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“You did what?” I asked my parents. “We went over to our elementary school after church and the whole family ate a sugar cube to protect us from Polio,” replied my Dad. Obviously, there was more to this story. Read any of the Rotary magazines and you will come away with the importance of “Service” performed in so many areas. But read the October issue and a main focus is on the eradication of Polio in which Rotary International is involved.

I grew up in a world and in a time, which has been free of Polio, although, it still affects people across the globe. So, I asked my parents what it was like. Did they, who both were born in 1951, have any friends who contracted Polio? Neither had close friends who had it, though they knew of kids. The Jonas Salk vaccine was administered in the mid 1950’s and they both remembered getting those shots.

What little kid doesn’t recall a doctor and the smell of rubbing alcohol on one’s arm and the needle going in? But even more clearly, they both remember getting the Sabin Oral Vaccine in the early 1960’s. It was administered to everyone in various elementary schools on Sunday afternoons all across the city of Lima, Ohio. He said his family drove home from church and didn’t even change out of their Sunday-best (clearly a different era!). My grandfather drove the entire family to Dad’s elementary school. Everyone in the district walked into the gym and was handed a sugar cube in a little cup. They ate the sugar cube, (much to Dad’s befuddlement) and that was it! “Where was the needle? How could a sugar cube do ANYTHING?” Dad wondered. And when they were done, they were given a credit card sized card, though as Dad said, “Heck this was even before there were such things as credit cards," with his name and the date…and subsequently they received two more doses and stamps on the card. Dad says he kept the card in his wallet for years…though no one ever asked for it. It was in his family Doctor’s records. Yet is seemed to him to be a thing of wonder; that a sugar cube could cure a dreaded disease! Later that day, his parents informed him that the wonder drug to defeat polio was simply eye-dropped onto the sugar cube so that folks could easily take it. That was sixty years ago and today the ultimate challenge is within site: total eradication of Polio. Zero. Our Rotary clubs right here and across the globe are in the thick of that challenge. Read up on it.

It’s good to be a Rotarian!

Serve to Change Lives,
Laura Tussing

President, 2021/2022
Rotary Club of Lancaster