Pen-demic

This evening’s newscast had another story about the latest developments in the battle against Covid and the citizens of the United States have become divided between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. The disease of my childhood was infantile paralysis or as it is more commonly known, polio. All over the United States, the summer months were considered the most dangerous time of year when people were most likely to sicken with this devastating illness. The photographs of polio patients in an iron lung were frightening to all. The most famous person who suffered from the aftereffects of polio was the New York Governor, Franklin Roosevelt. The most well-known treatment for polio victims was the Sister Kinney method. One summer when I was in middle school was a particularly bad year for the disease. Among the many resulting restrictions was the summer closure of the public swimming pool where my family lived. My younger sister, Kathy, needed to have her tonsils removed, but the surgery ...

Nearly everyone who was around on September 11, 2001, has a picture in their mind that represents what they experienced the day of the terrorist attacks. It might be the firefighters raising the flag on the rubble of the World Trade Center, the image of the towers crumbling to the ground, or the faces of people running to escape the clouds of smoke and ash that blew through the streets of lower Manhattan when the towers fell. While I can bring up those images in my mind, the one that haunts me is the sight of a signboard on an exit from the New York State Thruway that said, “ALL ENTRANCES AND EXITS TO NEW YOUR CITY ARE CLOSED.” And behind the sign in the distance hung a huge plum of white smoke. At the time, I was working for the American Cancer Society in New York and New Jersey. I supported staff and volunteers in both states and happened to have two meetings I was asked to attend on September 11. For no particular reason that I can remember, I chose the meeting being held in Albany ...