Things I bet you never knew (original) (raw)

Things I bet you never knew - and then someby Delbert Trew

My continuous research turns up some odd and interesting tidbits of wisdom, recollections or plain old nonsense. Here are a few.

• How long has it been since you "dabbed a minor wound with Monkey Blood?"
  This was once the favored nickname for a medicine called Mercurochrome. Its distinctive red color stopped many a childhood tear without a burn or sting and brought sympathy and hugs to the wounded.

• Depending on the area where you lived, the term "grass widow" had different definitions.
  In some areas, the term meant a discarded mistress. In other areas, it meant a woman alone because of divorce, rejection or separation from a husband who was alive and "still above the grass."

• If you are afraid of witches, merely hang a horseshoe above your home entrance. It seems witches are afraid of horses. That's why they ride broomsticks. Heck, makes sense to me.

• I read about a man who believed in evil spirits and carried an automotive spark plug around in his back pocket, saying it charged the evil spirits right back to where they came from. Don't laugh. He lived to a ripe old age and was never harmed by evil spirits.

• If you have ever been active in your community and its affairs, you will appreciate this quote: "A committee is a group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit to do the unnecessary."

• The word "devout" is explained by the dictionary as "living without sin." An old cowboy friend explains devout as, "A 75-year-old, single, church deacon living in the middle of dry county where the only bootlegger is in jail."

• I once had a relative whose only purpose in life seemed to be vacating one spot and moving to another. Moving was not as much a journey as an occupation.

• Musical quotes: Louis Armstrong, the great horn man, once said, "All music is folk music. I've never heard a horse sing a song." Hank Williams, the great songwriter and entertainer, once said, "You got to smell a lot of mule manure before you can sing like a hillbilly."

• Tongue-in-cheek quotes: "This writer has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary," (William Faulkner, referring to literary rival Ernest Hemingway). Sounds like the "It's All Trew" column.
  Groucho Marx once said, "I had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it." Mae West once described a person as, "His mother should have thrown him out and kept the stork."
  Oscar Wilde once stated, "Some cause happiness wherever they go, others when they go."
  John Bright described a man as, "He is a self-made man and worships his creator." My mother once described a neighbor lady as, "Her thoughts are more scattered than buttons in a button jar."
  Dr. Joe B. Frantz once described a man as, "His conversation was a delightful meandering over a verbal range that knew no fences."
  I would love to meet such a person.
  C.C. White, a well-known black preacher of early East Texas history, once said, "You can't scrape a poor hog."
  If you can remember the "hog butchering days of old" you will remember this quote: "A man who is fundamentally a rebel against anything entrenched and established might be a little hardheaded."
  � Delbert Trew
  "It's All Trew"
  December 29, 2009 Column
  E-mail: trewblue@centramedia.net.