California
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- Joined
- Jan 22, 2004
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- 14,975
- Location
- An hour north of San Francisco
- Tractor
- Yanmar YM240 Yanmar YM186D
No, it was more like auto accidents if you think of the more severe crash injuries before seatbelts etc. Just a given that someone you knew, or knew of, would be disabled sometime. Or like today, being around elderly smokers who everyone knows will be dragging around an oxygen bottle eventually.
Same as right now, back then each person thought 'but that won't happen to me' - basic human nature.
Sis and I helped Dad and his brother build a fence. Then we went to the municipal pool to cool off. 100 degree weather and nobody had A/C then. Pools were theoretically the most risky place to catch polio [just like ignoring the risk of driving fast in the rain today!] but there were no instances locally. Two weeks later Dad was in an Iron Lung in county hospital and his brother same but nearly dead. Sis and I went weekly in summer 1952 to wave up from the lawn to the 4th floor ward where Dad was, Mom said they wheeled him over to see this but I doubt it. After months like that he was discharged, very weak but capable of returning to work. He was weak all his life, told me many times lifting/moving anything over 50 lbs was my responsibility. But he led a normal life. Aside from weakness he had trouble swallowing after losing those throat muscles. Finally in his 80's swallowing became impossible and a tube was put through his stomach wall to pour in baby food. He was still driving from the ranch for weekly grocery runs, doing minor apple harvesting for the family, etc. After that feeding tube he said he was a walking dead man, he didn't want to live any longer. Finally a sudden downturn and he was gone.
His brother was in worse shape. From age 40 or so when this happened he was so weak he slept on a bed that tipped like an equipment trailer to keep him breathing overnight,used a wheelchair, and a winch for bathing, and was so weak that for lifting a coffee mug to his face he had to push that arm up with his other hand under that elbow. Continuing as an accountant, he did taxes and bookkeeping for small commercial clients.
Maybe being among risky drivers today would be comparable to the sense of risk back then.
Dad took us for the sugar cube polio vaccine the first time it was available to the public - in 1953. After that there were no more annual polio epidemics
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