to the possibility of skinny dipping. I would never skinny dip anywhere other than an ice-cold stream in the Oklahoma wilderness, around a bunch of friends who were equally as intimidated by the whole experience and so desperately tried not to look at one another’s peckers.

The bank descending to the creek was very steep, so unless you planned on leaping into the water (which as my friend, Bill, found out, was like breaking ice) you had to ease your way down–or as I found out, just slide.

There was vegetation everywhere, so I used that greenery as a moistening agent for my backside, to make the slip to the water more pleasant.

Now, moving ahead: it was two days later, on the drive back from Oklahoma, that I noticed that my rear end was extremely hot and itchy. When I arrived home, after rubbing my butt on the back seat the entire trip, I discovered that from the middle of my back to my ankles, I was covered with poison something.

The doctor couldn’t identify it. He said it was a little like poison oak, sumac and ivy all mixed together.

It would not go away. I was thoroughly convinced that I was going to have to explain the condition to my future wife on our wedding night.

Then somebody suggested calamine lotion. It’s not that the calamine healed this poison condition, but it covered up all the sores and seeping places, and eventually they just dried up and went away.

My mother, who loved to keep track of such thing, maintained that I went through 81 bottles of calamine lotion.

Since that day I have never used calamine again.

But I am very grateful that they came up with the product, and I hope they are equally as satisfied with me purchasing 81 bottles.

 

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Bundle

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Bundle: (n) a collection of things, or a quantity of material, tied or wrapped up together.

I only lasted one day on the job. I got confused on what to do, so ended up quitting.

It was a lumber company.

Since I was the newbie, the manager asked me to go out back and find pieces of scrap wood which were about the same length, and bundle them together, tie them off and place them in a pile near the wood shop.

I understood the assignment–at least, I thought I did. But when he returned and I was ready for praise, he immediately began to un-bundle my pieces of wood, explaining that I had put pine in with oak and press board with walnut.

I bungled my bundling.

He had another rule–one which he understood and I didn’t, because after all, it was my first day. He was a little disgusted that I couldn’t tell the difference by texture and color. I thought the only distinction was supposed to be length.

I was wrong.

Truthfully, I run across the same problem every day as I am instructed by society to bundle up people into groups. At first, I thought the only way I was supposed to set them apart was, “These are the nice ones that can be treated nicely and respond well, and these are the meaner ones which require being treated even nicer.”

But they keep changing the rules.

They’ve introduced culture, color, sexual preference, gender, age, political persuasion and religion.

So there’s never really any way to get things bundled. There are too many considerations to adequately discern what should go together and what should be separated.

Bundling is the way we try to put things that are similar into one unit.

But of course, if we don’t accept the fact that similarity is possible, we will just end up being scattered wood.

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