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Getting Control:
The History of Poison Ivy Removal
As a young boy growing up on Long Island in the early 50's, my favorite local pastime and greatest love, was either fishing, berry picking or playing outside being close to nature. I can remember at one point my playing in what was once considered relatively fresh, unspoiled, heavily deep forested areas, complimented by areas of mixed stands of dense ground vegetation, which of course included Poison Ivy, Poison Oak, Poison Sumac, English Ivy, Swedish Ivy, Cat Briar, wild Tea Rose, Honeysuckle, to list but a few. In addition, the outlying surrounding still undeveloped meadows similarly were comprised equally of mixed areas of Poison Ivy Poison Oak, Poison Sumac in all of its variant forms, wild Raspberry, wild Blackberry, wild Mulberry, wild Strawberry, Ash Maple, Box Elder. By the time I had reached 14 years of age, I already had contracted Poison Ivy allergy rash at least 60 times in my life, but at same time never managed to figure out what this darn plant looked like.  Since it had so many what always appeared to me permutations and variables, it was next to near impossible always difficult for me to figure out. There were at least 5 known varieties all growing on Long Island then, and I am darn sure that within this regard, nothing much has changed. Since the poison ivy plant's leaves closely resembles that of so many other types and kinds of desirable native vegetation, being a young naieve child it was virtually next to impossible for me be able to distinguish or identify one plant leaf from the other, I usually found myself leaving best chance best guess always to serve as my guide. I was a lousy guesser! With my fate now being left to chance, I blindly and boldly went about my business without so much as ever giving a second thought in hesitation to any of my travails. Consequently, I paid the price dearly. Usually I was found covered head over heels deep with poison ivy rash and its oozing blisters, always you would find me incessantly scratching myself all over just like a hound dog Mysteriously this rash would always first develop by first starting at my feet and toes (as in those day it was actually permissibly safe and okay to walk around barefoot) Next finds that the rash usually worked it's way upward by spreading itself entirely over both my feet, climbing up the back of both my calves and thighs heading next straight for well... you can only imagine, then continuing on upward, next found it located on my face, nose, neck, ears, arms, hands and fingers. Seems that there wasn't a day that did not go by where every square inch of my body was either covered with both poison ivy rash and calamine lotion, or some homeopathic remedy my mom who was an excellent cook managed to cook something up for me in order to relieve my incessant itching. Since I was perpetually steeped in Poison ivy rash, now that I was covered with it from head to toe, I learned to freely incorporate the color pink into my daily wardrobe, since at the time, nothing else seemed to work better than pink calamine lotion (in those days clear calamine had not been invented yet) Ritualistically my mother would drench cover me daily from head to toe in calamine. She actually kept an open paint bucket stored outside by the kitchen door, within this bucket there remained an wooden handled 8 inch wide wall paper glue brush, steeped deep in pink calamine. Usually my mom would slather paint the stuff with this 8 inch wide brush across all parts of my exposed body daily. THis would happen take place just after I had finished eating either my Cheerios, Coco Puffs, Rice Krispies but always occured before I finally left the house for the day, being once outside I was instructed to remain there all day and engage in play. Tragically I suffered miserably, not only from the rashes resulting incessant itching now found to exist with its persistent oozing sometimes bleeding blisters, but from the public taunting I received mixed with displays of public humiliation and ridicule all coming from several of my playmates. Going to school (something I loved to do) for me became a living nightmare, Always this stemmed from being outside and the public ridicule and fun always being poked and made not only at my poison ivy rash that was covering most of my body ran from head to toe, for which there seemed like there was not much of anything at all I could do, other than allowing the slow passage of time to heal from my open wounds, Additionally and most obvious there was always this pink stuff found covering me running from my head to my toes. In return all I could do was grimace at the mere thoughts of my being seen by my school peers and run away, so I could hide and scratch all my itching, Here I was left emotionally upset and in tears.(which BTW if you can imagine, the emotional upset wound up causing me to itch still even more!) My only sweet revenge back then was that I would dare to boldy venture forth by chasing after all nay sayers. simply by holding up one of my infected body parts be it a blistering arms, hands or a leg to next threaten to touch anyone bold enough to come close or who dared themselves by making fun and ridiculing me. Those smarty pants who got too close to me and taunting me to my face were first met by me running after them chasing them with my still dripping oozing arms. Usually I prevailed and was successful at scaring them away with this thought, that if they dared come close enough, should even breath air in my personal space or make any form of direct human contact with me, they too would then become cursed by this insidious yellow colored ooze dripping down both my arms and legs was mixed with dried flakes of pink calamine lotion. Like magical voodoo, I now had power to get more than even, and believe me, I did.. Now there was a redeeming empowering moment met with success.
My real choices back then, either were to continue scratching as I usually did until I bled, or I resolved myself to wearing the much hated dreaded color, pink and learn to live liking it. As a young child, I never gave much thought nor had presence of mind to actually avoid or get rid of the poison ivy plants themselves from where ever I walked, played or sat. Hence my idea was first created, was born out of necessity to control and remove poison ivy.
 To this day for me, I'm still not sure which was worse; was it the incessant itching met with endless addictive scratching, or was it seeing the bleeding and oozing blisters, or was it the emotional upset usually I associated with my being ridiculed by fellow playmates and classmates/ At the time any male originally found to be wearing the color pink usually carried with it a very demasculating negative message was due to the connotation of what pink at the time represented. For me, it really boiled down to my wearing the color pink and liking it, as in those days I really had no other choice. What I did learn by living through and surviving this emotionally charged nerve wracking period of my life, was that the Poison Ivy vines showed me that greater tenacity and persistence most often usually paid off. Since this plant survives and today grows amidst the harshest of all living environments known to exist, It actually likes growing and surviving in the toughest conditions - No matter what, year after year, year in and year out thi splants presence always is felt. Has taught me how to now weather life's greater disappointments by persisting through all the difficult if not hard times, by my trying still harder. As for me liking and wearing the color pink, I finally did find a place for it in my wardrobe. As for the itch I still can't say...... since I haven't yet figured out a way to beat or get around it - but don't worry, I will soon, I'm very persistent and now working on it!
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