Because my only recollection of my relationship with Jonas Salk was a bloody painful injection that seemed to take forever to administer.
Albert Sabin, however, got to the top of my Christmas mailing list when he came up with an oral vaccine in the early 1960s.
My mother and eldest brother both got polio in the 1950s and while she had calipers for some years, and he, at one stage, was stretched in some sort of rack (with wheels) they did recover.
Although it left them stuffed physically for the rest of their lives.
In most other areas 1950s and 1960s Australian parents in general (and mothers in particular) were more interested in contraction than vaccination.
When we were kids it only took one case of measles, mumps or chicken pox in the street to cause enormous excitement, mothers grabbing every kid they could find and jamming them into the house of the afflicted.
“And don’t come home until you are infected,” they would say sternly on their way out the door.
For baby boomers that was the vaccination program. Get it, get over it and get on with life.
We were also allowed to get dirty; soap was a punishment (for young boys anyway), we spent hours playing in dirt patches – and ate lunch there without washing up – or went down the road, dammed the local creek and spent a few hours splashing around in the impromptu neighbourhood pool.
Most of us also climbed every tree around and if you were spotted in the swaying heights by your mother, she might shout ‘be careful’ but mostly she would just wave and walk on. If it was a neighbour’s tree and their dad was home you probably got a “don’t fall out of my bloody tree you little hooligan”.
Occasionally one of us did slip and took the plunge to the ground below.
The little brother of a mate did it; a spectacular launch out of the heights of a pine tree when he dived to another branch and missed.
He was pretty badly hurt.
But no-one got sued, no-one cut down the trees and no-one had them fenced off for the safety of local kids.
However, the victim – in this case Colin – did get a box around the ears from his mum for causing the accident.
It was no different from school. The strap, the cane, ducking the odd blackboard duster (and more than one dictionary or arithmetic book) were all part of my school years. I was literally flogged from one year to the next and probably deserved most of it.
But never breathed a word when I got home; knowing full well I’d cop another one for misbehaving.
No-one was sued, no-one needed counselling, your mates laughed at you (and you always got to return that favour) and then you got on with life.
But of all my pre-pubescent travails; just being sick with something ordinary (usually involving vomit) was a highlight because you got to stay home. On the sickbed in front of the TV (which normally started broadcasting as early as 8.30am or 9am), laughing at your siblings heading off to school.
You would be on the divan, under your blanket, just waiting for that sound — clip, clop. Clip, clop.
The signal to leap off your death bed and out to the front gate. Where the milko or baker would give you a ‘g’day’ and let you up on the seat beside them (and on a good day you scored a bun or hot bread roll).
They would be on and off the cart, filling orders up and down the street, but you got to hold the reins and pretend you were driving. Of course the Clydesdale ignored you because it knew to move forward three, or four, or five houses and stop; waiting for the real driver’s return.
No amount of encouragement or flapping of the reins could persuade the gentle giant to move on.
But slowly they did, and we did, until you got to the end of the street, at which point the driver told you to ‘nick off, youngster’ and you dashed back home and collapsed back onto your sick bed.
And hoped you were still there the next day.
Yep, in the pre-pandemic days being sick ranked right up there in childhood.
Andrew Mole, Baby Boomer