06/19/2020
Polio was runner-up to nuclear annihilation as the most feared event by Americans. In that year there were 58,000 cases, 21,000 cases of paralysis and 3200 deaths. The summer of 1952, it was a parental nightmare. As one-year-olds, we were in the cross-hairs of polio, as we are now very vulnerable to the ravages of Covid-19.
Is This the Big One?
By Bill Levine
Last year I attended my class of 1969’s 50th high school reunion. It was a meaningful
event for me because for one night I was together with fellow baby boomers who marched lockstep in time with me through hula hoops to Hulu TV. Our small group of 150 classmates had in turn marched together through time with over 3,500,000 U.S.A. boomers born in 1951.
Now, 6 months later in the age of Coronavirus, my age cohort, with the possible
exception of Vietnam vets, is answering the question “Is This the Big One?” in the
affirmative. Covid-19 has clobbered the protective comfort of our daily lives, internal
thoughts, and bank accounts, while promising to launch an unsettling new normal. I am positing that my 1951 peers are no strangers to adapting to an unsettling new normality and facing existential dread. I have picked these events as the “pulling loose the societal threads” events that we 1951ers have survived. They are in order from apocalypse-no-go to apocalypse-go-and-ponder: 1979 gas shortage, 9/11/, Vietnam era, 1960s nuclear annihilation era and a polio epidemic, a solid runner up to the Coronavirus.
We 1951ers have already survived our first virus epidemic, which struck in the summer
of 1952. Polio closed down pools; via six feet of separation, thwarted teenage romance in movie balconies; home-quarantined potentially contagious people; closed transportation routes; kept kids on their front lawns and scared our parents.
Polio was runner-up to nuclear annihilation as the most feared event by Americans. In that year there were 58,000 cases, 21,000 cases of paralysis and 3200 deaths. The summer of 1952, it was a parental nightmare. As one-year-olds, we were in the cross-hairs of polio, as we are now very vulnerable to the ravages of Covid-19.
I actually met a polio victim my age in the late 1980s. Joe, like me, was a middle-class
Massachusetts native. I asked Joe about his limp, thinking that it was a weekend warrior injury,
but he matter-of-factly said that it was polio, I thought then that it wasn’t inevitable that I would survive the epidemic of 1952. I could have been Joe. For the first time, I was aware of the potential physical damage that I and my cohorts had mostly all dodged.
I am positing though that the polio epidemic of 1952 was the one event we 1951ers
have lived through that even very remotely rivals the combination of angst, fear, and
social disruption of our current Coronavirus pandemic.
When Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was approved on April 12, 1955, “People were
hugging in the streets, kids were let out of school, Salk was invited to the White House
where Eisenhower broke down in tears thanking him… The nation went into this
extraordinary, almost unprecedented celebration short of anything but the end of the
world war,” according to David Olshansky, author of “Polio: An American Story.”
No doubt that, when the Coronavirus vaccine is announced, we 1951 boomers and all the world will go crazy as the world will soon be able to hug again. Time Square will be semi-crowded with six-feet-apart celebrants and “Hug” emojis will be all over the place.
-30-
Polio was runner-up to nuclear annihilation as the most feared event by Americans. In that year there were 58,000 cases, 21,000 cases of paralysis and 3200 deaths. The summer of 1952, it was a parental nightmare. As one-year-olds, we were in the cross-hairs of polio, as we are now very vulnerable to the ravages of Covid-19.
Is This the Big One?
By Bill Levine
Last year I attended my class of 1969’s 50th high school reunion. It was a meaningful
event for me because for one night I was together with fellow baby boomers who marched lockstep in time with me through hula hoops to Hulu TV. Our small group of 150 classmates had in turn marched together through time with over 3,500,000 U.S.A. boomers born in 1951.
Now, 6 months later in the age of Coronavirus, my age cohort, with the possible
exception of Vietnam vets, is answering the question “Is This the Big One?” in the
affirmative. Covid-19 has clobbered the protective comfort of our daily lives, internal
thoughts, and bank accounts, while promising to launch an unsettling new normal. I am positing that my 1951 peers are no strangers to adapting to an unsettling new normality and facing existential dread. I have picked these events as the “pulling loose the societal threads” events that we 1951ers have survived. They are in order from apocalypse-no-go to apocalypse-go-and-ponder: 1979 gas shortage, 9/11/, Vietnam era, 1960s nuclear annihilation era and a polio epidemic, a solid runner up to the Coronavirus.
We 1951ers have already survived our first virus epidemic, which struck in the summer
of 1952. Polio closed down pools; via six feet of separation, thwarted teenage romance in movie balconies; home-quarantined potentially contagious people; closed transportation routes; kept kids on their front lawns and scared our parents.
Polio was runner-up to nuclear annihilation as the most feared event by Americans. In that year there were 58,000 cases, 21,000 cases of paralysis and 3200 deaths. The summer of 1952, it was a parental nightmare. As one-year-olds, we were in the cross-hairs of polio, as we are now very vulnerable to the ravages of Covid-19.
