Thanks for the memories

As I sit before my computer, a paraphrase of a plaintive old song winds itself through my mind. "Thanks for the memories, of candlelight and roses, of colds and runny noses."
Ah, yes. Who can forget the pleasure of winter colds? Or any other colds, for that matter. With six children in the family, and all living in the confines of a small house, we had plenty of opportunity to experience colds and runny noses.
How did my mother ever cope with the demand for handkerchiefs?- Kleenex hadn't been invented and we had never heard of paper towels. Toilet paper was still in the future for farm families like ours and I am sure we couldn't have afforded it if it had been available. What did we do?
We did have handkerchiefs. Mostly old, worn white handkerchiefs which we shared with one another. Many a time my mother washed out a whole tub-ful of handkerchiefs and spread them out on top of the big wood-burning stove to steam and dry. We were not averse to grabbing a clean diaper and using that. My grandmother made use of her apron for everything from wiping a toddler's runny nose to wiping up spills and drying her hands. Necessity is the mother of invention.
We did have a whole list of remedies for colds. When the first sore throat appeared, my mother would burn creosote over the chimney of the old kerosene lamp, causing the pungent odor of tar to waft through the rooms. Why we didn't all end up with cancer I will never know. A wet sock placed around the neck of the sufferer was another old remedy. I can't see the merit of that old trick from any point of view, but that is what they did in those days. We never were excused from our chores or from attending school, but went on with life as though we were in the pink of health. Only an abscessed ear or severe chest pain gave one the excuse to stay in bed. Sometimes every student in the schoolroom was coughing and blowing his or her nose.
I took the opportunity of looking up old-fashioned remedies for colds, and found the one most effective and still useful to be chicken soup. A whiskey toddy was recommended as well and a glass of hot lemonade was advanced with approval There are any number of medical potions on the market, but in the end, there is only one remedy that really works, and that is the passage of time. In the meantime, the poor patient can only wait and suffer.