June 2002,

This year has been a real awakening for me with many dates, facts and blank spots in my memory assembled just a little more accurately. Many of the dates I have written about that go way back to the early fifties have to be adjusted since I have discovered many things that for what ever reason my mother always misrepresented to me. One major one of importance was the year I caught polio, 1950-1951 during the epidemic in Detroit. It was the day before Christmas but not in 49 as my mother had always told me.

I did question this since she would say “during the epidemic in Detroit” yet all the facts I was able to acquire, put the epidemic later but I assembled all my other facts around the time she told me so things are off just a wee bit.

I was born in 1944 and my mother always told me I caught Polio in 1949. It never really added up but until now I went along with it.

I would have been 5 years old but then the fact that I went to Barbour Hall Military Academy for two years just didn’t add up. I was flying home with one of the kids at school on his private plane, that’s where I supposedly picked up the virus. I remember his name as Fruhauf since his father owned a truck line and I always saw his name on those trucks.

I recently acquired my hospital records which nailed it down for me and mathematically things now add up. I had numerous operations as I was growing up but those times are foggy since I was always medicated for months at a time. I had my first surgery in 1953 and my last in 1961. Things went pretty good until about 1985 when I noticed something was happening to me that I could not explain and I was getting weaker. I tried explaining this to doctors but they told me it was all in my head.

Now this is definitely something I would notice since I was very physical all my adult life. It was nothing for me to man handle 50 gallon drums of gel-coat weighing nearly 600 pounds, with just one arm. I could easily grab onto a drum push it with two arms so it was balanced on its edge and roll it around the plant. This was not as easy as it used to be and I discovered that the one thing Polio Survivors can’t do is over exert themselves if they want to stay as healthy as they age. I abused that and over did everything so the 5% of muscle that I was using is dwindling and fast. But the plus of that is my senses have always been finely tuned. That comes from being paralyzed for 13 months, and tuning in on the sights and sounds around you which is why I pick up on the music so much. The very first movie I saw was Song of the South, on a gurney in Herman Kiefer’s hallway just months after I got polio. The nurses had to prop my head sideways so I could watch the movie but I listened more to the music in the movie.

Anyway I am explaining away some of the reason I believe that both my wife and I lived so fast and foolishly during the only years I would be healthy enough to raise a family and do all those things I was capable of but had no business sense to make the ventures work.

As I look back I don’t regret any of the foolish toys and adventures but I do regret not securing support for my wife as we travel down the last miles. She is the sole bread winner now and works harder then we ever did when in business taking care of me, the house, the yard, and everything that requires inertia. It has been 10 months since I have been out of the house or rather out of the yard since I do wander to my wife’s Koi pond and get in the pool now and again, and I know next year will be a little longer but I feel like the wealthiest person in the world with 37 years of marriage to Sandy, three great daughters, 7 grand kids, three son-in-laws, three dogs including the new/old three-legged dog Sandy brought home this year, and 3 cats that just won’t leave me alone. Not counting the 10 or so Koi Sandy has, and another 100 or so other fishies. and my computers. In that regards I am wealthy beyond all reason.

the Other Mike

Since so many have asked I have included the following...
Why? Getting older is one reason but probably more so because of the numerous operations, all the medication in those early days left a lot of areas that I have very little memory. It is interesting how some dates, words and other comments can bring back those blank moments.