Sore Hands No More

Frigid temperatures do more than raise the gas bill. Cold, frosty days redden and roughen flesh, leading to splitting skin on fingers and hands that hurts as bad as or worse than a paper cut. No matter how much girly girl lotion and cream I applied in January and early February, I couldn’t smooth out either the hangnails that snagged on bulky sweaters and hoodies or soothe away those painful, weather-induced wounds that formed at the edges of my finger and thumbnails and over the tops of knuckles.

I suspect that even if I never left my house during frigid temperatures, the effects of the furnace on my skin would lead to some discomfort. However, I was going outside and coming in several times each day while washing up at least once an hour to discourage flu and cold germs. This combination is a prescription for hamburger hands.

In desperation to ease the increasing pain, I used tried and true remedies that had worked in the past—even sleeping with cotton socks over grease-coated hands and buying dish soap guaranteed to heal raw skin. None of the products worked, and they depleted my bank account as I attempted to halt this attack on my body.

A fellow employee saw me gently massaging lotion into my irritated flesh and told me to avoid products containing petroleum products. She explained those unguents felt soothing when first applied, but they actually dried out skin. That explained why even though I’d just bought a brand new tube of something in that merchandise line a few days before, my hands were now bleeding. No wonder my almost raw digits weren’t improving.

I hadn’t found a cure, and the splits in my hands and fingers grew more painful by the minute. Unexpectedly, during a trip to get my mom some cold medicine, I spied a new product at a local drugstore. The sign above the display case promoted that it healed working hands that crack and split. Just what I needed. As a teacher, I hadn’t considered myself as a person with working hands since most of my labor takes place inside cozy buildings. However, my hands sure acted as if they were an outdoor laborer’s appendages.

When I asked the clerk about this ointment, she said farmers and road crew workers were coming in droves to buy it. After hearing this testimonial, I was sure I’d found the cure to my dry, cracked, bleeding hands. 

Sure enough, the ingredient list didn’t contain petroleum. Glycerin, water, and a whole bunch of words I can’t pronounce but didn’t have to do with the banned item filled up the component list. It didn’t smell, it wasn’t gooey, and it most importantly, it worked. Within a couple of days, craters that kept widening and growing tender to the point they awakened me from sleep began to disappear. Within five days, I could barely remember why I’d whined so much.

The lesson here is don’t go to the beauty product aisle when you’re dealing with outdoor hands. Hit the feed store or the place local farmers shop. These folks know what cures winter-roughened hands.

It's Not Good to Want a Thing Too Much

One of my favorite novels to teach was John Steinbeck’s The Pearl.  I loved his use of landscape, the very human ways the main character Kino and his young wife Juana faced ills that befell them, and truths about human nature the author unfolded in quotes that emerge from my memory at odd times. One of those instances occurred last week.

Ever since we moved, I’ve anticipated planting a garden behind our shed.  A neighbor used his tractor to till well-rested soil to crumbly powder that sifted through my fingers like sand through an hourglass. After gardening on a rocky hilltop for almost two decades, I was giddy thinking about tucking seed potatoes and onion slips into fertile earth.

While some folks use an almanac to tell them the best time to plant, the weather channel’s rain predictions guide me. There’s nothing like a heaven-sent soaking to get seeds off to good start. Based on the report, it looked like Mother Nature would aid me in christening my new seed plot.

According to the internet, I could expect a 90% chance for moisture. That offered good odds even in these dry times, so I cut up seed potatoes, prepared onion slips and bulbs, and organized packets of early season seeds. The whole time I loaded my garden cart with supplies, words rattled inside my head like seeds in a dry gourd—“It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away . . . .”

Those syllables haunted me because I couldn’t remember where I’d heard or read them. In my imagination, I saw an Indian woman saying them, so I started a mental inventory of books, movies, and  TV shows I’d read or seen, hoping to come up with a source. Finally, I recalled John Steinbeck penned them decades ago when he told the parable of a young man and his pearl of great value.

Straddling rows of freshly planted Yukon gold, Kennebeck, and red Pontiac potatoes, I wished mightily for rain and remembered Steinbeck’s words. Surely the weatherman was more correct than a long dead author. When I rose from popping onions in fresh-plowed earth, a desire for sprinkles crossed my mind only to have that repeating quote attack. 

It made me wonder if a similar superstition drives farmers to understate their dreams for good harvests. I don’t know that I’ve heard an agriculturist boast about the quality of a crop in the field.  Too many factors can drive either production or prices south to make a person with expectations still rooted in dirt voice hope. 

Sunday dawned damp and gray. Perhaps I hadn’t wanted rain too much. Surely I had wished just enough. I turned on my computer to search the weather report. Rain was north and east of us, not over us. We’d had a hint of moisture, but not the real deal. 

This experience helps me understand why farmers are cautious. Steinbeck must have learned this restraint growing up in an agricultural region. Perhaps words he attributed to a young mother living beside the Sea of Cortez initially emerged from the mouth of a farmer visiting John’s father’s feed and grain store in Salinas.