This Is Your Life.

[CWO3ROBBIE]

Kat, or maybe it was akabukowski, once said to me that everyone thinks their life would make a good book.

She is probably right. What do you think?

Here is your chance.

Let's all tell stories from our experiences as we traveled through time.

 

Ahh, but there has to be rules. They will be pretty loose, but rules there must be.

RULES:

1. It can be any experience that you want to tell us about.

2. It can be as short as one line. Or as long as fifty. Anything over thirty will be deleted.

3.You do not have to end the story at fiftyy lines, but you have to quit writing at the end of fiftyy lines. You can not post again until at least one other person  has posted something.

This ensures that everyone gets a chance.

4.You can continue on the same subject or jump to a new one.

5. Nothing is required to be in chronological order.

6. Very Graphic Sexual discriptions should be posted in the sex talk group. You can direct us to go there if we want to read about it.

7. No one will be checking the facts 

8. Additional rules will be posted and implemented as I see fit.

Step right up and post. who knows, the next knock on your door may be Spielberg asking for the movie rights.

[d's girl]

 

{{{{{{(((((({{{{{{CARMEN!!!}}}}}}))))))}}}}}}

 

Of COURSE you didn't do it wrong! Thank you for sharing with us, and I'm so, so glad to see you here.

[Stir Young]

Deez, where in the heck have you been?  This place was running on empty while you were gone.

[d's girl]

awww, Stir.... you always warm my heart. thank you! 

I was really busy for the last several days, and now... I'm busy, and a little bruised & tattered. 

Don't know if I'll be around much right now, but know that I'm glad to touch base w/you & you're in my heart, whether I'm here or not. xox

[Stir Young]

(((((Deez)))))

Hang in there!

[CWO3ROBBIE]

The screaming seems to never stop. The cursing, the crying, the yelling for help. For some reason It's usually worse at night, but it goes on 24 hours a day. The muscles contract. They tighten, you can't breath, you're sure you are going to end up in an iron lung. They come, they apply the Kenny treatment. This consists of using a steamer to heat wool rags to the temperture that is as close as they can get to scalding you, without actually scolding you. Which is worse,? the pain of muscle contractions or the pain of having your skin burned off?  At least that's what it feels like. When the contractions tighten your chest and you can't breath,  You just want them to do something. You don't want to die.

 

It's still the summer of 1953. Your idealic summer working at the beach has come to an end. You are in the isolation ward at a hospital for people who have polio and other disabling diseases or have been involved in accidents that cause crippling.

You have polio. Probably contracted through the water in the river where you worked at the beach. 

You are in the isolation ward at the paralized childrens hospital in Milton, WV.

However, the name is misleading. It is filled with polio victims. Ages range from babies to senior citizens.

When you contract polio you get very sick. You have a high fever. Since they have not yet at that time,proven that it is, or is not communicable, they keep everyone in the isolation ward until their fever drops back to normal. Most people experienced muscle contractions that were extreamly painful during this period.

Sleep was hard to come by, I was 15 years old. I was scared to death. one day they let my mother stand by the side of the bulding and talk to me through the window. I cried for hours after she had to leave.

After the fever disapated i was moved to a ward. There were over twenty people there. 

I was in that ward for almost 3 months.  I was one of only two people there who could walk.  My paralysis was primarily in the muscles in my right side. I could not raise my right arm.

There are many stories of what went on in that ward during that period.  It was my first experience with gallows humor. I still tend to enjoy, and use it frequently.

Those three months included the normal events of life. Humor, cruelity, sex, drinking, fighting.  And a number of things that are not the normal experience of life.

Some of those tales I may bore you with later, but not now.

I have to go to work tomorrow.

[CWO3ROBBIE]

Hey Kooner, I know that you are fighting some demons right now. You don't have to say anything.

 I am writing most of this just to get it out there. It does feel good to tell it. 

If I had had the choice of having some of these experiences, or not having them, I probably would have chosen to not have them. Kind of like having a kidney stone. If I had had any choice in the matter, I would have chosen to not have one.   But, now that I did, I feel kind of fortunate to be able to understand what it is like. And I did get to experience the effects of demerol. That was kind of nice.

