Lazy Days of Almost Summer

Gerry and I both spent our school years in Central Illinois during the 50s.  Earlier than that also, but I won't address that in this blog.  Summer was defined as when we weren't in school and that time period was from Memorial Day to after Labor Day.  I always looked forward to the freedom of summer and those days at Gillespie Lake swimming and hanging out at the beach.  Never mind that once you go into the water it was a mud beach, but it was a beach.  As the summer wore on the water temperature really started to rise but it was still refreshing due to the long hot summers we had then.

Those were the days before watching tv, cellphones, X-Boxes, the internet and all the computer games that children play today.  Basketball, baseball and football occupied most of my time.  We even could play cork ball with only three players.  We learned how to deal with issues one on one and worked out our differences.  Sometimes it may have degraded to fisticuffs, but an hour later we were fast friends again.  No gangs, but neighboring towns didn't like for you to scout out the girls there, but it worked out for me since I met and married Gerry who lived in a neighboring town.

Those days are long gone and I don't think kids could go back to them with all the outside influences on the youth of today.  It is their great loss, but I don't think they would think of it that way.  Even small towns away from big cities are prone to drug use and the problems associated with that.  Drugs when we were kids meant prescription drugs and there were few of them in our lives, unless you counted mercurochrome.  We were a rambunctious bunch and were quite familiar with mercurochrome.  It stung when applied.

What Is Mercurochrome™?

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A bottle of Mercurochrome™.

Mercurochrome™ is a product which was once widely marketed for use as a topical antiseptic. Thanks to changes in the way the US Food and Drug Administration regards Mercurochrome™, the product is not readily available in the United States today, although it can be found in many other regions of the world. This antiseptic is part of a family of products made with a base of merbromin, a chemical which must be suspended in an alcohol or water solution before it can be used as an antiseptic.

This product was marketed for use on minor cuts and scrapes during the 20th century. It typically had a reddish to brown color which would stain the skin when it was applied, and if it was suspended in alcohol, it might sting slightly. Mercurochrome™ was recommended for use on people of all ages, and many people in the middle of the 20th century had a bottle in the bathroom cabinet for household use.

There are two issues with Mercurochrome™ and other merbromin products. The first is that they contain mercury, a metal which is known to be poisonous. Although no one has definitively linked Mercurochrome™ to mercury poisoning, presumably because the metal is only present in trace amounts, many people prefer to err on the side of caution when it comes to mercury. The FDA originally grandfathered the drug in, and later decided that it should be banned until additional research could prove that it was safe for use
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The second issue with Mercurochrome™ is the color. The dark reddish to brown stain covers up the natural color of the skin around the wound, making it hard to detect the early signs of infection. Skin which is red and irritated will be difficult to see under a coating of Mercurochrome™, which means that the infection could be missed until it grows much larger. Clear topical antiseptics or antiseptics which do not stain are preferred so that wounds can be clearly visualized.

Although this drug is not in wide use any more, it has an iconic status. Mercurochrome™ often appears in books and stories set in the mid-20th century, and people who lived during this era may have fond memories of it. For people who are not familiar with the drug, the references to it in various media from the era when it was used can be confusing, and people who refer to  merbromin products when they talk about wound care are obviously thinking of an earlier era.


Sunday we went to Barb & Henry's to watch the NASCAR race with them, visit for a while and to try to get a free meal out of them.  The real purpose of the visit was to drop off a baby blanket for Barbara that Gerry had started in March and been crocheting since then.  She finished it on Sunday and felt it was time to drop it off.  She had earlier crocheted a baby blanket for Dee for Griffin and Barbara liked it so much she almost kept it.  Now she has one of her own.  

Oh, a gift for me?

I love it!

 They ran us out of the house around 9pm and we headed back to the motorhome and stayed up until after midnight.  It rained hard all night and we didn't get a lot of sleep, so Monday we were walking zombies.

Larry Jr & Jane invited us over for dinner on Monday and Jr used us as guinea pigs for a new pasta meal.  It turned out really good and I had two helpings of it.  He has turned out to be a real chef and isn't afraid to try out new dishes.  I think he may be in competition with his mother who is an excellent chef.  We visited after dinner and kept them up until 11pm, then  gave them a break by hitting the road.  

That's how we spent the last few days, what have you been up to?