Last week, while I was off work and running around in bare feet, because… why not… I was thinking, with pretty much every step, that my feet need to toughen up a bit. They will by the end of summer, but there should be a way to start the summer that way. Like when I was a kid.
Back many years ago when I was young and we used to go outside and play in the puddles left in the dinosaur footprints, I always had to get my feet painted at the start of the summer. My mother would coat my feet with Friar’s balsam and tell me it would help them toughen up. I’m not sure if it really did much good, since I was usually in bare feet and they toughen up pretty quick anyway, but I guess it helped. But it’s one of those things you don’t hear much about these days.
In fact, I was a bit of an outlier in my time. Other kids would look at me and ask what happened to my feet, since the bottoms of my feet would be a very different colour and the paint job was a bit uneven. Masking tape was not used to get those nice crisp lines around the edges. But it was almost enough to make me want to wear shoes. Almost.
But it started me wondering what that stuff that went on my feet actually was. So I looked up Friar’s balsam. It is described as a pungent solution bezoin resin in alcohol. But it’s not Benzoin, that comes from a different plant. So even the explanation is confusing. But it’s one of those early medicinal things that was invented in the 1760s and used to seal small cuts and blisters and help with asthma and bronchitis and maybe a few other ailments. And it is also used by some athletes to toughen skin. Like many old time patent medicines, it seems to cover many ailments.
Also like many old time patent medicines, I don’t think a lot of people even know about it any more. I know I stopped using it about the time I discovered water buffalo sandals, which are pretty much a new skin for the bottom of your feet anyway, so it made Friar’s balsam a bit redundant.
But I still remember the bottoms of my feet getting painted at the start of each summer. Someone said it was probably so my parents wouldn’t have to buy me new sneakers at the start of the summer. And really… I probably wouldn’t have worn them anyway. And my feet would have toughened up. Eventually.