Contacting Polio

Traveling east on Highway 22 from Williamstown, Kentucky, about seven miles from Williamstown, there sits an old building on the left side of the road near Locust Grove, Kentucky. The building now has a garage door on the front, but many years ago this was a grocery store. At one time, in the 1940's, my grandfather ran this store with the help of my mother and father.

We lived next door to this building, which was in much better condition then. The house still sits there, and it has been kept and is in good condition. I still have some pictures of myself along with some of my family, standing beside the store building beside two large gas pumps where people could purchase gasoline for their cars.

In the month of July in 1947, my family had awakened for the day, but (according to my oldest brother) I did not arise with everyone else. After a while, my mother called me to come down from upstairs. She told me that I first did not answer; then I said, "I cannot walk." She thought that I was teasing her, so she sent my oldest brother upstairs to persuade me to come down to breakfast. After going up the stairs to bring me down, he answered back, "He really can't walk." So, my mother brought me downstairs and began to try to walk me around the house to see if the problem was simply my legs being numb from sleeping on them. But that was not the problem.

After a while, my parents decided to take me to the doctor. Several doctors found several things wrong with me, but they finally said to my parents, "Take him to the hospital." They took me to Children's Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, where almost immediate the doctors determined that I had had Polio.

I stayed in the hospital for nine months. When I went home for a visit from the hospital at Christmas time (my mother said), I asked when the children were going to go home. I had forgotten that I had brothers and sisters.

I began to wear braces and use crutches when I was about four years old. I went to public school, attended business college, Bible college at Lexington Baptist College, took classes at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee, done further education other places, and God has blessed through the years.

Now the Polio is coming back to cause pain, which it had never done before. This is called Post-Polio Syndrome. This is the way life goes, but I enjoy serving the Lord, even though in my older age I cannot do as much as I could when I was young.

Soon I will write about the time my mother took me to a "faith healer."

Jumping Out Of The Barn

When I was about 12 years old, my brothers and I decided that, since a large stack of loose hay resided in a stall of the barn, it would be a good idea, perhaps, to climb to the top of the rafters in the barn and jump onto the hay below.

I watched as two of my brothers climbed to what seemed a mile to the top of the barn. Sitting on a rafter, each one would sit for a moment or two trying to determine how they were going to fall onto the hay. The fall through the air seemed almost in slow motion as I looked on from below. After both brothers had jumped onto the hay and enjoyed the fall, I decided it was time for me to do the same. Now, I was quite a climber in those days. I had to use my arms exclusively, since my legs were not usable, having been paralyzed from Polio.

I removed both braces from my legs but not my shoes from my feet. I could simply pull out the metal bilaterals from the heel of each shoe to remove the braces without removing the shoes. I climbed slowly but surely to the top of the barn and sat on the same rafter on which my brothers had sat. I thought it required that I sit there a moment or so (just as my brothers had done) in order to do this deed correctly.

Then I conjured the courage, bravery, fortitude, and senseless idiocy to fall from this rafter. What seemed a mile below now seemed to be two miles looking from top to bottom rather than from bottom to top of the barn. Finally I let my hands loose from whatever they were holding to, and I fell, not slowly, but speedily down, down, down. When I hit the loose hay, I was considerably thankful that the event was over, quick and to the point. I felt the softness of the hay hug my shoulders, but first I felt something that would change my mind forever about doing something so foolish again. As I fell onto the hay, I sat down on a small, metal piece on my shoe that held my braces onto the shoe. I shall never forget the instant and excruciating pain that I felt in my hip as I sat onto the hay.

My opinion of this challenging event changed forever. A few moments before, my thoughts were excited and interested in such a new-type adventure; but now my thoughts were hesitant and worried about doing such a thing again. Consequently, I have never had either the serious thought or the desire to jump from the top of a barn onto loose hay again. Let's see, from 12 to 65, that makes 53 years now that I have not wanted to do such a thing. I hope I make it a few more years without having the desire to tumble ridiculously through the air onto anything. Thank God for his watchcare and his longsuffering to usward.