20 Mule Team Borax ©

My wife is on a new tear recently. Not only is she intent on cleaning the house, but she’s decided to make her own cleaning products. She says her motivation is threefold: first to save money, second to get rid of the wasteful packaging and clutter of prepackaged commercial cleaning products, and third to eliminate that packaging from the landfill since we don’t have recycling out here in the country. This summer, when our granddaughters are here, she plans to teach them how to make those cleaners as part of their farm-based Home Economics course. Remember when public schools actually taught us what we needed to know to be successful citizens and parents? Now that’s a Proverbs 31 Woman for you! (Pr 31: 17 says: “She is energetic and strong, a hard worker”, and v 28, “Her children stand and bless her, Her husband praises her”).

To that end she went online and ordered some 20 Mule Team Borax as a foundational ingredient for some of her cleaners. I was there when she opened the Amazon box and wow, there were two big boxes of 20 Mule Team Borax. My mind immediately went back about 70 years to when we used to watch “Death Valley Days” on my grandparents 10 inch black and white TV. Are you old enough to remember that show too? If you don’t mind I’m going to clip a couple paragraphs from Wikipedia to tell you the history:

“Death Valley Days” is an American old-time radio and television series featuring true accounts of the American Old West, particularly the Death Valley country of California. The program was broadcast on radio from 1930 until 1945. From 1952 to 1970, it became a syndicated television series, with reruns continuing through August 1975. Combined, the radio and television versions make the show “one of the longest-running Western programs in broadcast history.” In addition to this show, at least 39 movies were filmed in Death Valley from 1918 through 2014.

The series was sponsored by the Pacific Coast Borax Company (20 Mule Team Borax) and hosted by Stanley Andrews (“The Old Ranger”), Ronald Reagan, Rosemary DeCamp, Robert Taylor and Dale Robertson. Hosting the series was Reagan’s final work as an actor; he left the series to run for Governor of California in 1966.

We visited Death Valley during an extended family RV trip in 2003. It was one of the highlights of that trip that took us through 23 states and provinces and the Canadian territory of Yukon. The valley received its English name in 1849 during the California Gold Rush. It was called Death Valley by prospectors and others who sought to cross the valley on their way to the gold fields after 13 pioneers perished from one early expedition of wagon trains. Borax, (or Sodium tetraborate decahydrate for you chemists) was discovered and extracted by mule-drawn wagons in the 1880s. After our visit to this valley, one of the hottest places on earth, with its moon-like landscape, I can’t even imagine trying to cross it in a covered wagon; it was bad enough in an air conditioned RV!

Now a little bit about 20 Mule Team Borax. The product is named after the 20-mule teams that were used to haul borax out of Death Valley, California, 165 miles to the nearest rail spur between 1883 and 1889. In 1988 the 20-Mule Team product lines were sold to Dial Corporation, the one that makes Dial soap, as in “Don’t you wish everybody did!” The power of those early TV ads is just incredible!

I hope you enjoyed this little trip through Death Valley, which at 282 feet (86 m) below sea level, is the point of lowest elevation in North America. But don’t worry about all those bad guys in those Death Valley movies because Psalm 23 says, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me!”

Thanks for reading All About Seniors, see you next week!

Bill Milby is a Director of Visiting Angels® of Central Georgia, a non-medical, living assistance service for seniors. If you have questions or comments about this column you can reach him at william.mercylink@gmail.com or search for us at https://www.facebook.com/VisitingAngelsofCentralGA/.

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