Cod liver oil
My mama was from Cape Breton, which, perhaps up to the time of her childhood, conferred on her a familiarity with the world, and an ability to cure any of its problems. Too, she came from a rich Tory family — not wealthy, except in comparison to some of their coal-mining neighbours, but rich in human experience and knowledge. My maternal grandpa could drive a railway train back-and-forth between Louisburg and Sydney, among other stations. It could carry both coal and passengers. He also piloted the first automobile on the island, and knew how to crank it up while family Holmes waited aboard. Those were the days, when mischievous but humorous youths took the whole thing apart, studiously, and reassembled it on the Holmes’ barn roof. (You see, they knew how to fix things they’d never seen before.) No one knows how to be my grandpa Oliver any more, whistling by the old S&L stop of Homeville, or Holmesville as I think we spelt it in the good old days.
Just now, as I was apprised that human beings require more than 5,000 international units of Vitamin D every day, and will never get it from the tiny vitamin pills that are sold by Big Pharma (which supply, perhaps, 800 units, at incredible expense), I recollected my mama’s counselling on this. She was a registered nurse, as surely all Cape Breton women were qualified to be, and used to give both my wee little sister and myself a teaspoonful of cod liver oil every day. We can still remember the taste of it, for which we were not enthusiastic. But because of this magical oil, we grew to maturity. Or pure Icelandic cod liver, squeezed into a small tin, as my mama reminds, from heaven. Which can be made edible (arguably) by adding lemon juice and spreading it on a Graham cracker. It still was not delicious, however.
These days all our hopes for a future in this world are vested in “AI” high technology, which for your information will never work, and is frightfully expensive. But mama had clearly anticipated this, and knew better. Especially when the snows blanket us, and we are all sealed indoors away from the healthy sun, it is cod liver oil that will save us.