Conversations with Strangers

While standing in line a week ago an older gentleman started chatting with me.  He was very friendly and was happy to have a little conversation.  You wonder, does this person live alone?  Does he have any family nearby?

Our conversation was soup to nuts but oh so interesting.  I love to listen to real life stories - real stories (not bragging, exaggerated or made-up).

Amongst a few short stories that topics quickly changed from one to another in the 20 minutes we had stood in line near each other (6 feet apart) we talked about farming, landscaping, crabs, bees, and old-time remedies.

His family had a farm which he worked on for many years when growing up.  He said everyone grew all they needed, and some bartered for what they did not have with what they had plenty of.  He said money is a sin.  I do agree with that statement.

He said he also worked doing landscaping as a job when he was older and talked about how long he had to walk to get to work on dirt roads that were not yet paved, and he did not have a bike or car to travel with.

We talked about how there were ample red crabs on the roads and bees flying all around in yards from flower to flower, getting bee stings and his people owning beehives for honey making

He talked about putting olive oil inside or around his ear for an earache or to get out a bug or wax.  Says it works every time!  They would cut a tennis ball in half and use that as an ear plunger after putting in some drops of olive oil, to get the bug out or express the wax.  Sometimes he used pure alcohol if they had any as it dries up the infection.

Another remedy was to use Match Me If You Can leaves on a sore for the day to heal it and the pain. If I was sick or had a cold coming, I remember my mother rubbing some warmed Vicks and Vaseline on my chest and then put these very same leaves on top and let me sleep like that and she said I used to wake up feeling perfectly fine.

These were the kinds of the stories I heard.