A Reason Most Anti-Vaxxers Today Can Be So Stupid

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

25. I recall getting my first polio shots in a field near where we lived.

Hundreds of children lined up. My mother, a nurse, was one of those giving the shots.

The testing of the Salk vaccine was done in Catholic schools, apparently because they thought the kids would be easier to keep track of. The Catholic school I attended in Utica, NY (St. Francis de Sales) was one of those schools. My older sister was in a grade where they were testing the vaccine.

Alas, my sister's class was in the group that got the placebo, so she still needed to do the full immunization for polio.

At that same Catholic school, there was a boy in my class who walked with crutches because he'd had polio some time before. I know his first name was Tommy. I wonder what he thought of the polio vaccine. We moved away after my first grade year, not long after the Salk vaccine had been widely distributed. So I have no idea what happened to Tommy, or how he might have felt about the vaccine.

My father-in-law had polio as a child, in the 1916 epidemic, I believe. He ever after walked with a limp.

His surname was Newman, and I'm convinced he was related to the actor Paul Newman. Same blue eyes. My father-in-law was about 20 years older. If I were to show you pictures of my father-in-law and Paul Newman, you'd agree they are related. My father-in-law had a limp, as I've already said. In actor Paul Newman's later life, trust me, he looked and behaved like my father-in-law. In Paul Newman's last picture, I honestly could swear he was limping when he walked. Probably not, but still.