Sometimes when I was visiting my grandmother, she would take me with her to Dr. Dursom’s house. He was a retired chiropractor, she explained, who still gave what she called “adjustments” to friends of the family for one dollar.
I didn’t know what an “adjustment” was and Dr. Dursom scared me a little—a big man with a tall brush cut who smoked cigars.
While my grandmother went upstairs with the doctor, I sat in the parlor with Mrs. Dursom, a kindly woman with tight gray curls—who offered me lemonade.
The whole thing seemed a little strange to me but since my grandmother was a sensible woman—who never got sick—I figured she must know what she was doing.
Then one morning I woke up with a terrible crick in my neck. My mother and grandmother agreed at once—and soon I was going upstairs with Dr. Dursom who sat me on a stool and gave my neck a quick twist. The crick was gone!
And for the first time, I understood that healing could come from many different places—even an old bedroom that smelled like cigars.
Worth a dollar, for sure. Worth more than that.