A reminder of polio's deadly consequences

Pulling a sheaf of papers from a large envelope among my father's effects, a card dropped out, a card I recognized instantly. It was sent to me by the United States government for participating in the 1954 test of Dr. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine.True Wholesale Cheap Vintage dresses Online is increasingly difficult to find in second hand stores or even online stores. I was transported to a day in October that year when Mrs. Altarac, my Grade 4 teacher at East School in Long Beach, N.Y., and the principal, Ms. Hendrickson, strode into our classroom like a cortege. In Mrs. Altarac's calmest, saddest, and most motherly voice, she said: "Children, Howie has polio." Howie had not been in school for several days. I felt sorrow for the Koslow family and a rising fear of contagion that could result in me lurching from place to place, legs encased in metal, like my Uncle Cy.



The kids in our class were potential carriers, so we would have to be separated from the rest of the school. Our arrival at school was to be a half-hour later than the other students; our lunches had to be eaten separately; our recess was taken at a different time; we would leave school half an hour later.We've got day Wholesale Cheap Sexy Tulle Sweetheart Beaded Crystal A-line Evening/Prom Dresses, evening dresses and more.



As if insidious polio was not bad enough, another monster appeared, this one massive and fully visible: Hurricane Hazel, the most destructive storm on record to hit the northeastern United States before Hurricane Sandy. Even Toronto, hundred of miles inland and where I would come to live in 1967, was not spared the flooding, the major loss of life and extensive property damage. Within a day of our quarantine, Hazel swooped and twisted into New York like a witch on a runaway broomstick. That evening, my father hurried my mother, my brother, my sister and me into the car. He explained that we were going to the Bronx where Dr. Sperling, a relative of my mother's,The skirt has widely spaced horizontal strips embroidered in white 2013 Wholesale cheap Sweetheart A-line Beading Blue Tulle Flower Girl Dresses the black skirt and a huge white bow adorning the waistline. was waiting to give us immune boosting gamma globulin shots.



The confidence that a calm parent can give to his or her children, even in the most dire of circumstances, cannot be overestimated. Still, the three of us sided with my protesting mother, wondering why my father would risk swamped and treacherous roads, car-wash type rainfall, falling telephone poles and popping electrical wires. High-pitched winds screamed outside and through the closed windows of our Chrysler.



Despite their precautions, my father, all of three years old, came down with polio while still wearing a dress. By that time, his family was living in a Bronx tenement on Washington Avenue. A neighbourhood yenta claimed to know Boris Thomashefsky, the famous actor and libertine from the Yiddish theatre. She also knew that his strong, independent wife, Bessie, was a caring and charitable person. According to the Yiddish newspapers, the Thomashefsky couple hosted an Italian doctor who had supposedly discovered "a great cure" for polio. Urged on by this neighbour, Bessie Thomashefsky accompanied the doctor to my father's tenement in a chauffeur-driven limousine.