This is a trying time...COVID-19, the Coronavirus is a new disease threatening to infect the world. And I feel like I’m in a really bad "B" movie hiding from crazy zombies roaming my neighborhood...a scary time, and frankly, I feel the constant updates, changes and shared anxiety on social media is making things worse. As I try to think of more pleasant things, a Millville Memory pops up on my mental screen…
It’s summer 1953 and I’m scared to death of catching Infantile Paralysis… which was also called Polio for some reason? I wasn't sure what it was, but I saw kids in the movie newsreels locked in “iron lung” machines... long metal tubes...trapped with only their heads sticking out and I knew this polio was very bad. I knew I would hate not to be able to run and play. This is the first time in my 10 year life that I was really really scared. (Except that one time in the fun house on the Ocean City boardwalk!)
Plus my mom said something every night that increase my fear - “You have got to be careful Calvin...this is very serious…..and since polio is a “summer disease” caused by germs in our lake there will be no going to the lake this summer...they say you can get it from other kids too who don't wash enough! So I want you to stay around the house and find things to do." Gads, her command that I would not do the two things I love about summer - playing with my friends...getting cooled off at our local lake on a hot afternoon, was the worst part of this whole mess.
Each day we listened to the evening news on our big Philco radio...and the news didn't help either as the number of kids stricken continued to rise. I saw a picture of a kid wearing heavy braces on her legs in our Sunday newspaper...Immediately I thought if I get this I won’t ever be able to play baseball again...that will ruin my life.
During the long, lonely dog days of that late summer I tired to forget but even reading a new comic book didn't help my foreboding dread...I started to have trouble going to asleep at bedtime.
One evening at supper I asked my mother, "Why do kids have to get this darn disease?" And she replied, "It's not just kids. President Roosevelt caught it, but he didn't let it stop him from being great...Calvin you worry too much."
Then on another night a “Special Bulletin” interrupted my favorite radio show - The Lone Ranger...and with great fanfare our new President Eisenhower announced that a doctor named Salk has invented a vaccine that will save me. Hooray I'm saved.
After the short announcement I asked mom, “What’s a vaccine?” She replied it’s a shot of medicine. I hated shots - but this time I would welcome one if I can go to the lake again before it gets too cold.
But that didn't happen that summer. I had to wait to get the shot until late that winter. But my Grandfather had a big surprise for me. He brought me a Sears swimming pool! It was a 5X10' rubber tub that held about 24 inches of water. It was not the lake - but I spent almost every day, even after school started, wearing rubber goggles and pretending I was a deep sea diver looking for treasure. Of course about once a week my mother said, “Don't dive in that thing...you’ll break your neck!” This was a minor worry compared to Polio I thought but I took her advice and just splashed around in my outdoor bathtub.
As time passed the threat of polio ended and so did my anxiety leave me, like my memory of this long ago plague fades now....
Today, I marvel at how things have changed. How surprised my grandmother would be to get news on demand instantly from around the world - and have the ability to choose what she wanted to see...and to believe! I ponder this fact for a moment and think getting the news the instant it happens seems to be great progress...or is it?
I wonder.
