We were having so much fun that very warm May afternoon and our teachers had let us have an extra recess that day because, what the heck~school was going to be dismissed for the summer in less than an hour. Ruth and I, as well as several other little kids, were jumping rope over in area on the Haven Grade School playground that I recall children referring to as "the shack". Oh it was fun, not a care in the world. Life, for all intents and purposes, was pretty dang good. Well, that was until she asked the question.
"Peggy, why do you have all of those little red dots all over your face?", Ruth asked me.
What? I wasn't sure I heard what she said and when she repeated it again she told me to look at my arms. Sure enough, Ruth wasn't kidding about the little red dots. Not only were they on my face but they were on my arms and legs and everywhere else between as well. A person couldn't count them, there were so many. Gosh dang it! I had come down with the hard red measles! On the last day of school before my glorious summer break, I had come down with one of the most contagious diseases a kid could get.
Before I could say, "Hey, maybe I just got too hot jumping rope or something people!", I was ushered into the office where our school secretary, Alice Oehlert, took one look at me and immediately sent me to the sick room. Within a short time, my parents were at school to pick me up and thus, the worst summer vacation I EVER had began.
For the next 3 weeks, I was banned to my bedroom never to see the light of day until it was all over. And when I say, "never to see the light of day", well guys, I really mean it! The two windows of the bedroom that my little sister and I shared were covered over with thick blankets so as to not let the sunshine come in. I was told that the exposure to the bright light while I was sick with measles could damage my vision. As if it wasn't bleak enough already, there wasn't going to be any TV watching for me either. No reading, no drawing, no NOTHING. And going outside to play? Oh yeah, forget that too! In fact, I can recall asking my mom if I could go outside and play in the dark. Oh yeah, forget that one too! I was only allowed to just lay there and get well. I didn't worry about dying from measles cause I was sure that "sheer boredom" would take me long before any little red dots could!
Thankfully the years that have passed have dulled the senses a bit and I don't remember every agonizing detail that happened. I know I had one heck of a fever and headache and nothing really seemed to taste good to me at all. But I survived and got well just in time to witness my little sister come down with the very same thing in the short weeks that followed. As a matter of fact, I think we shared a couple of other childhood illnesses, like the mumps and chicken pox, before we finally made it out of the stage of life where those kinds of things happened.
I was telling some of my students about getting the measles on the last day of school and they looked at me like I was from another "world". They didn't have a clue what the measles were and I told them that this was one time that I was GLAD they didn't know! How fortunate that they live in a time when immunizations are there for those kinds of things that when I was a child (oh boy, old geezerdom) were serious enough to put you to bed for many days. For those of us who suffered through them, the chicken pox, whooping cough, measles, and mumps were some of the most unpleasant things a kid could have to endure.
The last 4 days of school lie ahead for the students that I teach at Lincoln Elementary . They are excited, more than ready to get out for the summer. Their freedom will be proclaimed with the ringing of the last 3:10 bell of the school term. When they return in August and write about what wonderful and exciting things happened to them during the time away from school, it's thankfully and hopefully a "sure thing" that no one will start out their paper with....."On my summer vacation, I got the measles."
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