But it was in August and gone by October. There was certainty in it's time frame.

My class mate was in an iron lung in her living room. Stopped by after school every day to read to her. Mostly it was school work.

She is still alive and still a friend.

and therefore I was the first kid in my town to get the vaccine . She made certain!!!!

It was very scary.

I think I was seven when they started vaccinating us. I was afraid of shots and tried my best to get out of it. My mother was having none of it and dragged me in to get it whether I protested or not.

It was a big fear alright.

I remember going to get the sugar cube at the local school when they were giving them out.

It was a sad time, but nothing even close to this!

And we couldn’t go swimming at our favorite pond.

I was born in '51, and caught polio when I was eighteen months old. The Doctor told ma that I would either die or never walk again. Here I am sixty nine, walking and raising hell, and more than a few wish I had croaked. The point is, you never know.

The people who got the full blast were fucked.
Most walked away with no sequelae.
You were fortunate.

No severe sequels but one may get post-polio syndrome. They gave my baby sister gamma goblin

...as the story goes...to Dr. Salk as a toddler. It just so happens I had been working near the Salk Institute/UCSD area for the past several weeks as this has all been winding down. Always interesting the connections we have to the larger story.

My Grandmother died from it.
I also remember getting the vaccine at my elementary school and how sad my Father was his Mother did not live ling enough to know there was one available.

fourth grade
Then remember my high school gym teacher talking about her friend who was in an iron lung.
Then remember around 1995 a riding instructor taking about a friend who was the throes of post polio syndrome.
Yup. Remember them all.

and for that reason were adamant about my brother and me getting our vaccines.

Living through something like that fear tends to make people true believers in science...

I had two schoolmates who contracted it. They recovered, but were in leg braces for the rest of their lives.

They lined us up at school and vaccinated everyone

...how terrified she was of the polio virus, and how thrilled she was when the vaccine became available.

I remember lining up in my kindergarten class for the sugar cubes.

I don’t think there many anti-vaxxers back then.

stricken but recovered after 18 months with three months in a Iron Lung.

older brother contracted Polio and my folks were scared to death. He "lucked out" in that it only left him with a withered leg. I vividly remember not being able to go swimming, go to fairs or any other fun gatherings of people. We collected dimes for the March of Dimes to help build Iron Lungs. Everyone was beyond thrilled when Dr. Salk pioneered the first vaccine.

I remember my parents talking about it. I also remember going to get the shots with my sister. It's a vague memory for me (born 1948).

The things that stuck in mind my are: The adults were absolutely scared to death because some kids had died in our area and I vaguely remember getting the vaccine. Not sure but I'm thinking it was given to us on sugar cubes and maybe more than once.

No one in my family or close friends had the disease but I do recall seeing some kids with the leg braces.

Raised in a small country farm town with grade school and high school on one campus. Don't have good recall from those times even though I had a great childhood.

1954. I was left with one leg 3/4 inch shorter than the other and wasted muscles throughout my left side. Most of my left lung had to be removed; two breast cancers, both on the left, and renal cell carcinoma on the left side. The cancers probably didn't have anything to do with the polio, but it's odd that every affliction seems to occur on my left.

The vaccine came out about four months after I was able to return to school. Our neighbor, mother of three little children, died from it. She was very devout and used to sit by my bed and pray that god would take her instead of me.

Horrific

Fuck antivaxxers

Assholes.

Yup

It was bad.

Not as bad as this.

Of course, back then, the government took its responsibility to care for citizens seriously.

bitterly,
Bright

My sister and I both got the shots and the sugar cube doses. I remember hating the shots, and was very glad when the last dose was via a sugar cube. I can remember standing in Long lines to get the cube. My parents were adamant that we be vaccinated.

I was in kindergarten in 1955 and that’s when the vaccine came out. You got it at school.
I remember the long lines of crying five year olds.

The sugar cubes came out in 1960 and the distribution was set in banks on Sunday. It was called “Sabin Sundays” after the scientist who produced it, Alfred Sabin. I got my sugar cube at Bank of America.

Interesting.

It was well before my time, so I'm curious. I know MLB didn't cancel though, this was their first time due to disease.

It spread around the San Fernando Valley area of LA in 1951.

Obviously I don’t remember it, but my mother walked out of the hospital months later on her own power. My older sister told me that one person down the street ended up in an iron lung and someone else died.

Grateful I didn’t get it.

I was 7 when I got my first vaccination at school.

It was a scary thing back then.