When I came along, I heard about the “country doctor” but never saw one. I’m sure they existed someplace, but for folks like us, this physician was only a figment of our imagination. We heard that the country doctor made house calls, and of course, that was true, but he never came our way. And I can only imagine that if someone in those families had been gravely ill and the doctor arrived too late, the patient would have been long gone. But now, what about us? Who was our doctor? When I think back on my childhood, we were fortunate that we were all basically healthy kids. My family (on both sides) are pretty healthy people, so our good genes were on our side. Whenever we got sick, however, we had to either find some herbs/weeds from the fields and trees or buy something from the drug store (which my Daddy did occasionally). As was true with most children, we all came down with childhood illnesses but none were serious. So, when we got sick, my Mother got some of her Mother’s homemade remedies that she had gleaned from God’s green earth and those along with what my father bought, made a combination of our “Country Doctor,” and he was a superb physician. So much so that he never lost a patient. And for the most part, he was free of charge.