 

[Jaylee53]

Your life is something that boring will never have a place.   After reading your travail with such a horrible disease as such a young man I am utterly speechless.  It was a time that had all of our generation living in fear.  My siblings and I were lucky..none touched.

I recall when I first started to work in medicine seeing an unoccupied iron lung in a ward..made me shudder. 

There are many people older now that have symptoms of polio.  It seems they were exposed but had no outward symptoms only to have it show up in later years.  Vicious disease.

Wish I could give you a ((((hug)))).

[CWO3ROBBIE]

Jaylee, Thanks, I do very much appreciate your well wishes.

But, going through life we all have our unique experiences that cannot be truely understood by people who have not experienced it. I could be bitter about the fact that I had polio and others didn't. Or I could feel fortunate because I didn't end up in an iron lung and die a couple years later, like one of my friends with whom I had played poker the day I got sick. They brought him to the same hospital two weeks after I got there. Later I would go down to the iron lung room and visit with him. After a year or so it was very obvious that he was never going to get out of the lung and he just gave up and died. I choose to feel lucky because I am still walking around.

I am sure that you have had experiences, both good and bad, that I have not, and I would never be able to understand.

As I have said many times, "Life is a crap shoot". And I choose to keep throwing the dice.  I have taken a lot of chances, but I am not reckless.  

I am starting to experience some of the weakining of the deltoid and bicep that were the most effected. But, I can still do most things that a 73 year old would expect to be able to do. 

[TeeBubbaDee]

Life may be a crap shoot Robbie, but you seem to beat the odd every time.

[CWO3ROBBIE]

Yes TeeBub, Some people think i'm kind of odd.

[CWO3ROBBIE]

Well, since tbd doesn't seem to want me to place this after Tee's last reply, I'll just start it here.

I've graduated from High School. I had a C average. I'm seventeen. The State seems to be in a resession after the Korean War. The coal mines are laying people off and since there are no other jobs in the mountains, many of the unemployed are moving into the Kanawaha Valley where I live.  It's pretty hard to get a job. There are too many unemployed looking for work.

My Dad says "Garry, you should get some college".  I say " How do I do that"? "I don't have any money to pay for it" this was in the days before colleges were holding classes in every podunk town in the country. Before Community Colleges. The only college within 50 miles was Morris Harvey College. It was a private school and very expensive. Dad says " Well, there is West Virginia State College over at Institute". " But Dad, That's a nigger school"!

Dad says, " well the Supreme Court ruled last year that Niggers can go to white schools, so we can go to their schools if we want". "I heard that a couple hundred whites enrolled over there last semester".     " I would be willing and able to pay for you to try it out".

The idea did not appeal to me.

However, as the summer went on and I still could not find a paying job, I started to think more and more about West Virginia State.

Dad was right about some whites going there. I met and talked to some of them. One was a High School Cheerleader that was a year ahead of me in school. She had graduated the year before. She was the rebel type. The only girl I knew who could make a car lay down rubber when pulling out of a parking lot. She said "Hell Yeh, Garry". "We have a great time, come on over". So, I went over to the school and talked to the people in the admissions office. I found out that Tution was $25 a semester. Books would run me about another $30 or so. Various other fees would jack the sum up some more.

Since it was a state school they had to accept you if you had a valid HS diploma.

I would have to take a series of entrance exams.

I saw that as no problem and it wasn't. My inate ability to do well on tests actually worked to my disadvantage. I ended up in some classes such as freshman chemistry tiered with the upper 50% of new students.  I knew how to take tests, but I had never learned how to study.

Our neighbor worked at the Union Carbide plant located beside the college and he said he would give me a ride there each morning. I could find another ride home or walk over to the plant parking lot at quiting time and ride home with him.

The decision was made. I helped integrate a black school. It was very enlightening and has helped me understand prejudice and mostly avoid or handle it during the rest of my life.

Of course I was very young and stupid about life and had many interesting experiences during my two years of commuting to West Virginia State College.

 

 

 

[CWO3ROBBIE]

What has happened to the reply button? often it isn't there.