Jose Tobias had just arrived in this country from a far away land south of the border. We hired him to work on a crew. He was a little slow and I’m not taking about how he walked.

Back in those days, a lot of us used Vicks Inhalers. A lot allergies and sinus problems and we tried everything for a little relief at certain times of the year.

Jose had a stopped-up nose so when they went to the 7/11 one day he purchased his first Vicks Inhaler. He had seen me do it I guess he figured it was the thing to use.

We noticed that Jose’s condition wasn’t improving very fast, but it wasn’t from not trying.

A few days later we figured out what the problem was. Instead of a Vicks Inhaler, he had bought a Chapstick, in fact we later found out he had bought several.

He was cramming those up his nose and breaking them off. His nose and sinus cavities were so impacted we had to carry him to the doctor to get it all cleaned and flushed out.

He finally got alright and for the next 25 years I don’t ever remember seeing him poke anything up his nose.