I actually met a polio victim my age in the late 1980s. Joe, like me, was a middle-class
Massachusetts native. I asked Joe about his limp, thinking that it was a weekend warrior injury,
but he matter-of-factly said that it was polio, I thought then that it wasn’t inevitable that I would survive the epidemic of 1952. I could have been Joe. For the first time, I was aware of the potential physical damage that I and my cohorts had mostly all dodged.
I am positing though that the polio epidemic of 1952 was the one event we 1951ers
have lived through that even very remotely rivals the combination of angst, fear, and
social disruption of our current Coronavirus pandemic.
When Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was approved on April 12, 1955, “People were
hugging in the streets, kids were let out of school, Salk was invited to the White House
where Eisenhower broke down in tears thanking him… The nation went into this
extraordinary, almost unprecedented celebration short of anything but the end of the
world war,” according to David Olshansky, author of “Polio: An American Story.”
No doubt that, when the Coronavirus vaccine is announced, we 1951 boomers and all the world will go crazy as the world will soon be able to hug again. Time Square will be semi-crowded with six-feet-apart celebrants and “Hug” emojis will be all over the place.
-30-
Polio was runner-up to nuclear annihilation as the most feared event by Americans. In that year there were 58,000 cases, 21,000 cases of paralysis and 3200 deaths. The summer of 1952, it was a parental nightmare. As one-year-olds, we were in the cross-hairs of polio, as we are now very vulnerable to the ravages of Covid-19.
Is This the Big One?
By Bill Levine
Last year I attended my class of 1969’s 50th high school reunion. It was a meaningful
event for me because for one night I was together with fellow baby boomers who marched lockstep in time with me through hula hoops to Hulu TV. Our small group of 150 classmates had in turn marched together through time with over 3,500,000 U.S.A. boomers born in 1951.
Now, 6 months later in the age of Coronavirus, my age cohort, with the possible
exception of Vietnam vets, is answering the question “Is This the Big One?” in the
affirmative. Covid-19 has clobbered the protective comfort of our daily lives, internal
thoughts, and bank accounts, while promising to launch an unsettling new normal. I am positing that my 1951 peers are no strangers to adapting to an unsettling new normality and facing existential dread. I have picked these events as the “pulling loose the societal threads” events that we 1951ers have survived. They are in order from apocalypse-no-go to apocalypse-go-and-ponder: 1979 gas shortage, 9/11/, Vietnam era, 1960s nuclear annihilation era and a polio epidemic, a solid runner up to the Coronavirus.
We 1951ers have already survived our first virus epidemic, which struck in the summer
of 1952. Polio closed down pools; via six feet of separation, thwarted teenage romance in movie balconies; home-quarantined potentially contagious people; closed transportation routes; kept kids on their front lawns and scared our parents.
Polio was runner-up to nuclear annihilation as the most feared event by Americans. In that year there were 58,000 cases, 21,000 cases of paralysis and 3200 deaths. The summer of 1952, it was a parental nightmare. As one-year-olds, we were in the cross-hairs of polio, as we are now very vulnerable to the ravages of Covid-19.
I actually met a polio victim my age in the late 1980s. Joe, like me, was a middle-class
Massachusetts native. I asked Joe about his limp, thinking that it was a weekend warrior injury,
but he matter-of-factly said that it was polio, I thought then that it wasn’t inevitable that I would survive the epidemic of 1952. I could have been Joe. For the first time, I was aware of the potential physical damage that I and my cohorts had mostly all dodged.
I am positing though that the polio epidemic of 1952 was the one event we 1951ers
have lived through that even very remotely rivals the combination of angst, fear, and
social disruption of our current Coronavirus pandemic.
When Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was approved on April 12, 1955, “People were
hugging in the streets, kids were let out of school, Salk was invited to the White House
where Eisenhower broke down in tears thanking him… The nation went into this
extraordinary, almost unprecedented celebration short of anything but the end of the
world war,” according to David Olshansky, author of “Polio: An American Story.”
No doubt that, when the Coronavirus vaccine is announced, we 1951 boomers and all the world will go crazy as the world will soon be able to hug again. Time Square will be semi-crowded with six-feet-apart celebrants and “Hug” emojis will be all over the place.
-30-
Polio was runner-up to nuclear annihilation as the most feared event by Americans. In that year there were 58,000 cases, 21,000 cases of paralysis and 3200 deaths. The summer of 1952, it was a parental nightmare. As one-year-olds, we were in the cross-hairs of polio, as we are now very vulnerable to the ravages of Covid-19.
Is This the Big One?
By Bill Levine
Last year I attended my class of 1969’s 50th high school reunion. It was a meaningful
event for me because for one night I was together with fellow baby boomers who marched lockstep in time with me through hula hoops to Hulu TV. Our small group of 150 classmates had in turn marched together through time with over 3,500,000 U.S.A. boomers born in 1951.
Now, 6 months later in the age of Coronavirus, my age cohort, with the possible
exception of Vietnam vets, is answering the question “Is This the Big One?” in the
affirmative. Covid-19 has clobbered the protective comfort of our daily lives, internal
thoughts, and bank accounts, while promising to launch an unsettling new normal. I am positing that my 1951 peers are no strangers to adapting to an unsettling new normality and facing existential dread. I have picked these events as the “pulling loose the societal threads” events that we 1951ers have survived. They are in order from apocalypse-no-go to apocalypse-go-and-ponder: 1979 gas shortage, 9/11/, Vietnam era, 1960s nuclear annihilation era and a polio epidemic, a solid runner up to the Coronavirus.
