Home Care

On island I had a pair of hair clippers and a sharp scissors. People would come to my door for tonsorial relief. At that time my perpetually wimpy thin hair was luxurant, collar length and curly thanks to the tropical moisture. I started cutting hair in the late 1960’s when hippie friends would come to me before the dreaded job interview. I’d hack down their beautiful locks to respectable lengths. On island all I did was lessen the burden. Island life has no room for elaborate coiffure. Everyone I cut looked like me, collar length, curly and combable with fingers. I had the power, I had the scissors.

I wasn’t a barber, I was a chef. People came around because we had a ping pong table in our courtyard. C.B., my friend and a deck maker built an industrial strength table and cured it to withstand any weather. On any night we would have 8 – 10 players in the court around the table. I’d only play once or twice a week, my tricky spins and elaborate serves were controversial. The beautiful courtyard was in the middle of an apartment complex. In America it would be the pool area but in the Caribbean we had an open space surrounded by tropical trees. Sissy, the aparment manager approved the table and alllowed us to put up a hibachi and a couple of game tables for Scrabble and Dominos. Sissy, a drab notherner was getting laid at a monumental pace, the power of ping pong.

All this social behavior including the barbery lead to medicine, cure and care. We were a young and active group and prone to accidental mishaps and normal exposure to the community of diseases. I was a barber/chef, people came to me. I knew the local weed woman, she cured me of the dengue fever. The local doctor was an end stage drunk and would write for me. I was good at wound care and simple diagnostics.

Mothers used to be the most formitable curative force. 99% of all disease is cured by mothering (nursing). I’d see simple problems gone on too long. Infections, breaks, STD’s and fungals; all curable by barbery, weeds and antibiotics. Except for Ted the hippie, he had an infected multiple fracture of the lower leg that he was trying to cure by eating soy beans. I had him life flighted off isalnd to Puerto Rico, they saved his leg.

Train more people in practical health care. Talk to the weed woman. Eat well and care for each other. True healh care could cost pennies per day. The monster of modern health systems could be eliminated by loving care. Do it.


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