Remember all the mysterious bottles, jars and tins that were in the medicine cabinet when you were growing up? How often we were warned that the various salves, ointments and liquids in the cabinet were poisonous. Yet, when we got sick, the first thing our parents did was to go to the cabinet and take out some foul-smelling concoction that was either daubed on us or we had to swallow.

Like me, you probably had some kind of medicine cabinet in the kitchen or bathroom of your old home. And no matter how much you were warned, you probably checked its contents at every opportunity. The various containers with their strange names and odd odours were an attraction no kid could resist.

Even today, nearly half a century later, I can remember some of the things that were in our cabinet. Minards Linament, extract of wild strawberry, castor oil, mineral oil, zinc ointment, Epsom salts…. I recall the size and shape of the jars and bottles and I remember their odours and how some of them tasted. I remember being curious about what everything was used for and there were times when I found out and was sorry I did.

Epsom salts was a real puzzler. I remember my father occasionally drinking Epsom salts dissolved in a glass of warm water and also putting the salts in a bucket of hot water and soaking his feet. A drink and a foot bath? Well, other items in our medicine cabinet serve dual purposes as well. When we had colds, Minards liniment was rubbed into our chests and throats. I also remember my father drinking Minards mixed with warm water, which took some doing since the liniment was strong stuff.

Vinegar was another substance that around our home was put to many uses besides those of the kitchen. Vinegar was used in our old home as a disinfectant, a mouthwash and throat gargle and on mosquito bites. Cider vinegar was combined with other ingredients to treat illness. When we had colds when we were kids, the treatment was a drink with a 50-50 mixture of vinegar and water that had been boiled with chopped onions and sugar.

Vinegar has been used for generations as a folk medicine and, oddly enough, it appears that old-timers may have been on to something. “Ancient healers knew thousands of years ago that vinegar is the wonder elixir for a healthier life,” claims an ad I saw recently in Health Watch Canada. The ad offered a book with folk remedies and listed over a dozen conditions that can be treated with vinegar.

While it pays to be sceptical of claims in paid advertisements, serious researchers are looking at vinegar and wondering if it really does have curative powers.

While we never kept vinegar in our old medicine cabinet, like Minards Liniment and Epsom salts, it was always nearby ready to be used when illness struck. Some ingredients from the medicine cabinet brought relief. Then there were concoctions such as mustard plasters and liniment that seemed to have no purpose other than torturing a boy down with a cold.

I wonder why there was so much controversy when a scientist recently announced his discovery that dogs are psychic.

The scepticism puzzled me. I could have told anyone who asked that several of my dogs possessed something which, for want of a better word, could be described as psychic. Any long-time dog owner can tell you the same thing. Work around dogs long enough and it becomes obvious they have a special rapport with you that borders on the uncanny.

I can give you dozens of examples that illustrate this rapport, but let’s start with the dog that knew he was going to die.

My old Chesapeake was sick. He was wasting away and the vet said nothing could be done to save him. I put off the decision to have the dog put asleep, but the day came when it was time.

I had hunted with the Chesapeake for 11 seasons and we had a routine; whenever I went to his pen with leash in hand, he greeted me at the door. I’m guessing, but I think the dog connected the leash with outings for hunting and exercise. On his last day, however, the dog crouched low when he saw me approach with the leash; with tail between his legs the dog slunk into his kennel and refused to come out. Somehow he has sensed something was different.

Four of my last five bird dogs always knew when it was time to go hunting. Don’t ask me how they knew, but there were totally different reactions from the dogs when I left the house for work and when I had hunting in mind. When I was dressed in work or casual attire and didn’t have hunting in mind, the dogs greeted me every morning with quiet, glad-to-see-you wags of the tail. When I dressed for hunting and had hunting in my mind they yelped and ran excitedly around the pen as soon as I was out of the door.

I know dogs aren’t supposed to reason, but I assumed that somehow they connected my clothing with the day’s activities. Work or casual clothes, I was going to the pen to feed them and they were staying in. Hunting clothes, they were going afield.

All logical, of course, if it’s possible for dogs to put two and two together. Then, one morning on a day off, I decided to put off hunting until mid-morning. I went out to the pen at daybreak dressed in non-hunting clothes and my dog went berserk. He had somehow sensed that I was taking him hunting that day.

Curious about how four different dogs could sense what I had in mind for them, I tried at times to disguise my intentions. Once, I went to the kennel in work clothes on a morning I planned to hunt and I got the whining, yelping run-around-the-pen excited welcome. I remember thinking that the darned dog must be reading my mind. It amazes me at times how my current bird dog reacts according to what I have in mind in the way of activities, but I’m used to it by now. The three dogs I hunted before him were able to figure out when they were going to chase birds or loll around the pen.

I’m sure that my experience with dogs is no different than countless other people and their dogs.

As I hoped would happen, the column two weeks ago on A.L. Hardy prompted a few readers to give me additional information on the Kentville photographer.

