dual personalities

I’m back and I promise not to have a melt-down if (make that when) I run into trouble uploading photos or attempting to format the post. I will persevere. I must have had a nice week since I don’t remember much of it. The highlight involved talking to my three sons, including the birthday boy, who turned 26 (!) on Wednesday. He topped a quiet day with a deluxe halibut burgher (yes, that’s a thing) at a favorite Kodiak Island restaurant. Sounds good to me.

While the guys are out having fun, I’ll be grading papers. Picture me doing this:

Wonderfully accurate — found here 

When I need a break, which is to say all the time, I go surfing on my (not so) trusty laptop. I have several ongoing searches and sites that I visit every day. I do a daily crossword puzzle. The USA Today one builds self esteem, because it is easy. By contrast, the Washington Post crossword gets more difficult throughout the week, finally reducing one to a quivering lump of inferiority. I reckon it all averages out and leaves me right back where I started — just a procrastinator trying to pass the time. I will say that crosswords are pretty addictive.

When I get stuck, however, I start doing research — I’m a compulsive researcher. Sometimes I do genealogy and sometimes I try to track down information about some intriguing artifact in my house. For example, on the book case in my living room nestles a bottle of embalming fluid.

The bottle, which you’ll be happy to know is empty, actually belongs to my brother, who got it on a visit to a friend’s house in Athens, Georgia back in the early 1970s. I rescued it when we sold our childhood home in 1988. It’s quite a conversation piece.

I haven’t found out much about it on the internet besides the fact that the trademark was registered in 1925 to the Undertaker’s Supply Company, located in Chicago. I always assumed the bottle was older, but perhaps not. The side-label includes these wonderful directions:

SUPREMOL may be used in varying strengths to conform to cases embalmed. Beginning with a mild solution, strength may be increased as the case requires.

As strength is increased the embalmer should note times when tissue reaction is first expressed, and fluid should not be made stronger than used at first indication of tissue reaction.

Additional information with reference to the use of Supremol is enclosed in a booklet packed with each case. In that booklet you will note the recommendations to use Hermosol in certain types of cases, either as a preinjection solution or as part of the solution for the first injection. Efficient in such cases as Spanish Influenza, Pneumonia and all asphyxia cases and in cases where superficial capillaries are congested with blood and discoloration is present.

This solution can also be used as vein fluid.

You can use uncolored Supremol to reduce or shade the color of Red Supremol.

Goodness, but imagine the disclaimers they’d have to include these days! The solution must have been extremely toxic. I gather that red dye was often added to impart a rosy tinge to the skin and make it look more life-like, hence the Red Supremol. Live and learn. Although this post might seem a bit morbid, it’s a lot more relevant than you might think.

There’s a movement afoot to outlaw embalming on the grounds that the chemicals used eventually leach into the soil and poison the ground water — or something like that. If you are interested in mortuary activism, you can read about it here and here. Even death and burial have become politicized. Although it’s always good to know what’s out there, I’d rather just focus on the bottle as a piece of history– something that is interesting in and of itself.

Remember, the more you know about everything — even the history of embalming — the better off you are! You never know what’s going to pop up on crossword puzzle.