A Polio Story: Davy Crockett, Rock 'n' Roll and the Devil's Disease by Dave Eubanks
A Polio Story: Davy Crockett, Rock ‘n’ Roll and the Devil’s Disease is a poignant, coming-of-age tale — inspired by true events — about what it was like for a little boy growing up in America during the 1950s.
Yes, there were coonskin caps, Elvis Presley, I Love Lucy and Ozzie and Harriet on TV, Sputnik, nuclear bomb shelters and all the rest of those things we know about from back then.
But everyone’s life was also dominated by fears of polio — the terrifying disease sweeping the nation during those years that paralyzed and often killed its victims, mostly young children, until the miraculous discovery of a polio vaccine by Dr. Jonas Salk that saved so many.
Author Dave Eubanks wastes no time making sure the reader understands the gravity of the polio threat in the 1950s when he says in his gripping, dramatic opening dedication:
“Almost as many Americans died of polio in the 20th century as U.S. servicemen who were killed in the War in Vietnam. This book is dedicated to Paulie (a real-life childhood friend) and the other 400,000 or so polio victims who survived, and to the 58,815 (mostly children) who didn’t.”
Boyhood Marked by a Terrible Disease
The book is told through the eyes of a young child named Jimmy Lee Eldridge, beginning on his 7th birthday. Jimmy Lee has just moved with his family to a 1950s Southern California subdivision where he experiences a new school, new friends and new boyhood summertime adventures.
In fact, much of the story narrated by the little boy is a wonderful, almost Norman Rockwell-like description of happy times playing games, camping out, spending time with his friends and learning all about ‘50s life in America: the new music called rock ‘n’ roll, the classic old TV shows and all the rest of it.
It reminded me in some ways of the Jean Shepherd narration of a little boy growing up in the classic movie A Christmas Story.
As someone who grew up in that same era as little Jimmy Lee, I thought the descriptions, the mood and the atmosphere that author Eubanks gives us in this book were perfectly done.
But as young Jimmy Lee soon discovers firsthand, there is a terrible enemy in America then too: the scourge of polio, an infectious disease that puts children his age in hospitals where they are confined to iron lungs to breathe and crutches to walk — or in too many cases don’t survive at all.
When he and his friends on a summer lark travel to a place called Hansen’s Dam, two of his pals ignore a “Hazardous” warning sign and go into the water. They soon contract polio from it — and one of them, Jimmy Lee’s close friend Tony, winds up in an iron lung for a long period and then must live on crutches.
For Jimmy Lee, it’s a sudden and brutal wake-up call to the dangers of life beyond his boyhood existence.
During this period he also befriends another polio victim named Paulie (the one Eubanks names in his dedication as a real-life person who helped inspire this story). Paulie is one of the “lucky” ones. He survives the disease even though he remains paralyzed and on crutches.
The Vaccine That Changed America
Eubanks also stresses the enormous importance of the discovery of a polio vaccine by Dr. Jonas Salk that in 1955 vaccinated the children in America so that no more of them would fall victim to this horrible disease.
“Almost overnight, Dr. Jonas Salk became the most famous man in America,” Eubanks writes.
“Dr. Salk wanted no patent for his vaccine. He gave the formulation freely to the people of our country and to the rest of the world. President Eisenhower even agreed to make it available to the children of the Soviet Union. This was America at its best…
“And the success of the Salk vaccine helped pave the way for other mass vaccinations to prevent measles, mumps and rubella, whooping cough, diphtheria, chicken pox and more — helping make the baby boomers, their children and grandchildren the healthiest generations of Americans ever.”
Yet there are still heartbreaking moments in this book such as when a group of polio-stricken children in a hospital hear the news of the vaccine and one little girl says to her mother:
“We’re gonna get well! It’s over.”
But the mother, who knows the Salk medication is only a vaccine to prevent new cases, not a cure, starts crying:
“No, Sweetie,” she sobs. “It’s too late for us.”
This is a fascinating memoir-type book — fictional, but clearly based in part and inspired by the author’s own experiences growing up in the ‘50s — that can make you smile, make you laugh and make you cry as you turn the pages.
In some ways, the 1950s was the best of times.
In other ways, it was the worst.
You can read about it all here in this book.
About the Author:
An early baby boomer, Dave Eubanks was born in Santa Monica, California in 1947 and raised in the nearby San Fernando Valley. He has a B.A. and M.A. in History from UCLA. Dave started teaching in 1969 and taught multiple grade levels and subjects in public schools over a span of 43 years. In 2013 he finally retired. He and his wife Sherrie have ten children — five birth and five adoptive. Their adoptive children all have Down Syndrome.
Sixteen years ago, he was fortunate to receive “The Gift of Life” — a heart transplant — at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Washington. His donor was a young man named Dominic Castaneda. Thanks to Dominic, God, and the amazing staff at SHMC, he has been given extra time on this earth to revisit some of his experiences from long ago. A Polio Story: Davy Crockett, Rock ‘n’ Roll and the Devil’s Disease is one consequence of that endeavor.
