More Hot Tips
Having worn contact lenses for 50-plus years and loving hot peppers, I empathized with your comment about getting capsaicin in your eyes [Tame the Flame, Recipes, August 2017]. Yeoww!
Here are a couple more tips I’ve discovered to mitigate the pain:
• Scrub your hands with soap and water and a bristle brush immediately after handling peppers. The capsaicin seems to soak into your skin, making it more difficult to remove the longer you wait.
• Or rinse your hands with a little rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol.
• When hand-washing, use cold water. Hot water will volatilize the capsaicin, resulting in a pungent, mucous membrane-irritating, pepper-spray aroma.
Ken Konvicka | Graham
United Cooperative Services
Derailed by Blizzard
Although I was in the third grade, the blizzard [Blizzard of 1957, March 2017] is a special memory of mine! My daddy was an engineer for the Santa Fe Railway. He received orders to take a crew to the north out of Amarillo to try to locate anyone who was stranded. As the train traveled north, the drifts of snow covering the tracks prevented his train from moving fast until finally it just stopped! The packed snow was just too much for the powerful diesel engine.
Even the radios in the engine and caboose ceased to operate. For eight days, there was no word from the train. The crew gathered in the caboose and eventually had to tear out some inside wood of the caboose to burn in the stove to keep warm.
My mom put up a good front so my sister and I wouldn’t worry. They had no food until a crewman whittled a slingshot and was able to provide a few sparrows to nibble on.
One day, after lunch, we were marching to our classroom, and I saw my daddy standing beside the door. I broke line and ran to those big arms held out to scoop me up. Daddy was safe and home again!
Until the day he died, he always carried some crackers and a can of Vienna sausages either in his work satchel or in the glove box of our car—just in case.
Linda Sanderson Moore | Lubbock
South Plains EC
Counting on UConn
Thank you for mentioning the University of Connecticut women Huskies in the By the Numbers section [Currents, March 2017]. It was a lovely surprise for a proud alumnus happily living in Austin. I guess we’ll have to wait for them to get their 12th Final Four win, in 2018.
Renee Opelt
Pedernales EC
Warms the Heart
My family has been playing dominoes for 80-plus years [Bonding Over 42, Letters, April 2017]. When growing up, my brother and my dad would sit on the foot of my bed on cold winter nights with a board in the center of the bed, and my sister and I would have our feet under the cover. We would play 42 while mom popped popcorn and played the piano.
Mary King | Athens
Trinity Valley EC
