Beech Tree News Network

After watching an episode of the Andy Griffith Show where Aunt Bee bought an elixir from a street vendor and things sort of went down hill after that (alcohol), I remembered some of the elixirs from my growing up years.  There was (in no certain order): Geritol—“Contains as  much Vitamin A as a half pound of calf’s liver.”

Lydia E. Pinkum’s Compound—“For female cramps.”  One ole guy—the story goes—got to drinking from his wife’s supply, for his leg cramps.  “It has one bad side effect,” he said.  “It makes me want to get up at five o’clock every morning and go shopping.” 

A lot of us remember Hadacol.  It sponsored the Hadacol Caravan on the Louisiana Hayride radio show.  Hank Williams Sr. was the main attraction on the show for some years, Colonel Tom Parker was the show’s producer.  He was also Elvis Presley’s manager later on by the way.  Several ditty’s were written about Hadacol.  One most remembered I guess was: “If your ole car is feelin’ ill, give ‘er Hadacol and watch her Boogie Up the Hill.” 

Last but not least was Nervine.  When my daddy managed a large mercantile store at New Cypress in Muhlenberg County on Greenville Route One, the only place I was born; his store carried Nervine.  A lot of women bought it, “On account of their nerves.”  My mother Gladys, never slept well.  Probably she had what is known today as RLS syndrome (restless leg syndrome). Anyhow, she decided to try a dose of Nervine—I believe two tablespoons full before bedtime was recommended. Gladdie was always the first up in the morning making good smells come from the kitchen—coffee, biscuits and gravy, bacon, sausage, fresh tomatoes in the summertime…But the morning after her dose of Nervine none of those wonderous odors reached my bed like they did each morning.  We found her resting her head on the kitchen table.  Nothing cooking.  No activity.  No good smells.  Finally she raised her head, looking like nine miles of bad road…and mumbled “I don’t want any more of that stuff, my head hurts something awful.”  My staunch, Bible-Belt-Baptist mother, who hated liquor, was plastered. 

The above mentioned elixirs all contained varying degrees of alcohol.  

Kindest regards…