I’ve been told, for example, that like one of Kentville’s earlier police chiefs, Hardy used a bicycle as well as a horse and wagon on his photographic excursions around Kings County. The use of a bicycle seems unlikely since photographic equipment in Hardy’s day was heavy and unwieldy. As well as being interesting the tale about Hardy using a bike, if true, reveals something of his character.

I’ve been told, as well, that Mr. Hardy published one and perhaps two collections of his photographs in book form. I am aware of one collection that Hardy published, but I failed to mention it in the earlier column. For anyone interested in Hardy trivia, around 1902 the photographer privately published a collection he called The Evangeline Land. The collection contained about 100 photographs and most were Kings County scenes.

I have no information about a possible second collection other than that it may exist. However, The Evangeline Land was definitely published and if copies exist today, they would be valuable and of interest to collectors.

Another bit of trivia about Hardy: a reader tells me that so little of Hardy’s work exists today because shortly after his death his collection of prints and photographic plates were destroyed. This is one of those stories that have been passed from generation to generation and is accepted as gospel.

At one time, A.L. Hardy may have been the official photographer for the DAR. A number of tourist pieces promoting Nova Scotia were published by the railroad in Hardy’s day and many of his scenic photographs were used in them – usually without credit to Hardy. Evidence exists indicating Hardy was on the DAR payroll for a time.

A number of Hardy photographs were published in The Advertiser and other Valley newspapers when he was operating out of his Kentville studio. The earlier blossom festival issues of The Advertiser feature work by Hardy, in most cases without giving the photographer a credit line. Hardy’s photographs are believed to be the only pictorial records of Kentville’s centenary in 1926 and the town’s summer carnivals that before 1933 were forerunners of the apple blossom festival.

Of value to collectors and said to be rare are post cards from the 1920s featuring Hardy photographs. One of the most sought after postcards has a Hardy shot of Grand Pre at the turn of the century.

In existence is a splendid photograph of Nova Scotia’s famous bear hunter, Kings County’s David Costley, who was honoured by Queen Victoria for his hunting feats around the turn of the century. In the photograph, the “world champion bear killer” posed on a stump with a live bear in a trap in the foreground. The photograph, which has been published many times since it was taken in 1908, may be one of Hardy’s best known works. The story is that Queen Victoria was so taken by the photograph that she offered to trade Costley one of her pictures for it. Hardy’s photo of Costley is said to be hanging in Buckingham Palace today.

You’re first to say astrology is nonsense and you don’t believe in it. Yet you know the zodiac sign under which you were born.

You belong to a group of people who claim astrology is bunkum, but when no one’s watching, you read your horoscope in the paper. Every day, horoscopes are published in hundreds of newspapers, but you claim only the gullible read them and they’re printed because they make neat fillers.

The odd thing about astrology is that it has millions of followers, but few people admit they are believers. However, if you secretly follow astrology and would like to come out of the zodiac closet, I have interesting news.

For starters, let’s take the belief that intelligent people never take astrology and horoscope forecasts serious. The mathematical genius Albert Einstein refused to condemn astrology. Einstein said that while astrology was an “unrefined art”, it should not be dismissed without examination.

During World War II, a group with better than average intelligence used astrology to fight the Germans. During the war, British Intelligence – with the blessing of Winston Churchill – created the Psychological Research Bureau which, despite its important sounding title, was concerned exclusively with astrology and was headed by an astrologer.

In effect, British authorities used an astrologer to fight fire with fire. When it became known in 1949 that Hitler and his cronies were employing an astrologer to help them with war plans, it was decided it would be wise for Britain to do the same. The idea was that the bureau would “predict the predictions” of the Nazi astrologer and possibly anticipate Hitler’s moves. Silly as it may sound, Hitler and his aides often consulted their astrologer to see if zodiac signs favoured their war plans.

In the past, astrology attracted some of the world’s greatest thinkers besides the likes of Einstein. You’ve heard of Plato, Ptolemy, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton. These earth-shakers dabbled in astrology and were convinced it could play a role in everyday life.

The world-famous Dr. C.G. Jung, who was considered by many to be the greatest psychologist of the 20th century, was a believer in astrology. Outspoken in his admiration for astrology, Jung had horoscopes made for his patients. Jung claimed that one day astrology would be recognised as a science.

But despite having the approval of thinkers ancient and modern, the majority of scientists believe astrology is an occult fad. On the other hand, it is those sceptical scientists who provided evidence that astrology may have some validity. In the ’50s, for example, an American engineer discovered a link between mysterious radio static and the position of the planets. In 1960, an American scientist found there was a direct link between irrational human behaviour and the moon.

None of this has a thing to do with the general predictions of newspaper horoscopes. Modern day astrologers say that genuine astrology is about the possible cosmic influence of the elements, the sun,. moon, planets and stars. The new age name for astrology is – are you ready for it – “cosmobiology.”