Looking back to my childhood, it’s easy to see that
attitudes about health have changed over the past 60+ years. People didn’t go
to doctors then nearly as much as they do now. I only remember going to the
doctor’s office once when I was about seven or eight for a slight crack in my
left forearm. My neighbors, Helen and Leon, a brother and sister duo, thought
it would be great fun to catapult me through the air. (I was a shrimp.) Helen
launched me with her feet, and Leon was supposed to catch me. (I think the
circus with a human cannonball had just been to town recently.) Leon, for some reason,
missed the catch. I went bawling to my house, and Leon ran home. Helen ran after
him, trying to beat him up for failing to catch me.
Dad and Mom were Depression-Era kids, when money was an
issue with everything – doctors were not necessarily a luxury, but only for
extreme situations. Plus, Mom was a farm girl, with an attitude that humans,
like livestock, usually get over whatever’s ailing them. In spite of all this,
they took me to the doctor, who took an x-ray and gave me a sling. I had a slight crack in my left forearm.
But here’s the thing, I didn’t always want to get better.
Even before the catapult incident, I instinctively knew that if you were sick
in our house, you got special treatment. I enjoyed having my arm in a sling. It
gave me the status of a wounded warrior. I’d wanted a cast, but still thought of
the sling as my Red Badge of Specialness.
I knew even before
the catapult incident that if you were hurt, you got special treatment from
mom. And as important (or even more important), you got to stay home from
school. This, of course, led to faking sickness, by me and probably my brothers and
sisters.
It wasn’t easy to fake sickness at our house. My usual
tactic was to sit in the corner by a heat register looking glum and trying to
look sick while everyone else got ready for school. It usually didn’t work. Mom
would then take my temperature. She had a guideline for this - 99°. Over this
you could stay home, under it was “Off to school with you”. Sometimes I would
try to boost my chances by rubbing the thermometer with my hands to bring the
temperature up; one time I clandestinely held it over steaming kettle. None of this ever
worked.
One faking-it incident sticks in my memory [I hope it is from early grade school and
not junior high or high school]: One
morning in winter, I was doing my usual, sitting on a heat register trying to look
miserable. I don’t remember why I didn’t want to go, I didn’t want to go most
days, but this day I really didn’t want to go. Mom took my temperature, it was less
than the required 99°. I sat there looking glum for quite a while, pushing up
against that time I had to leave, or be late. “Finally mom said, ”Bob, are you
sick?” In a weak (I'm sure pitiful) voice I said, “No”, and went upstairs to get ready
for school. I suspect that if I had said “Yes”, she might have let me stay
home.
Why did I not say “Yes”? Was I afraid to lie to her? Probably
not, I had lied before. Was I reluctant to see myself (and be seen) as a
malingerer in a house full of “can do” people? Probably. I was living in the
house with “Put me in, coach! I’m alright” people.
Dad’s idea about health was similar to Mom’s, except his
came from a slightly different perspective. His was the 1950s manly attitude of
“suck it up”. Then there was the money. Not much cash in the budget for
health care. For some reason I think of
my youth as the good old days of health care.
Bob
Bonus Postscript:
My brother Alan received special recognition at his high school graduation
for making it through all 12 years of schooling without missing a day. Alan
said there were several times in his later high school career when he went to
school sick – he just wanted the record. Here’s what else he has to say on the
subject:
“…the
real truth is there is no one in the world who was as sick of school as me. I
hated every day, including kindergarten.
Oh
yea, I did miss 38 days in kindergarten.”
When I asked Alan why he had so many absences in
kindergarten he said it was the usual childhood maladies, chicken pox, measles
and the not usual malady of blood poisoning which kept him out for at least 10 days.
I ask if he ever faked those kindergarten absences. His
answer:
No faking. This doesn't mean I didn’t hate
every day of school.