We 1951ers have already survived our first virus epidemic, which struck in the summer
of 1952. Polio closed down pools; via six feet of separation, thwarted teenage romance in movie balconies; home-quarantined potentially contagious people; closed transportation routes; kept kids on their front lawns and scared our parents.
Polio was runner-up to nuclear annihilation as the most feared event by Americans. In that year there were 58,000 cases, 21,000 cases of paralysis and 3200 deaths. The summer of 1952, it was a parental nightmare. As one-year-olds, we were in the cross-hairs of polio, as we are now very vulnerable to the ravages of Covid-19.
I actually met a polio victim my age in the late 1980s. Joe, like me, was a middle-class
Massachusetts native. I asked Joe about his limp, thinking that it was a weekend warrior injury,
but he matter-of-factly said that it was polio, I thought then that it wasn’t inevitable that I would survive the epidemic of 1952. I could have been Joe. For the first time, I was aware of the potential physical damage that I and my cohorts had mostly all dodged.
I am positing though that the polio epidemic of 1952 was the one event we 1951ers
have lived through that even very remotely rivals the combination of angst, fear, and
social disruption of our current Coronavirus pandemic.
When Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was approved on April 12, 1955, “People were
hugging in the streets, kids were let out of school, Salk was invited to the White House
where Eisenhower broke down in tears thanking him… The nation went into this
extraordinary, almost unprecedented celebration short of anything but the end of the
world war,” according to David Olshansky, author of “Polio: An American Story.”
No doubt that, when the Coronavirus vaccine is announced, we 1951 boomers and all the world will go crazy as the world will soon be able to hug again. Time Square will be semi-crowded with six-feet-apart celebrants and “Hug” emojis will be all over the place.
-30-
Polio was runner-up to nuclear annihilation as the most feared event by Americans. In that year there were 58,000 cases, 21,000 cases of paralysis and 3200 deaths. The summer of 1952, it was a parental nightmare. As one-year-olds, we were in the cross-hairs of polio, as we are now very vulnerable to the ravages of Covid-19.
Is This the Big One?
By Bill Levine
Last year I attended my class of 1969’s 50th high school reunion. It was a meaningful
event for me because for one night I was together with fellow baby boomers who marched lockstep in time with me through hula hoops to Hulu TV. Our small group of 150 classmates had in turn marched together through time with over 3,500,000 U.S.A. boomers born in 1951.
Now, 6 months later in the age of Coronavirus, my age cohort, with the possible
exception of Vietnam vets, is answering the question “Is This the Big One?” in the
affirmative. Covid-19 has clobbered the protective comfort of our daily lives, internal
thoughts, and bank accounts, while promising to launch an unsettling new normal. I am positing that my 1951 peers are no strangers to adapting to an unsettling new normality and facing existential dread. I have picked these events as the “pulling loose the societal threads” events that we 1951ers have survived. They are in order from apocalypse-no-go to apocalypse-go-and-ponder: 1979 gas shortage, 9/11/, Vietnam era, 1960s nuclear annihilation era and a polio epidemic, a solid runner up to the Coronavirus.
We 1951ers have already survived our first virus epidemic, which struck in the summer
of 1952. Polio closed down pools; via six feet of separation, thwarted teenage romance in movie balconies; home-quarantined potentially contagious people; closed transportation routes; kept kids on their front lawns and scared our parents.
Polio was runner-up to nuclear annihilation as the most feared event by Americans. In that year there were 58,000 cases, 21,000 cases of paralysis and 3200 deaths. The summer of 1952, it was a parental nightmare. As one-year-olds, we were in the cross-hairs of polio, as we are now very vulnerable to the ravages of Covid-19.
I actually met a polio victim my age in the late 1980s. Joe, like me, was a middle-class
Massachusetts native. I asked Joe about his limp, thinking that it was a weekend warrior injury,
but he matter-of-factly said that it was polio, I thought then that it wasn’t inevitable that I would survive the epidemic of 1952. I could have been Joe. For the first time, I was aware of the potential physical damage that I and my cohorts had mostly all dodged.
I am positing though that the polio epidemic of 1952 was the one event we 1951ers
have lived through that even very remotely rivals the combination of angst, fear, and
social disruption of our current Coronavirus pandemic.
When Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was approved on April 12, 1955, “People were
hugging in the streets, kids were let out of school, Salk was invited to the White House
where Eisenhower broke down in tears thanking him… The nation went into this
extraordinary, almost unprecedented celebration short of anything but the end of the
world war,” according to David Olshansky, author of “Polio: An American Story.”
No doubt that, when the Coronavirus vaccine is announced, we 1951 boomers and all the world will go crazy as the world will soon be able to hug again. Time Square will be semi-crowded with six-feet-apart celebrants and “Hug” emojis will be all over the place.
-30-
