GRAMPA AND MERCURY

Yesterday, I was looking over my notes for blog topics. One was “Grampa and mercury.”  Good Grief! 

We lived right up the block from my father’s parents. Though I didn’t like to get down there, I loved being in the basement with my Grampa. (That's not Grandpa, it's Grampa, just the way we said it.) I didn’t like to get there because going down from the kitchen the stairs were open and the way was dark. It was intimidating for a little kid, and to this day I am leery of open stairs. I just know someone is going to reach through and grab my ankle. It’s never happened, but one never knows.

I just loved helping Grampa load coal into the furnace. I remember being down there once when the coal was delivered – whoosh! – down the chute in a cloud of dust (but no “hearty ‘Hi-yo Silver!’”)

One thing we did a lot was play with mercury. Grampa had a mayonnaise jar-full. We kids lived to roll drops of it in our palms, and cover dimes with it. We could keep the dimes – great for us to take to get penny candy. Oh, I could write a whole blog about penny candy. Maybe someday.

But mercury! I can’t begin to know why my Grampa had such a thing. Where would he have gotten it, and what would he have done with it? And what my uncle did with it when Grampa died, I’ll never know. I remember the jar was weighty. Imagine if one of us had dropped it. Whew!

Mercury is a dangerous thing. The Mad Hatter was mad because hatters once used mercury in their trade, and mercury affects the nervous system. There are other professions, like gold mining, that use mercury and its compounds in their everyday work. Not good, not good.

There are so many things commonly used years ago that we ban as toxic today. I do remember the sting of Mercurochrome. It’s still available in some countries, but ours bans it because of its mercury content. I guess ignorance was bliss.