CHAPTER 1, Blog # 11

A parent’s greatest fear is losing a child and immediately after the war- World War II -- that was still a real possibility. Childhood diseases carried off many a youngster.

I remember at school nearly each year there was an announcement that one of the students had died. Leukemia was a big killer.

In one class we had two blind girls in one of the classes who sat in the front and were good students. They had Remington typewriters on their desks to take exams. Many of the questions were yes or no and wes would wait until we heard either two ticks for no or three for yes then all the heads would fall and we’d write our answer. It took Mister Dwyer about a month before he caught on. At the next exam he ask ed the girls to type longer answers. At the next test we heard fifteen and more ticks and we almost all failed. Mister Dwyer had a good laugh with us. “We had you for awhile,” we said. And he agreed.

I had measles, mumps, chicken pocks but somehow missed whooping cough. My father took a picture of me in my white jockey underpants covered in red spots. I was smiling. I remember they itched and I had a little fever but it discomfort was more than mitigated by three days of uninterrupted cartoon television. Efficient vaccinations had not been discovered. Yellow fever, small pocks. I’d get a yellow fever vaccination for my jungle trips, which was wise as Yellow Fever struck the grass plains of Colombia where I had a farm. I also lived through four malaria epidemics learning to tell the difference between the falcipram and vivax strains. Why I never contracted malaria I have no idea.

The diseases lumped into the ‘consumption’ group, tuberculosis, and other degenerative diseases were still active. And of course the one disease that was to have such an effect on my life MS -- Multiple Sclerosis.

Tuberculous was pervasive. TB hospitals were common. Braintree had one that after antibiotics were improved was quietly shut down for lack of patients. A blessing.

It was polio, the last of the great epidemics, that was to shape many of our young lives.