Conversation with a young man, the crossroads of exiting high school, was like listening to myself talk, senior year of high school, same words I used, \u201cI want to be rich.\u201d If that wasn\u2019t enough, he says it again, \u201cLike really rich.\u201d<\/p>\n
So I say\u2026\u201cEver heard of Jonas Salk?\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Once Upon A Time\u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u2026there was a very terrible disease called polio. It hit every nation, every age, even got one of our U.S. Presidents, but it was particularly lethal to little children. Usually hit in the summer. Light cases, a little paralysis, medium cases, a lot of paralysis, and on the other end, two kinds of death, actual, or life in an iron lung\u2026<\/p>\n They\u2019ve got Egyptian pyramid carvings depicting polio. All those thousands of years, all those victims, and just last century, an American named Jonas Salk discovered the vaccine.<\/p>\n Yet Another Immigrant That Made America Great<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s the classic immigrant tale: Momma from Russia, clutching for the climb, do your best, work like it matters, be frugal, mind your name, life is serious, be ambitious, get an education, better yourself. Jonas devoured books. He skipped grades, and because the Ivy League schools had quotas limiting Jewish enrollment, he can\u2019t get into Yale, has to settle for City College of New York, at age 15.<\/p>\n Momma talks him out of being a lawyer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Thank goodness for that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He goes to med school. He talks himself out of being a practicing physician. He\u2019s not wired for the one on one. He\u2019s wired for the all.<\/p>\n Thank goodness for us all.<\/p>\n Apples To Oranges<\/strong><\/p>\n For numbers, let\u2019s compare polio to something that really shook us up in the 1980\u2019s \u2013 AIDS.<\/p>\n If you were around, adult-ish, especially in the early years, you remember the national\u2026whatstheword\u2026it\u2019s Fear, it\u2019s Unknown, no escape from the national Uneasiness.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In the 80\u2019s, when Rock Hudson is dying, America is averaging about 7000 cases a year. That\u2019s HIV, of which some will go into full AIDS, of which some will die.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Most of these are adults.<\/p>\n Now, let\u2019s go back to 1952, the worst polio epidemic in U.S. history, and the numbers change dramatically: it\u2019s not 7000, it\u2019s 58,000\u2026of which over 3000 died\u2026and over 21,000 would never be the same again\u2026and it\u2019s all concentrated in one summer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And\u2026most of them were children.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re a parent in the 50\u2019s, whether upper class or no class, the boogie man is out there, and you don\u2019t know how it finds your kid, how to protect them, nothing\u2026<\/p>\n His Father In Law Thought His\u00a0<\/span>Daughter Was Marrying Down<\/strong><\/p>\n Her daddy was a dentist. He thought Jonas was several rungs down on the social ladder, wouldn\u2019t approve the marriage until Jonas had an M.D. to put on the wedding invites, and, (get ready, this is a doozie) had to come up with a middle name\u2026because his daughter wasn\u2019t tying the knot with a man whose family couldn\u2019t afford a middle name\u2026<\/p>\n Skipping a few years, Jonas Salk is in his element, running his own research lab, with one singular goal, a vaccine for polio.<\/p>\n He began testing his vaccine on animals in 1952. In 1954, he tested his vaccine on 1 million children, known as the Polio Pioneers. In April of 1955, the vaccine was announced safe.<\/p>\n The effects were immediate. Polio is defeated. Parents are relieved. And yet again, the eyes of the whole world are upon America, with respect, and a kind of awe, that this baby country keeps doing the things that make the whole planet better\u2026<\/p>\n Jonas Salk is immediately one of the most famous citizens of the world.<\/p>\n He\u2019s interviewed by the premier journalist of the times, Edward R. Murrow, who asks him, \u201cWho owns this patent?\u201d<\/p>\n (Let\u2019s pause and put ourselves in Salk\u2019s shoes. He\u2019s put in years of nothing-but-work. He\u2019s done a great thing. Would any parent pay a dollar, or five, or ten, or a week\u2019s salary, or a months, to guarantee that their child would never get polio? Multiply that number, by all the parents, all over the world\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n Jonas Salk could have financially soared, to become one of the wealthiest people on the planet, a Bill Gates before Microsoft, a Jeff Bezos before Amazon\u2026)<\/i><\/p>\n \u2026but when Murrow asks the question, Who owns the patent, listen to Salk\u2026with awe\u2026\u201dThere is no patent. Could you patent the sun?\u201d<\/p>\n The dude gave it away. Like an angel would…<\/p>\n If I was wearing a hat while I was typing this, I\u2019d take it off my head and put it over my heart. I swear. That\u2019s high doing. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Country Ways<\/strong><\/p>\n In my rural childhood in Allen Parish neighbors always did favors for neighbors. Always a little dance, where the one being helped would reach for his wallet, as if he was going to offer money, and there began a big push back, from the person doing the favor, \u201cO no! You\u2019d do the same for me!\u201d<\/p>\n It took me into young adulthood to understand it. The favor was The Value, The Wealth. To measure it with money, whether $10 or $100, only cheapened it. The favor being done, the gift of it, it was for honor, for ideals, God watching and self respect as head hit the pillow.<\/p>\n Time passes, a funeral happens, and these old men, they\u2019d stand around, and they\u2019d say, \u201cO, he was a mighty good man\u2026\u201d no big speeches, but he\u2019d planted good seeds of good deeds, and reaped respect, even if buried in a borrowed suit, he had gold plated his \u201cname\u201d with an earned wealth.<\/p>\n I moved off to the big city to realize what all that meant. City people narrow wealth to one measurement: dollars. They miss the whole width and depth of true wealth.<\/p>\n So I Tell The Youngster<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIf Salk had taken the money, I\u2019d never be mentioning his name.\u201d He\u2019d just be another noun in the encyclopedia, who whored his life\u2019s great work, for common money. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But because he didn\u2019t\u2026 I actually took off my hat when I mentioned Salk\u2019s name to this kid. There is a great, and rare wealth, in having earned awe.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In one ear and out the other\u2026or maybe a seed that sprouts in the fullness of time, I gave it a try\u2026as I do now, with you\u2026<\/p>\n _ \u00a0 <\/span>_\u00a0 <\/span>_\u00a0 <\/span>_\u00a0 <\/span>_\u00a0 <\/span>_\u00a0 <\/span>_\u00a0 <\/span>_ \u00a0 <\/span>_ \u00a0 <\/span>_<\/p>\n This edition of Uncle P\u2019s Bedtime Stories is brought to you by Eighty-one, where we try to shine a light on things worthy of admiration.\u00a0 <\/span>Other Bedtime Stories can be found on the Eighty-one Facebook page.\u00a0 <\/span>Uncle P can be reached at 81creativity@gmail.com.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Conversation with a young man, the crossroads of exiting high school, was like listening to myself talk, senior year of high school, same words I used, \u201cI want to be rich.\u201d If that wasn\u2019t enough, he says it again, \u201cLike really rich.\u201d So I say\u2026\u201cEver heard of Jonas Salk?\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0 Once Upon A Time\u2026\u00a0 [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[59,894],"yoast_head":"\n