A News release
news came in last week extolling the virtues of membership in 4-H. Fall is the traditional start to 4-H plans, among them the popular market steer and heifer projects.
Never would I discourage youths from joining this venerable program but there is one thing the leaders won’t tell you; one dark and dirty secret that might stand between you and the grooming trophy.
I reveal its name with the respect due a worthy adversary. My fellow 4-H friends, it is – the wart.
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Many a perfect bovine visage has been marred by warts, which become even more prominent after the first clipping. So it was with Percy, a chubby, curly-haired steer of years past. Fine of form in every way, Percy was afflicted with bulbous warts near his eyes.
If he was to look his best at show time, those warts had to go. And if his cosmetic embarrassment could be cured, so could the one small wart on my own hand
that was the cause of much little-girl angst.
Compound W was the first step. Percy scratched it off. Applications of diesel fuel, suggested by some well-meaning adult, left an oily spot on Percy’s white face, along with the warts.
Grandpa Walton, from The Waltons television show, said the milky sap from dandelions, rubbed on warts in a circular motion, would cure them in a few days. Percy liked the dandelions, but the warts stayed.
Once you look, it’s amazing how many folk remedies make themselves known.
Rub the wart with raw potato peelings.
Rub a penny on it, throw it over your left shoulder and don’t look back.
Rub a dishrag on the wart and bury it under the corner of the house.
Tie a thread around it, bury the thread in the earth and by the time the thread rots, the wart will be gone.
Make the wart bleed, put one drop of blood on seven grains of corn, then feed the corn to an old black hen.
I tried a few of these supposed cures, but the warts were the most stubborn thing about Percy, who was so docile that on show day, he went to sleep in the ring.
Today’s remedy, said to be 85 percent effective for people, according to medical websites, is to put a piece of duct tape on the wart, leave it on for six days, remove and rub it with an emery board. This process should be repeated until the wart disappears.
Had Percy and I known about this, we might have won that grooming trophy. As it was, my search for his cure was so distracting that when I went to tackle my own wart, it was gone.
