Not Just Polio: My Life Story - Softcover

Daggett, Richard Lloyd

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1440198152 ISBN 13: 9781440198151

Verlag: iUniverse, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

Not Just Polio recounts the remarkably full and enjoyable life of the author, Richard Lloyd Daggett. The narrative includes an honest and sometimes frank account of living with a signifi cant disability. It is more than the story of a devastating illness. It also chronicles the life of a young person growing up in middle class America during the 1940s and 50s. He presents a clear and comprehensive view of his experience with polio. Every episode he reviews is stimulating and told with candor. His ability to attain the equivalence of a college education, despite being physically unable to enter the classroom, is a subtle but strong display of his strength. The vision and determination which became evident during this long challenge were, without a doubt, significant elements which enhanced his effectiveness as an advocate to improve the welfare, comfort, and safety of the severely disabled patients who lacked adequate resources.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Richard Lloyd Daggett lives in southern California. As an active journalist, he has written extensively on disability and the human condition. Richard has appeared in several film and television documentaries about polio. He is president of the Polio Survivors Association and serves on the board of The Amigos Fund of Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center.

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Not Just Polio

My Life StoryBy Richard Lloyd Daggett

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Richard Lloyd Daggett
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4401-9815-1

Contents

Foreword........................................................ixIntroduction....................................................xiiiMy Early Years..................................................1Growing Up......................................................21Taking a Detour.................................................27Moving On.......................................................55Polio Dj Vu...................................................75Summing Up......................................................93Photographs.....................................................99Just What Is Polio And Post-Polio Syndrome?.....................119How Many Polio Survivors Are There?.............................125Polio Resources.................................................129

Chapter One

My Early Years

I've always enjoyed poems, those childhood rhymes that most children were taught when I was young. I especially liked the works of Robert Louis Stevenson. We had an early edition of A Child's Garden of Verses, and my parents read to me as I looked at the illustrations. Later, probably by the age of eight or nine, I discovered the difference between poems and poetry. My ears would perk up if I heard someone reading something by Robert Frost. One of my favorites is Frost's "The Road Not Taken." It ends with:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

I liked that thought-taking the road less traveled. A psychologist might analyze my feelings and presume that this is based on the fact that my life has been different. This analysis might be right. I've certainly taken the road less traveled, even if the decision was not entirely my own. Circumstances surely had a role in which road I took.

Then, recently, a new book of poetry was given to me. In it was "The Road Not Taken." As I read it again, savoring the flow of Frost's words, my thoughts were suddenly interrupted. It was as if my brain yelled, "Hey! Wait a minute!" I re-read the last two lines:

I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

The questioning part of my brain exerted itself and seemed to ask, "How could a person know if one road, `made all the difference' without traveling both roads?"

Mrs. Truxaw, my sixth grade teacher, taught her students to read with a critical eye. She urged us to decide for ourselves if an author's words spoke truth to us. I guess I'll have to blame her for my skepticism.

But, as my mother would probably say, I'm getting ahead of myself. I guess I'd better start from the beginning.

I was born on June 14, 1940, at Queen of Angels Hospital in Los Angeles, California, and was the last of my parents' four children. My brother Robert is three years older, my sister Ann is eight years older, and my brother Rodney Jr. is almost exactly ten years older.

Let me provide some historical background, to put my story in context. June 14 is Flag Day in the United States. On June 14, 1940, the German army entered Paris and, on the same day, a group of 728 Polish prisoners became the first residents of the Auschwitz concentration camp. A few days before this, the British Expeditionary Force had been evacuated from Dunkirk and Winston Churchill had addressed the British Parliament, saying, "We shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."

Across the Atlantic, the United States was attempting to stay out of this new war. The top recordings of that year were, "In The Mood" by Glenn Miller, "I'll Never Smile Again" by Tommy Dorsey, with the vocal by Frank Sinatra, and "When You Wish Upon a Star" from the Disney movie Pinocchio, with the vocal by Cliff Edwards.

The highest rated movies of 1940 included The Grapes of Wrath, The Philadelphia Story, and Pinocchio.

When I was born our family lived at 411 East 109th Street. This was my home for the first ten years of my life. My father and grandfather had built our house themselves in 1932, with some of the plumbing and electrical work contracted out to my father's friends. This was during the Great Depression, and those friends needed work.

The neighborhood consisted of modest, middle-class homes and ours was the largest and nicest on the block. I believe it was the only two-story house. We had a sort of Daggett family compound, since my father and my grandfather owned four adjoining lots. Our house was built on the easternmost lot. Aunt Evelyn's house was next to ours and my grandparents had the house next to her. The remaining lot was vacant, except for my grandfather's garage and workshop.

Our lot was not big, but as a child it seemed big to me. In the beginning, the front lawn sloped gently toward the sidewalk. In 1945, my father added a low cement retaining wall that leveled off the lawn. Aunt Evelyn did the same thing. They probably did it for aesthetic reasons but to us kids it made a much nicer, flat area to play outdoor games. I used the low retaining wall as my "launching pad" when I was learning to ride a full-size bicycle. I would stand on the wall and swing one leg over the bicycle seat, keeping one foot firmly on the wall. When I felt steady, I would propel myself forward.

Our backyard was divided by a low picket fence. The part nearer to the house was planted in grass and flowers, and beyond the fence was what we called "the way back." It was mostly bare ground with colorful shrubs around the perimeter. During World War II we had a Victory Garden in this part of the yard, and after the war my father built a large swing in this area. At the end of the yard we had a covered area with a picnic table and large brick barbecue. Behind the garage we had a chicken yard, although the chickens were gone by the time I was five years old. I remember my father cutting the head off a chicken. It ran around in crazy circles, splattering blood on Aunt Evelyn's garage. After the chickens were gone, my brother Robert and I used the empty walk-in chicken coop for our club house. Between the garage and the chicken coop was a small, L-shaped building we called the wood shed. The lawn mower, garden tools, and some lumber and plumbing supplies were kept there. It was usually dark and, as a young boy, it seemed spooky to me. I hated to walk in there and get tangled in spider webs. When I was older, we built secret panels between the club house, the wood shed, and the space between the garage and our neighbor's yard. We probably got the idea for secret panels from watching so many Saturday afternoon movie serials.

My father built a small room in the attic of the garage. He called this his "dog house" and I think it probably served as his refuge from four active kids. Access was by steep, narrow stairs with a right angle turn halfway up. He had a desk and his self-made photo enlarger in the room. On the desk was a typewriter. Before I could spell or read I would sit at the desk and "type." I would type three to five letters and make a space, then three to five more letters, continuing all the way across the page. When I finished a line I'd move the carriage to the beginning of the line and type over my...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: iUniverse
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1440198152
• ISBN 13: 9781440198151
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 148
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland