A home-grown e-mail making the rounds covers the theme of “You know you’re from Las Vegas if …” It’s similar to the paradigm made famous by comedian Jeff Foxworthy, which declares, “You might be a redneck …” And here he inserts something like “… if at least four of your dogs get killed whenthe porch of your trailer collapses.”
    The Vegas version contains some extremely witty entries. My favorite reads: “You know you’re from Las Vegas if you were threatened constantly with, “La Llorona is going to hear you if you don’t stop crying.”

    Second place goes to: “You know you’re from Las Vegas if you believed that you would get paid $50 for referring a patient to the ‘Asilo.’“ And honorable mention goes to, “You know you’re from Las Vegas if ‘Topper’ ever washed your windshield.”
    If I’d known of the joint composition ahead of time, mine would have blown everybody else’s away. Here goes: “You know you’re from Vegas if you begin every sentence in English and end it en español, que no?”
    Not the greatest entry but something that created memories was an anonymous submission that reads, in part, “You know you’re from Las Vegas if the most common cure for your ills is ‘Aceite Mexicano.’“ It took a while to distinguish between “Aceite Mexicano,” literally Mexican oil, which comes in a 2-ounce bottle and is intended to relieve “muscle joint ache” and “arthritis pain,” and other remedies which Mom kept handy: “McLean’s Liniment”and “Volcanic Oil.”
    All are available to anyone willing to bid on e-bay, the online auction.
    Thousands of people in Las Vegas grew up being treated by these products. In my household, we learned not to complain about body aches and pains, lest Mom whip out one of her favorites, McLean’s Liniment.
    Let me explain:
    I’m fascinated by the tall bottle it came in, packed inside a long illustrated orange box. The first panel shows a man walking a lame horse; the second frame shows another man applying McLean’s Liniment to the horse, and in the final panel, the horseman is back on the horse that speeds off, so fast that the man loses his hat. Now if McLean’s can do that for a horse, imagine what it’ll do for you.
    After quitting smoking, in my forties, I acquired an incredible sense of smell that tuned up my olfactory system as well, allowing me to recall scents from long ago. Upon reading the “You know you’re from Las Vegas” e-mail, I was able to remember how McLean’s liniment smelled, like coal oil, turpentine and sugar.
    I remember the shelf where the liniment was kept at Orlando Marquez’s grocery on Grand and George Maloof’s store on Bridge Street. My recollection is that scrapes and bruises required application of the ointment. But once, I spied Mom putting a few drops of it into water, adding a spoonful sugar and telling me to drink it, “to clean out your system.”
    It worked. But that doesn’t mean I said, “Give me some more, please.”
    If I complained, well, see the No. 1 reference to La Llorona, above.
    I thought the dosing might have been an anomaly, an old wive’s tale, which declareth that anything that tasteth awful is good for thee. I soon learned these remedies were common, for internal and external use.
    Around age 10, as an Optic seller, I entered a three-story apartment on East Douglas Avenue, behind what used to be the Troy or Craddock Hotel. A man who’d been visiting in that brick apartment building asked me if I could help him.
    He’d dropped a set of keys down a hole in his own apartment, between Douglas Elementary and the Presbyterian Church. He said my hand was small enough to fit in that opening. Before I tried to rescue the house keys, the man made a mixture of McLean’s Liniment and Aceite Mexicano, added water and took a swig, “for a bracer,” as if he were the one about to risk having a rat gnaw off his entire hand. He suggested I rub some on my hands “in case of cuts.”
    That’s like taking the antidote before you swallow the poison. It must’ve worked, as I got the keys without incident.
    The smell of the combination of the remedies lingers. I thought last night, “What if one of these products is still being sold locally?” At Wal-Mart? I checked the first-aid section where Aceite Mexicano and McLean’s ought to be but struck out. Does that mean there wasn’t any?
    No, just that men don’t usually ask directions.
    One other memory that got triggered by the Vegas e-mail concerns a waitress at what used to be the Red Ball Cafe, where Grand, Lincoln and Sixth Street meet.
    She used to put a friendly hand on the arm of every customer she waited on.
    I liked that — and her. As she drew near, like a walking tube of Ben- Gay, we knew she’d been gargling McLean’s and Aceite Mexicano or using them as a cologne.
    She worked there for years, but the businesses have been closed much longer.
    I never thought of her again until late last year as I walked by the Red Ball Cafe, which later became the Sportsman’s Bar, also known as Center Block. Following a season of heavy rain, the building collapsed and remains a heap of bricks.
    Ironically, rather than burying bits of history, the implosion unearthed memories for me, of a waitress, Ruby,  who believed in these old-time remedies.
    Keep up the bright submissions, those of you out there who are putting Vegas on the map with “You know you’re from Vegas if . . .”
    And add you own memories.