Bag Balm

Something brought this product to mind yesterday. Not really sure what it was, but it seemed worth sharing. For those of you that are not from an agricultural, or near-agricultural background such as I was, bag balm is a lanolin based product used in dairy operations for soreness in a cow's udder. For people that worked around this environment, it was also the cure-all for many of the maladies that occurred around animals and farms. Sore hands, small cuts and abrasions - these were all helped with the application of a little bag balm.

When I was in about the third grade, I was up at my Aunt Dorothy Dean's in the late summer or early fall.  I was trying to help with some of the chores and in my typical manner, I slipped and fell. But this time a piece of steel was involved and I ended up with nearly one hundred stitches. With blood flowing from my leg and tears from my eyes, I asked Aunt Dorothy Dean on the way to the hospital if we couldn't just put some bag balm on this. Not funny at the time, but hilarious years later.

What got me thinking about this yesterday is this is exactly what we need now. We need something that will just fix everything. Knees hurt from aging? Bag balm. Hearing a bit problematic? Bag balm. Can't seem to get enough sleep and are always tired? Bag balm.

While we all know that there's no way anything like this will ever be true, there are certainly times we let ourselves be lulled into an thinking like this, or at least I do. Right at the moment, we are about to have a drawing for one of the largest lotteries the United States has ever seen.  When I looked a few minutes ago, it looks as though the amount of the drawing will crest the $900 million mark. When we stop and think about this kind of money, it's easy to think that this would fix everything - bag balm.

When you let the totally unrealistic side of your brain go and think about this from a much more logical basis, of course you realize there is no way that there is any one thing that fixes everything, least of all money - even really big money.

This last year I've been given a wonderful opportunity to get back out into rural towns throughout Iowa with my job. The interesting thing about these communities - Bridgewater, Neola, Perry, Grand Junction, Osceola, and State Center (really - all over Iowa) - is that they are able to get things done within the confines of the community that they have and accomplish it without really big dollars. These communities continue to move forward into the future.

Now that I've wandered all over the place with these thoughts, what I really want to say is that although I would love to have a bag balm for all of the issues we have in our lives, our jobs, and our communities, there isn't any such thing. Additionally, money will not fix everything either. It is, as it always has been, about people working together and coming up with creative solutions to overcome the things we are faced with. Friends, and family, and those around us, work together to make things better.

But if you happen to win $900 million this weekend, you will be in a position that lets you help with a lot of these issues and can make the corner of the world that is yours better. I think that would be a pretty wonderful way to use that kind of big money, So, an agreement between friends - pinky swear - whatever you want to do. If we have the chance, in any and all ways, let's make the world around us a better place. We can be the bag balm for our corner of the world when we work together.