Daddy's Kerosene

Dad told me a story of his childhood not long before he passed away, one that I had not heard of before.

Daddy was always doing things that we never dreamed of doing, when we were small. Time marches on and things change fast.

Imagine growing up in a world where you never locked your doors, you never stopped to consider whether it was safe to stop and help someone along the road, someone that apparently was in need. Worries like that were not even contemplated..

You just naturally did the "good neighborly" thing and helped people out.

Imagine a time where kids could bicycle along country roads for miles to get to the river for an overnight camping stay. A night full of fishing, sitting around a campfire, telling ghost stories, and sleeping under the stars. Dad told me that he did these things, at the tender age of eight. Imagine a world where that would be accepted and allowed..a safe thing. That is the world that my Dad grew up in. Travel with me to that time, a time of innocence.

Dad went to the river fishing with a group of friends and his dad. He was about 6 or 7 years old. He stepped on glass along the river's edge and cut his foot pretty badly.
My grandfather, Lewis Arrowood, scooped Dad up and out of the water and deposited him in the back of their truck, a model T. This was somewhere in the 1930's..about 1938 or so..Imagine the scene: the old truck alongside the water, the sun dappling off the water in sparkles, and a crowd of tousled headed boys wearing overalls, leaning around the truck and looking to see just how bad the foot was cut.

A Norman Rockwell scene for sure..grin.

Dad said that he got very special treatment that day..He got his freshly cooked "catch of the day", delivered to him in his "special spot". Grandpa had fixed for it him: a comfortable spot in the back of the truck with his foot all propped up and bandaged. Grandpa brought him a soda pop in a bottle..a 'Special Treat' for sure..it was not every day that you got a store bought soda..

Grandpa had to disinfect the cut foot, so he used what he had..Kerosene..yes, plain old Kerosene..Imagine!

He placed Dad's foot in that pan of kerosene and Dad watched it turn crimson from his foot, blood swirling into the pan..

This is something that I am sure he never forgot. Dad had a weak stomach and went 'out like a light' very easily..something that I do myself.


Years passed on by, as they do, so quickly.

When Dad got sicker, and much weaker, the doctor told Daddy that there was not much else that they could do..They were out of options.

The chemo was no longer an option, he was just too weak..Neither was the radiation..

Dad told the doctor the story about the Kerosene..

What he really told him was about how the love of his Dad healed that foot, almost instantly..

He smiled that lopsided smile, that only Daddy could smile, amd looked up at that doctor and asked him if he had anything that 'worked as good as kerosene'..