Mercurochrome and the Mothers of Spring

All hail the Mothers of Spring! They were that fast, fierce, elite team of first responders always on the scene whenever their baby boomer kids bashed themselves up. The Mothers of Spring weren't real in the sense that they were a formally organized group - I made that up - but they were very real in every other way, especially to any child who ever cried out for hers or his while sorely in need of something akin to an Army medic.

Graphic by Teece Aronin

The Mothers of Spring are so named for the super-human ability to spring into action at a moment's notice, and also because, where I'm from, they were at their best during the spring season. You see, in my neck of the woods, the United States Midwest, Mothers of Spring shone brightest on those glorious days of April when it was warm in the sun and chilly in the shade. These are the days when children get so carried away by the beauty of it all, and too dazzled by the light, to look where they're going, and collide with something hard, like a section of buckled sidewalk. The Mothers of Spring deftly bandaged up their wounded warriors, first applying enough antiseptic to sterilize Lenny Bruce's toothbrush. And yes, Bruce did kiss his mother with that mouth.

Down through the annals of time the Mothers of Spring dabbed every boo-boo deemed in their mighty judgment as appropriate for it, with Mercurochrome.

Mercurochrome was a reddish-orange colored tincture that, once dried, became the reddish-orange skin stains kids of my generation wore as badges of honor. The cooler or more scrappy the kid, the more Mercurochrome stains he or she sported, or, conversely, the klutzier the kid was perceived as being. Baby boomers know what I'm talking about. 

In 1998, the Federal Drug Administration challenged the authority of the "Mothers of Spring, Mercurochrome Division" when it found that Mercurochrome was "not generally recognized as safe and effective. Mercurochrome wasn't flat-out banned, but it did get a lot harder to find. The comely flower-wreathed heads of the Mothers of Spring, especially those who were traditionalists or baby boomers, snapped up as one at this news, and many of the mommies yelled, "What the h€##?"

It turns out that Mercurochrome didn't get that first syllable, "merc," from nowhere. It got it because Mercurochrome contains mercury, an ingredient no self-respecting fish would be  caught dead with. While Mercurochrome didn't seem particularly hazardous when used as directed, it probably wasn't doing kids a whole lot of good. 

In an episode of I Hate Chris, the sitcom based on the childhood recollections of comedian Chris Rock, someone yells, "Chris got hit by a car!" and Chris' mother shouts, "I'll get the Robitussin!"

Robitussin is another must-have in the medicine cabinet of every good Mother of Spring.

Sprung

This is the weekend everyone in my neck of the world sprang ahead, meaning we turned our clocks ahead one hour to usher in that harbinger of spring, Daylight Saving Time.

Image, Teece Aronin.

So many things about this ritual confuse me, starting with the name. Is it Daylight Savings or Daylight Saving? I've thought about this quite a bit. For years, I thought it was Savings, but often see it written as Saving. Why this distinction bothers me I have no idea. If I dedicated as much thought to other aspects of time, I could discuss Einstein's theories more impressively at cocktail parties and maybe even get places when I'm supposed to - the latter being the bigger achievement despite not having a science-minded bone in my body and never getting invited to cocktail parties.

I'm also confused by whether I'm really saving anything valuable since I've just lost an hour of sleep and will be exhausted all week. Every winter I get all psyched up in anticipation of Daylight Saving(s?) Time only to get there and find myself haunting my house like a sleep-deprived ghost until my circadian clock catches up. 

And what exactly happens anyway? How did I just gain an hour of daylight and lose an hour of sleep? I mean, I get it - sort of - but it still seems counter-intuitive - or counter-clockwise - or counter-something. It just seems counter.

The first day of spring arrives close to the time we spring ahead. This is an event I've overblown in importance for years. Ever since I learned that spring commences at a specific time of day, say 12:57 p.m., I've gotten all excited about it every year, staring at the clock a few seconds ahead so that I'll know the very moment it begins, kind of like New Year's Eve but less depressing.  

