A first grade memory: getting immunized.

Jonas Salk administering a polio vaccine.

You may not remember, but when you and I were in first grade, getting to the front of the line was a big deal. If the teacher said “Everyone line up at the door,” there was a rush to be first, whether we were lining up for lunch or recess or the library.

I have a distinct memory of this scene unfolding at Vernondale Elementary School in Erie, PA (I can remember the room and door and green-and-white checkered tile floor).

But we weren’t lining up this time for lunch or recess or the library.

We were lining up for the nurse's office, in which a doctor in a white lab coat was waiting with trays of needles to give us inoculations.

As we pushed and shoved to be nearest the door, the teacher said, “You may realize once we get where we’re going that being first isn’t always a good idea.”

Of course, if we weren’t first, that meant we were treated to the tantrums and tears of all those going before us while we shuffled step by step closer to certain doom.

But “getting it over with” is never a good idea when you’re six years old, and the farther you are away from needles, the better, even if it only prolongs the inevitable.

[2014-03-28]

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