Written by Guest Blogger Steve Rondinaro
Two of the things I enjoy most about my
work here at French Lick Resort are meeting nice people and discovering more
fascinating pieces of our past. Those
two things together form the ingredients for some of the fun stories we get to
tell.
My work in broadcast media set in motion a
delightful relationship with the retired dean of Cincinnati radio morning men, WLW’s
Jim Scott. Once Jim and I realized we
had worked at the same station in Buffalo, NY (at different times), that sealed
the deal. We were kindred spirits.
One night at dinner during a visit to the
resort, Jim’s wife Donna talked of discovering a “French Lick diet book” in her
90-something mother’s collection of “stuff.” What a treat when it arrived in the mail with booklets of Diet Slips
dating back to 1928!
The Diet Lists booklet from the French
Lick Springs Hotel is intended for physicians’ use and includes the chemical
analysis of our famed Pluto Water as well as a summary of its many curative
uses. I especially enjoyed this
one:
I.
For the Cure of Constipation the
“time fuse dosage” of Pluto can be most easily regulated.
As the saying goes, when nature won’t,
Pluto will! You’d just better manage it
carefully.
We were one of the nation’s leading health
resorts back in the day. People came
from great distances to “take the cure.” Major leagues baseball teams had early spring training here in part to
take the “water cleanse” after an off-season of irresolute living. Such was the power of French Lick’s Pluto and
West Baden’s Sprudel Water.
The French Lick booklet also offers pithy
poetry to live by:
“If
you wish to grow thinner diminish your dinner,
And take to asparagus, lettuce, and
kale;
Look down with an utter contempt upon butter,
And never touch bread either toasted
– or stale.”
Do what you will with that advice some 90
years later. Thanks to Jim and Donna for
sharing Mom’s collection with us.
