The magic medicine bag

by Brad Nelson

My wife thought it was unfair. I thought it was just practical good sense. When getting ready to “get out of Dodge” for longer than an afternoon, the love of my life would have to “pack.” All I needed was to swing by the truck and gather up the “bag.”

Just like the spare parts bin for the truck, experience had taught me about the items I needed to carry as spare parts for me. One memorable couple of days gave me reason to never even cross the street without the “bag” in the truck. One of the real characters I had the pleasure of associating with was a big galoot named Dean Ashcroft. One of his endearing characteristics was his grasp of time. Or lack of it.

The destination was Denio Junction, Nevada. We were to meet at Burns junction in Oregon, run down to Denio and load, and be back in plenty of time to sleep in our own beds. Now to me, “mid-morning” happens in the general area of nine or ten o’clock in the a.m. mode. To Dean, it seems that “mid-morning” occurred an hour before sunset. And just enough past sunset for it to be pitch dark, the fire went out in the old truck. The reason was that the fuel crossover line had left the bottom of one fuel tank. The engine was now sucking air instead of fuel, and stopped. The fuel was fouling the environment, and before we got a wooden peg driven into the hole in the tank to stop the flow, I was the major portion of the aforementioned environment that got fouled.

Since this was to have been an easy down-and-back load, I did not have with me the “bag.” And with no clean clothes, a shower would not have helped. I kept waking up that night, dreaming I was a stowaway in the hold of a fuel tanker. The best I could do to stay sane if not comfortable was to shed most of my clothes and put on a tattered pair of coveralls. Severely “air-conditioned” coveralls. Or, in this case, cover most-of-alls. We made it back without an arrest for indecent exposure, thought the waitress in Denio Junction just about asked me to go sit on the steps outside and eat. The back steps. By the time I got in the vicinity of clean clothes and a hot shower, I felt like my skin was loose from my body. Four days and five showers later, I could smell something other than diesel. The next week, food tasted like food again. Ever since, I don’t cross the street in a truck without a change of clothes and a handful of tools.

Making do with what you have access to is one of the greater parts of “Yankee ingenuity.” And when you find yourself in a place where there is not a great deal at hand, the ingenuity takes on a whole new meaning. I discovered how much better veterinarian-type ace bandage is than the kind made for people when there was none of the other type to be had. It clings to itself with great vigor, is strong, is cheap, is re-useable, and needs none of those little clip things that always get lost. Almost as good as duct tape, plus it comes off without leaving a mess. Unless, of course, it was a bloody mess you covered up with it.

The haul into Charleston, Nevada was a hide-and-seek game with the weather. Dodging snowstorms and making sure the road was frozen up nicely before going. The weather pattern was such that I’d arrive at the ranch about eleven at night. I’d call Dick from Mountain City, and he would meet me at the stack about two hours later, cut a check, and leave me to unload in the night. On a good trip, Mountain City would be the sleep spot starting about three in the morning. An odd schedule, but anything beats being stuck in the mud.

On the last trip, pulling chains out of the tool box with great vigor and just a bit too much anger, I pulled my left hand against something sharp on the edge of the toolbox. This increased the anger, and by the time I had the loader loaded on the truck and the trailer hooked back up, the wound had cleaned itself nicely with all that bleeding. Now in the cab with some light, I covered the wound (about a three-inch gash from the base of the thumb angling up over the back of the wrist, just deep enough to be rather bloody) with a clean paper towel. Then came the Vet-Wrap. It wrapped on nicely, covered the mess, and stopped the bleeding. When the sounds of the bustling metropolis of Mountain City woke me in the morning, I found that there was not much to be had for a more “kosher” bandage than what I already had.

With the “bag” containing a full change of clothes, Vet-Wrap, a shaving and toiletries kit, lots of aspirin, nail clippers, at least one good sharp knife, and a can opener, I was ready for most anything. Also, some kind of cough and cold stuff, bellyache medicine, and some form of kaopectate (three guesses why). Some things I learned I needed wouldn’t fit in the bag, so they got stowed elsewhere in the truck. One was a good strong walking stick. An oak stock cane works best, as it won’t break if you up and swat something with it. The other was an old pair of work boots. One of these, slit from the instep up the top, would nicely accept a sprained ankle. Add either duct tape or Vet-Wrap, and you have an excellent “field” walking cast (ask me how I know this works).

Elli got to go with one trip. We ended up passing through Provo, Utah, and visited brother Neal, then a college student. In her haste to pack, she had arrived without her own toothbrush. As she asked to use mine, I replied that that would be fine. We had been married a good ten or twelve years by this time, and had shared things more intimate than a toothbrush. I cautioned her to check it over closely before she used it. When she asked why, I replied that I wasn’t sure I had access to running water the last time I had used it. Brother Neal was a sight to behold. He was at the same time laughing too hard to stand up, and afraid of my wife enough that he was holding a straight face while doing it. I believe it was about a six-block round trip to produce a fresh, shiny new toothbrush. PD