Momma in 1956

“If you get too hot, you’ll get polio”. That’s what momma said. This is what all the mommas said the summer of 1956. That is what my cousin Diane’s mother Aunt Lee said. Next thing you know, Diane had polio. She was whisked off to the hospital where none of us could go see her; polio was very contagious you see. We knew polio was real because our neighbor lived in an iron lung and we were frightened. Besides that our mommas mentioned it every time we went outside, which was everyday.

I can remember how it started. I was riding my bicycle way up on Nottingham when the headache began. My head hurt so bad I could hardly peddle by 20-inch bike. I don’t remember how I got home but I do remember my head drawing back and my mother screaming when she saw me. Polio. I had gotten too hot. My mother has never been good with medical emergencies so no telling how we got to the hospital. The doctor came in, took one look at me and ordered a spinal tap. Now a tap doesn’t sound like much, similar to a pat. That would be wrong. The spinal tap needle looked two feet long and it hurt like the dickens when they plunged it in to my spine. The tell-tale spinal fluid held the key to my future. That key fit in the door to my room at the Jackson Hospital. No visitors, one nurse per shift allowed in my room. My grandmother sent me two Ginny Dolls with several changes of clothes that amused me day and night.

Momma had her hands full with my daddy being stationed in Texas in the Air Force, my brother Tim less than two, my brother Bob 13, and lo and behold if my aunt didn’t drop her kids off with for the summer. I guess that she was not concerned about the contagiousness of polio. Poor momma, trying to feed three extra children along with everything else on her plate. As Grandma used to say, “If it ain’t one damn thing, its another”.

Meanwhile I was stuck in the hospital while Bob and cousin Donny were home with the Whitman Samplers that concerned neighbors had sent. This is where I can track my mental problem I have with Whitman’s Samplers back to. I couldn’t have any outside food brought in to the hospital. Bob and Donny found they couldn’t resist the Whitman’s Sampler. I am sure that they did not intend to eat both boxes. I found most of the cream filled candy with a pin hole in the bottom, that way they could leave them looking virtually untouched in hopes that they would not get killed by momma when I started crying. Quite frankly, I never got over that. I have been known quite recently to hide my highly anticipated birthday Whitman Sampler in my underwear drawer and eat the whole thing myself. I eat the creamed filled centers last.