A Savory History Lesson
I really appreciate the history of salt (“Texas’ White Gold,” August). A few years ago, during a family reunion of the Bedells, I visited with a distant cousin. She was almost 100 years old, and she told me about some of her aunts who were young women at the time of the Civil War.
They told her they used to ride sidesaddle with flowing skirts under which they concealed bags of salt, which they hung from their saddles to smuggle behind enemy lines to reach their sweethearts who needed salt for their meat.
Virginia Castro Edwards
In Too Deep
In the August issue, you have a good article on bathroom safety. However, the photo that accompanies the article is showing a very dangerous situation with no mention of its risks. A child should never have a bathtub deeper than his navel, as my mom used to say. A water level as deep as shown would cause the child’s feet to float, upsetting him, yet he is unable to lift his face far enough out to breathe. Many “tub seats” are sold to help children sit upright, but in my experience, they are more easily upset than the child himself and then hinder his attempts to right himself. The tips in the article are valid, but photos model behavior, and this one’s lethal for babies.
Brenda Elving, mother of six, Bluebonnet Electric
