BAG BALM - Another Product Endorsement from the Crypt

  

This unencrypted blog message is to recommend a product that has been on the market--essentially unchanged--for over a century in America. I don't think the Chinese have bought it yet.

  

The familiar green can was unknown to me until about 5 years ago, when my wife brought the tin home, and told me it could be used for a multitude of purposes. 

  

I've never lived or worked on a farm, never had the opportunity to experience milking cows, though my stepfather, Harry Faville, grew up on a farm in Wisconsin, and told me all about it. Given the death of the family farm in America, and the rise of "scientific agriculture" there are far fewer people than there used to be, in America, who milk cows by hand. Still, that wouldn't suggest that cows' udders are any less likely to develop sores or cankers or abrasions. Bag Balm@ was originally invented as a salve for udder tissue, but farmers are famously inventive and handy, and other uses, both animal and human, were eventually discovered for this high Gothic American down home product. When Bag Balm@ was introduced, people still used horses to pull wagons, got their dry goods in general stores, and products like this would have been stocked, among other places, on the shelves of livery stables. 

 

Today, over a hundred years later, it's being used by people for much the same purpose. Ever since I was a child, Chapstick@ product dispensers have cheated customers of the last half inch of waxy balm from their screw-up-top cylinders. I tried using the stuff on my lips, and decided that I'd never have to buy another Chapstick@ as long as I lived. In addition, it works wonders for those little razor cuts that tend to bleed freely on the underside of my chin or neck. No problem with Bag Balm@: just put a touch on it and the wound coagulates immediately. That first can my wife brought home 6-7 years ago, is only half used and I expect it to last longer than I will, unless I buy a milking cow.  

 

When I was a boy, we guys who played baseball would use a product called Glovolium@ to lubricate the pockets of our gloves. When you rubbed it in into the leather, it made it malleable, and kept it fresh. Hell, I bet you could use Bag Balm@ for the same purpose, though I haven't tried it yet.

 

Probably isn't suited for sexual enhancement, but I'd wager it would do just fine for certain irritations in unmentionable places. I haven't looked into the chemistry--the FDA only certifies Bag Balm@ for use on animals--but it wouldn't surprise me if the formula wasn't much different than Preparation H@!

 

Anyway, Bag Balm@. Give it a try if you haven't yet. A little bit of Americana surviving into the 21st Century.