December 11, 2020
Dear Everyone:
It’s all over the news that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is
likely to approve the first vaccine to provide protection against the
Covid-19 virus in the very near future.
Some of us are “seasoned” enough (“seasoned” is a polite way to say
“old”) to remember when the first vaccinations for polio were given in
the early 1950s. In those
days, we were already immunized against smallpox and things like
diphtheria. You had to have
a certificate to prove you’d had your immunizations before they would
allow you into the schools at age five.
We got the polio injections, called a “polio shot” at the doctor’s
office. In fact, we had a
tendency to equate going to the doctor’s office with “getting a shot”.
With the polio vaccine, there was the initial injection, followed a
short time later with a “booster shot”.
When it was time for the booster shots, Mother bundled all seven
of us kids into the car and down to the doctor’s office.
In our family, everything happened in chronological order, either from
oldest to youngest, or from youngest to oldest.
Either way, I was safely in the middle.
What I hadn’t taken into consideration was the possibility that
the nurse who gave the actual injections would choose us alphabetically.
She opened the first chart, and called out “A"!
I wasn’t prepared to go first.
"Frankie", the oldest, even laughed and said, “Petey turns green!”
Did those shots really hurt all that much back then?
Or has the technology produced smaller, less painful injections
these days? Certainly when I
get blood drawn for the inevitable test now it seems like the needle
hurts a lot less than decades ago when I would donate blood on a regular
basis.
And getting the annual flu vaccination is no cause for alarm.
Nevertheless, getting a shot at the doctor’s office was something
to be dreaded.
When I was about five, I fell from a height and hurt my left arm.
I made my way into the kitchen and told our mother that my arm
hurt. She took one look and
announced: “We’re going to
the doctor.”
I promptly replied: “It
doesn’t hurt anymore.”
Clearly, a hurt arm was not enough to warrant the possibility of getting
“a shot”. As it turned out,
I had broken the wrist. I
don’t remember if I got “a shot” at the time.
So, how did I break my wrist?
Follow…
Where we lived, in a suburb on the east side of San Francisco Bay, there
was a lot of “undeveloped land”, meaning it hadn’t yet been covered with
houses. There was a large
eucalyptus tree growing on the side of a slope.
Someone had tied a rope to one of the tree’s branches, with a stick on
the end of the rope. A
person could hold the stick on both sides of the rope and run out over
the slope, far out over the land, until the
rope swung back to the other side of the tree.
The line of very small people waiting for their turn to take this
ride was frequently quite long.
In our family, we kids were absolutely forbidden to go anywhere
near this tree.
One day, I happened to be in the general neighborhood of the tree and
noticed that there was no one else around.
No line. No waiting
to ride the rope! It was
irresistible.
I grabbed firm hold of the stick and ran out over the slope.
I was flying! Then
the tree creaked. Older and
wiser persons, all of about seven, had informed me that, if the tree
creaked, it meant the branch was going to break.
I hung on and hoped.
The tree creaked again. So I
let go.
(Spoiler Alert: I survived.)
I told our mother that I had fallen off the backyard swing.
I didn’t want to get spanked on top of a hurt arm.
The next thing I knew, I was at the doctor’s office.
Fast forward about twenty years.
I had made some remark to our mother about how our older brother,
“Byron”, had broken his arm.
She said, “That’s not how ‘Byron’ broke his arm.
He did it falling out of that damned eucalyptus tree out back.”
I laughed out loud, suddenly realizing that this was the reason
we were forbidden to go anywhere near the tree.
She said, “You should laugh.
You broke yours falling two feet off the backyard swing.”
Which was when I discovered that I had actually gotten away with a lie,
possibly for the first and only time.
I may even have told her the truth at that point.
I figured by then I was too old for a spanking.
Love, as always,
Pete
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