We have had several Pandemics over the past 100 years or so. Some of them as scary as this Covid virus. The worse in our times was back 1918, the flu. The scariest one of my own time was the old infectious Polio. This virus, like COVID could kill you— quick. And It very often caused paralysis in the surviving victim’s leg or other extremities. When I was a kid back in the 1940’s I was often warned about Polio, but I had little fear of it. Like everyone else, I had other things on my mind. I was busy.

I had found a new pal (a summer visitor from out of town) that summer in 1945 to ride bikes with over in Stonewall and we had plans for the next day too. But he did not show up, so I rode the four blocks or so down to his house and saw his bike parked up against his grandma’s front porch. I also noticed several cars pulled up in the yard as I just barged on into the living room. The room was full of crying neighbors. I asked where my friend Billy was, and his grandma took me to a little back bedroom. There he lay. Laid out. Hair combed. Pale. Dead of Polio. Cold. That quick.

I visited some with the family and friends and then went home to spread the news. Mom quickly took charge. “You didn’t go in the house, did you?” “You didn’t touch his dead body,” asked my sister Sue. I had never been so poorly received in my life. My brother called me stupid. Thankfully, dad was already at work. My mom made me strip off (more humiliation) and she gave me a rough bath. I was forbidden to leave the house—maybe forever. I was not a wellloved boy that day.

We were all afraid of Polio. The next Sunday a pretty teen girl named Jackie, the daughter of my high school principal got sick in Sunday School down at the First Baptist Church. Her mom was the organist and Jackie went to her mom and informed her she was sick and was sent home, just around the corner. It was church time.

When the song service ended, Ruth the organist got up and left the church. In a few minutes she came back and got her husband. By now we all knew Jackie was really sick. Everyone knew that a little boy had died three or four days previously and we all knew that Jackie must have the Polio too. She did. Jackie died that very Sunday afternoon over at Valley View in a resuscitator called an Iron Lung.

Mom went on a cleanup spree that next week at our house. No more swimming. No movie. No nothing Our house had never been so clean. There was just one radio station. KADA in Ada. Popular newsman Monte Bell gave us numerous tips on how not to catch this disease. More kids died anyway in Pontotoc County. I was certain I would die soon. That was when we all took Polio seriously, but it was not until Jonas Salk developed the Polio Vaccine years later that we conquered Polio.

Now here it is 2020. Not until we in 2020 Allen have a vaccine can and will we lay our fears to rest on COVID-19. This virus is killing people by the thousands in America. It is very contagious. It is extremely dangerous.

We live in a “face-book world” where all kinds of misinformation is propagated. Some believe Corona is a joke. Just the flu. A government trick being used by politicians here in election time to scare people into voting their way. They say “Distancing” and “Mask Wearing” are useless exercises in futility. But it is not.

The Virus is transported in the air by the little moist droplets of water we exhale, and while the virus is too small to be trapped, the droplets are not. Masks are the biggest weapons we possess to stop this plague. Going into closed places such as gymnasiums and churches without a mask is pure folly. To know better and do it anyway is reckless and shows a gross disregard for the safety of your neighbors and fellowman.

So, in closing, I know some churches here in Allen require masks. If your church does not, I cannot in good conscience urge you to attend your church this Sunday.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

cwaynebullard@gmail.com