CATARRH

As children, mother taught us to say "catarrh," not snot or boogers. These latter two were deemed by her to be exceptionally coarse, and crude, reflecting lack of culture or, even much worse, "home-training!" I was reminded of Mama, just now as I read how Union Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson in his 1866 classic, ARMY LIFE IN A BLACK REGIMENT, wrote: "One of these nocturnal visits to the wreck I recall with peculiar gusto, because it brought back that contest with catarrh and coughing among my own warriors which had so ludicrously beset me in Florida. It was always fascinating to me to be on these forbidden waters by night, stealing out with muffled oars through creeks and reeds, our eyes always strained for other voyagers, our ears listening breathlessly to all marsh sounds ,--blackfish splashing, and little wakened reed birds that fled wailing away over the dim river, equally safe on either side. But it always appeared to the watchful senses that we were making noise enough to be heard at Ft. Sumter, and somehow the victims of catarrh seemed always the most eager for any enterprise requiring peculiar caution. In this case I thought I had sifted them beforehand; but as soon as we were afloat, one poor boy near me began to wheeze, and I turned upon him in exasperation. He saw his danger and meekly said, 'I won't cough , Gunnel!' and he kept his word. For two mortal hours he sat grasping his gun, with never a chirrup . But two unfortunates in the bow of the boat developed symptoms which I could not suppress ; so, putting in at a picket station, with some risk I dumped them in mud knee-deep, and embarked a substitute, who after the first five minutes absolutely coughed louder than both the others united. Handkerchiefs, blankets, over-coats, suffocation in its direct forms, were tried in vain , but apparently the Rebel pickets slept through it all, and we exploded the wreck in safety. I think they were asleep, for certainly across the level marshes there came a nasal sound, as of the 'Con-thieveracy' in its slumbers. It may have been a bullfrog , but it sounded like a human snore." P. 71