My Million-Dollar Idea of the Day

 

My Million-Dollar Idea of the Day

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Years ago, a friend, I don’t remember who, told me that every day we have a million-dollar idea but that they skim by so quickly that we seldom catch one.

I don’t remember which long-ago friend posited this preposterous notion. I do remember that I said, “Hmmm. Um hmmm,” while nodding my head, wide-eyed.

I never forgot the notion. Now and then I catch a nodding acquaintance with one of my million-dollar ideas. Hence, the following.

Nostalgia is big these days. Grossly misplaced nostalgia, if you ask me, since I lived some of it and know the reality. However, nostalgia sells.

Conveniently, medical oversight seems to suddenly have fallen by the wayside.

At the same time, people, that’s you and me, gang, are bombarded with miracle cures, ancient, modern, invented, and imagined.

Bring these three threads together and you have it. Or, rather, I have it. I propose to revive the old-time medicine wagon and drift from village to village hawking my own brand of snake oil. Brilliant, eh?

What’s in the bottle of Cures-What-Ails-You? It doesn’t really matter, does it? I figure the base of most snake oil is alcohol. Here where I live the cheapest, most easily acquired alcohol is from the cane plant. Grind up some red chilies and one or two secret ingredients, and, no, I ain’t telling, because then they wouldn’t be secret ingredients, would they? Decant the liquid into old-timey blue bottles with a cork, and hit the road.

My friend Kathy’s husband Richard is a renowned retired doctor and he is willing to come up with the appropriate language for my spiel. Okay, he may not be renowned yet but by the time I finish my tour, he will be, yes, he will be renowned.

One product cures all, I figure. Richard can come up with the appropriate prescription, loosely called prescription, perhaps taking a page from homeopathy. Say, a drop for this ailment, two drops for that, and a slug for the really hard cases.

Brilliant, right? Do I figure to get rich? Well, no, not exactly. I’ve never been enamored of wealth, more’s the pity. Real wealth takes money to begin the process to generate more money. I have none. Wealth requires wealthy friends. Ditto. In today’s world, wealth takes devious manipulation through the internet. Ditto, again.

However, would I ever have a good time. I can easily imagine clip-clopping over the backroads with my mule and colorful-as-a-field-of-wildflowers medicine wagon, stopping by both isolated homes where I might trade a bottle of Cure for a meal or a clutch of eggs and in main-street squares, opening the back of my wagon, setting up a box on which to stand so I can see over the heads of the crowds and hawking my wares.

At best, I might make expenses.

As with all my other million-dollar ideas, you may have this one for free. You may get rich. I am sure to have fun.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

September 4, 2025

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