Years ago, on the first day of spring, I was babysitting for a four-year-old. I told him that spring would arrive later that day and that we could go outside a minute before and do a 60-second countdown to welcome in the new season. I was careful to explain that we wouldn't actually see spring arrive, but still, it would be coming at the same time we were outside counting. We walked out of the house, and the conversation went like this: 

Me: Okay, here we are, out on the front porch. Spring will be here in exactly one minute. Are you ready to do the countdown with me?

Dougie: Yup!

Me: Okay, repeat after me: Sixty!

Dougie: Sixty!

Me: Fifty-nine!

Dougie: Fifty-nine!

Me: Fifty-eight!

Dougie: Fifty-eight!

Down and down, we counted until . . .

Me: Three!

Dougie: Three!

Me: Two!

Dougie: Two!

Me: One!

Dougie: One!

Me: Happy Spring!

Dougie: Happy Spring! . . . Now what?

Me: Now what what?

Dougie: Now what happens?

Me: Well, nothing happens.

Dougie: But where's the spring?

Me: It's here, right here, all around us.

Dougie: But nothing happened.

Me: Well, we didn't see anything happen. But something did happen.

Dougie: What?

Me: Spring.

Dougie: Where?

Me: Here. Everywhere. All around us.

Dougie: Oh, man, dat was a bummer. I goin' back in da house. 

So here we are again, having just gained light and lost sleep. It's too confusing for me to ever fully grasp, so this will be the year I just roll with it. By the way, I googled it, and it's Daylight Saving Time.

So now, I've lost an hour's sleep, and I've also lost my S. On the bright side, I have an extra hour of daylight with which to go find them. 

The Watched Pot of Winter

It’s been winter for weeks now and I’m still trying to catch up to the notion that winter is a good and natural thing, a thing needed by the earth, a time for nature in my part of the world to close its eyes and rest; a time for things to take stock and catch their breath before the bustle of spring returns.

Like his mother, Jon gets a  
little flaky in the winter. 

Winter never was my favorite thing, but years ago when I was about to drive from Michigan to Colorado, my view on winter took an uptick. It was January and someone remarked that it was a shame I wasn’t making the trip in a few months when the scenery would be prettier.

“But winter has its own colors,” a friend replied, “and they’re beautiful.”

On the trip I appreciated the landscape more than I would have had my friend not made that observation. Winter’s sepia and olive tones became nearly as appealing as the purples, greens, yellows and reds due to burst from the soil come April.  

Why then has winter become so unappealing to me again? Why can’t I think my way back to that long-ago road trip when winter was cold, bleak and barren, yet beautiful nonetheless; when it was something to love despite, or even because of its harsh embrace? Why can’t I get back there again?

It’s not as if I have no good memories of winter. My son was born in the winter, umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, his first cry the bleat of a newborn lamb, raspy, plaintive, yet raging, simultaneously helpless and furious. 

That little bleat told me my son had arrived and that he planned on staying, despite the scary start, and his grandmother’s first thought at the sight of him was that he should pick up a hammer and help the other elves. He was a minikin, but he was my minikin and he was healthy.

And one of the things I laughed at the hardest in this life would never have happened had it not been for winter.

One morning my mother landed on her fanny after slipping in the snow, her coat leaving a nubby-textured imprint next to a Nike-esque swoosh from where her boot had shot out from under her. If I’d seen her fall, I’d have been upset, but walking up on the plop and swoosh, and knowing she was fine, made me weep with laughter. Mean-sounding, I know, but she was laughing, too.

Maybe I'd feel better if I just stopped fighting winter and stopped staring at the calendar as though winter were the proverbial watched pot. Maybe I need to remember my son’s first wails, picture him as he was the other day, wind-whipped and thrilled, barreling down a hill on his sled. 

Maybe I should think about moments like those and stop fighting what is as inevitable and as necessary and as natural as death. At least winter is temporary and there will always be another spring. 

There will always be another spring, right?