2/5/13 – The next major event was not of my own doing. In the early 1950’s the United States was engulfed in an epidemic of polio encephalitis. It was a constant fear among parents. In a community the disease could quickly overwhelm a population of both young and old.
I was ten years old in 1953. I was living in an abusive foster home. Looking back I can see that I had given up hope and wanted to die. Late one afternoon my ‘caretaker’ called my mother and told her to come and get me I was running a fever of one hundred and six. My mother just laughed at her and told her she did not know how to read a thermometer. She came out and took my temperature. It was one hundred and seven.
