“So your head occasionally caught fire. You kids have no idea.” My mother would say this whenever we looked at old photos. This one is from 1955. Downtown Boston. She was 23 and working as a directory assistance operator for New England Telephone. The headsets gave her headaches, she said. So they took Milk of Petroleum. It was a precursor to Milk of Magnesia. Cured headaches, stomach aches, nausea. At least, that’s what they claimed. It had a few side effects, one of them being that it was highly flammable. Each bottle came with a tiny fire extinguisher. My mother said it was not uncommon to see people’s heads burst into flames. That’s how she met my father, actually. They were standing on a corner, waiting for the light to change, when her head caught fire. She loved telling the story. Apparently, she turned to look at him as she reached for the small fire extinguisher and he leaned over and lit a fresh Lucky Strike off her head. “Cheeky man,” she says with a grin. They stopped making Milk of Petroleum. Which is probably for the best.” – AI-generated image: Phil Toledano Words: John Kenney