Montessori, Mercurochrome & Mohammed

My niece recently started attending a Montessori pre-school.

According to Wikipedia, "The Montessori method is an educational method for children, based on theories of child development originated by Italian educator Maria Montessori (1870-1952) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries."

It goes on to say that Montessori schools provide a calm and peaceful atmosphere for budding young minds to develop using self-directed activities, and that the ideal classroom would give children unfettered access to nature.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, my elementary school was enclosed within a barbed-wire fence, the paint on the walls was lead-based, the ceilings made of asbestos tile and the playground was black asphalt surrounded by a 2 foot deep concrete trench. Any time a kid fell down they required stitches, a skin graft or a lengthy hospitalization.  And a child who was unfortunate enough to stumble into the trench had their leg snapped off at the knee.

Back in those days, when you went to the school nurse (translation: janitor) your wound or stump was always treated with a liberal application of Mercurochrome, a mercury-bromine compound which has been outlawed in the U.S. for years.  The dark, orangey-red liquid would stain your skin for days, a literal Red Badge of Courage. It was later realized that this actually made the detection of any inflammation, indicative of infection, more difficult.

The Straight Dope had this to say in response to a reader inquiring about the stuff we called "monkey blood":
"You're dating yourself, Pops. Few under age 30 have ever heard of this stuff. In 1998, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declared that Mercurochrome, generically known as merbromin, was "not generally recognized as safe and effective" as an over-the-counter antiseptic and forbade its sale across state lines. A few traditionalists complained: Whaddya mean, not generally recognized as safe? Moms have been daubing it on their kids' owies since the Harding administration!"

It's still used in the steel industry as a dye to detect metal fractures...it's good to know all that carcinogenic red stuff didn't go to waste.

I also have a bunch of mercury fillings in my teeth. But we won't get into that.


As it turns out, one of the dads at the Montessori school owns a Hooters franchise. At all the school functions, which are held outdoors so the children can have unfettered access to nature, he provides free beer and wine. These functions are well-attended by the parents.

So...while the moms and dads get tanked and the kids run amok, there's a big Hooters truck in the parking lot of the Episcopal church which runs the school. The slogan on the Hooters website (so I'm told) is "Tacky Yet Unrefined".  Does anyone else besides me notice that there are two "O's" in both "Hooters" and "Montessori"?  I guess no one in their marketing department thought of the slogan "Hooters & Montessori...What a Great Pair!".

My sister e-mailed me the other day to say she had signed up to provide the refreshments for the upcoming Halloween party. As it turns out, one of my niece's classmates is a kid who's gluten intolerant. Gluten is found in wheat, barley, rye, pasta, bread, crackers and just about everything else on the planet except mercurochrome.

There's also a little boy in the class who's Muslim, so he can't eat pork, which is a key ingredient in pigs-in-a- blanket, ham sandwiches, hot dogs, baloney, SPAM® and bacon...all the stuff you'd instinctively serve at a children's Halloween party.

And then there's the child who is vegan, so he can't eat anything.

I suggested to my sister that she check out the Hooters menu...I think they have gluten-free, vegan buffalo wings.

Please note: I did not take any of the photos which accompany this blog post.  But I did eat a fair amount of SPAM® back in the day.  What does not kill you makes you stronger.