~good advice~

I learned the hard way about the concept of "social distancing" and self quarantining as a kid growing up on the south central Kansas prairie .  It was the last day of 3rd grade and as my memory recalls, a very beautiful and sunny day back on the playground of Haven Grade School.  My good friend Ruth and I were jumping rope in the area that we kids called "the shack" back then.  It was all fun and laughter until Ruth stopped twirling her rope and looked quizzically at me.

"Peggy, do you know that you have red dots all over your face?"
And sure enough, she was right.
They weren't just on my face but also all over my arms and legs too.
It only took Alice Shaw, the school secretary, about 2 seconds to diagnose what was wrong.

Measles.
And not just your ordinary "get them and get over it quickly" 3-day kind but rather what they called back then the "hard measles".

Welcome to summer vacation little girl!

I remember my mom and dad scurrying to school and picking me up to go home.  I was destined to spend the next 21 days in the confines of my darkened bedroom.  5 of my brothers and sisters had already endured the childhood fun of having the disease that we all hated to go through.  It was only my little sister Cindy and I who remained to join the infantry ranks of the "measles soldiers".  Those first 3 weeks of summer vacation were horrible.  There was no going outside to play.  I was barely allowed to leave my bedroom.  I have the most vivid memory of mom nailing a blanket over the window to keep the sunlight out.  I had no idea why but later learned that it was thought that the bright sunshine could affect eyesight when you were sick with measles.  Mom did not want me to go blind.  Later on during my 3-week quarantine, 6-year old Cindy joined me in our shared affliction.  The summer of 1964 was one to remember.

I am sure that if anyone would have asked us how our summer vacation was going, both Cindy and I would have said the same thing.
"Well, we are NOT having fun!"
Cindy and I have shared many things in life, the measles outbreak in the Scott house being only one of them.  I have very vivid recollections of both of us having the mumps together as well as the chicken pox which followed closely behind.  I guess when you are the two youngest kids of a brood of 7, you should expect that to happen.

We survived.

In all, I have done my time as a kid with measles, mumps, whooping cough, and chicken pox.  I've been a recipient of the polio vaccine and the smallpox shot.  Our family stood in line to receive them, just like all the other families in Kansas and around the world did back then.  I can't even imagine how my parents must have fretted each time one of their 7 kids got sick.  It could not have been fun and I'm sure plenty of times it was scary.  I'm just about positive that the only way they got through it was by doing one thing~

They stuck together.
Good advice back then.
Even better advice today.


Two little girls who have survived life's "curveballs" together~

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