My wife, Pat, and I were remembering back the other day to our childhoods when during the “Dog Days of Summer” our parents made us stay inside in the afternoon.
A lot of that had to do with the precautions being taken against the outbreak of polio during that time as the first vaccines were being developed and administered.
We were thinking back when we were given our first shots against polio. I was about seven years old I think.
I hated shots as a kid, and that same sentiment was shared with most all of my cousins and friends.
She and I were reminiscing about how we could be out in the early morning hours but by about noon we had to come inside.
I spent the afternoons inside and was made to rest part of that time. Wasn’t allowed to go back outside until early evening when the sun was headed downward and it was cooling off just a bit.
Pat’s related much the same routine took place during the summers of her early childhood.
In that area though, and even before we were youngsters, when the clock said 6 p.m. that was the real time by the sun. There was no Daylight Savings Time back in those days.
I think back when I was playing Little League baseball. The games were in the early evening, so were practices.
But polio shots made a huge difference in the disease that crippled and even took the lives of so many before the vaccine was fully developed and so widely administered.
I’m not sure how many polio boosters I have been given in my lifetime, but they were still being given when I was in basic training for my Army Reserve unit and during the years I served.
By the time I was in the eighth grade or so mother and dad weren’t quite as strict about keeping me in during the afternoons. I got my first job after my freshman year of high school and that forced me to be in the outdoors about eight hours a day, even in weather like we’ve experienced over the last couple of weeks.
But I always wore a cap or a hat back then just as I still do today.
Fast forward to how it’s like now and neither Pat nor I care to be out in the direct sun and heat during the middle of the day or in the early evening when the mercury is still in the high 90s nearing the century mark.
I for one am grateful for the prudent thinking of our parents back in those days.
So far it’s carried through a lifetime.