My old granddad, who was probably not nearly as ancient as he seemed to me back in the 1950s, always had some packets of BC headache power in his shirt pocket.
I thought about that a couple of weeks ago when Regina’s doctor suggested that she might try BC powder for some cluster headaches that hit her out of the blue a while back with no rhyme or reason.
That’s apparently what cluster headaches do. Medical folks don’t seem to know what causes or cures them or how long they will last. They just prescribe things for the pain, including BC powder.
My granddad worked in the railroad yards, and that job must have created headaches and other ailments.
I spent a few weeks with my grandparents in Bogalusa one summer when I was in high school and was surprised at all the home remedies and patent medicines my granddad used.
BC powder seemed to be his favorite. His daily routine was to come home from work in the afternoon, sit on the porch swing before ever going in the house, get a BC powder from the pocket of his denim shirt, tilt his head back and pour it in his mouth.
He always explained just before ripping the end off of the blue paper packet with the white BC symbol that he needed to get rid of his “splitting headache.”
I read the directions on a packet that he emptied one day and learned that you could just dump the powder on your tongue like he did but that you should wash it down with a “full glass of water.” I never saw him drink anything with his BC.
My granddad’s frequent use of BC got my attention, I guess, because I had heard so much about the headache powder growing up but had never seen any of it at our house.
There were some Bayer aspirin in the built-in medicine cabinet of our bathroom. They were in a flat tin container that could be opened by pressing one corner of the metal box.
I never saw my dad take one, but my mother used the aspirin when my brother and I put her, as she always announced dramatically, “on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”
BC headache powder was a widely-advertised product in those days, especially across the southern part of the country. I was into country music even as a teenager and heard advertisements for BC on the Louisiana Hayride and Grand Ole Opry radio shows.
One of the celebrity spokesmen for BC was Faron Young, the country singer from Shreveport. He went to Fair Park High School and had sort of a slicked-back ducktail hair style even before Elvis.
It’s ironic that Trace Adkins, another country music star who did commercials for BC years later, is also from Louisiana. He grew up in Sarepta a few miles from my hometown of Springhill.
So I knew about BC powder but had never seen anybody use it until the summer I stayed with my grandparents. I learned about some other medicines and remedies during that visit.
Working in the train yards must have caused digestion problems, because my grandad had a couple of fizzing glasses of Alka Seltzer every day and drank Pepto Bismol straight from the bottle.
To stay regular, as my mother used to say, he had stewed prunes for breakfast followed by a swig of milk of magnesia.
He kept a bottle of Geritol in his overalls pocket for his “tired blood” and “run down feeling” and always seemed to be in a little better mood after a dose or two of the alcohol-based elixir.
Maybe Regina’s cluster headaches would get better if she could wash down that BC powder with some of those old-fashioned 1950s alcohol-heavy concoctions like Geritol and Hadacol.
REPRINTED FROM THE NATCHITOCHES TIMES