BAG BALM - THE SAILOR'S CURE ALL Fred Dyson – Dyson's Starboard View – Messing About in Boats   If you start poking around in lockers on old boats, you'll find some common items.  There will likely be tide tables, charts, dividers, shackles, batteries, fuses, peanut butter, hand-held flares, seasick pills, sunglasses, and Preparation H.  With all that, I think the most common item in all vessel lockers in North American waters will be a pale green square can of Bag Balm. Designed as a medicine to stick to cows' udders, Bag Balm has the consistency of wheel-bearing grease and will stick to wet, cold hands.  Bag Balm is a strong antiseptic, and mariners use it on all cuts and abrasions.  Many working sailors will put a gob on their hands and rub it in like lotion before they go on deck.  Maybe this is the origin of the slang word "gob" to designate a U.S. Navy sailor.   Bag Balm was my mariner father's favorite cure-all for every ailment.  As a toddler I had Bag Balm smeared on every cut and bruise.  I can remember having the gooey stuff smeared on my chest when I had a cold and on bruises when I banged my shins on the coamings of our boat.  The reputed efficacy of this stuff for colds came from my dad reading on the can that Bag Balm would clear up congestion in "teats."  Pop figured that congestion was congestion, so it should work for a congested chest cold.  In emergencies, I saw my father use Bag Balm as grease in a leaking stuffing box and to ease the runners on a stubborn galley drawer.   Dad was such an advocate of the efficacy of this gumbo that he began to think that the whole world needed it in quantity.  When he read of health problems in Mexico, he sent Bag Balm.  When the Korean War broke out, he bought a gross case of the stuff because he was sure the Marines and Navy would buy all of North America's supply and he might have to do without.   I remember a newly married young man, from a battered "Friendship Sloop" tied near us, who came to our boat seeking "marital" advice from my dad.  My mom sent me off up the dock to feed the ducks, but I returned in time to see Dad solemnly ladling out a couple of spoonfuls of Bag Balm to the young fellow and sending him off with salvation in his hand.  I think that this course of action probably resulted from Dad reading that one of the ingredients was "petrolatum."  I am glad he apparently never read about the lanolin it contains or I would have been using it for hair oil.  (Yes, I did have some hair at one time).   Bag Balm has the additional virtue of coming in a square can that is handy for storing odd nuts and bolts or fuses.  Most old boats will have a dozen of these old farmers' cure-all cans, full of a sailor's junk, wedged into a drawer or between the frames.  And just think, sailors, you can buy this panacea and nostalgia in Alaska for about eight to ten bucks.   MARINE SLANG   I keep thinking I've heard it all, but I heard a new one last week.  An old salt who retired after a lifetime at sea used the phrase: "looks to me like it was done on the gun deck."  I cheerfully admitted my ignorance and he explained that to "gun deck" something was to fake it or to use "southern engineering."   I checked "The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea" and found that the gun room was where the midshipmen or junior officers messed (ate).  Most military folks would not be surprised to find young officers "qualifying with a pencil" or "gun-decking it."                               TOP          MESSING ABOUT IN BOATS          HOME