Sometimes in July of 1945 on no doubt a hot Louisiana morning a little boy of three years old woke up one morning and could not walk. That child was me. My name is Boris. I don’t really know why my dad liked that name. The only Boris he has ever seen was on the movie screen, yes you guessed it, Boris Karloff, the guy who played Frankenstein. But I have lived with it for all of these 67 years and it fits.

The night before my mom found I couldn’t stand on my legs, my two brothers and I had all had fever. I guess mom just thought we were coming down with something. Consequently though the next morning when she came into our bedroom to wake us up she found that I could not stand up with all of my weight on my legs. They just gave out from underneath me. She called my dad who at that time was working as a Machinist at the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. He came home immediately. They rushed me to our family doctor and within a few hours the doctors determined that I had contracted Infantile Paralysis are Polio. They were shocked.

During the war gasoline was hard to come by and my mom and dad were certainly not rich. Dad made a good living at Firestone, but the nearest hospital that treated polio patience was in the New Orleans, the Charity Hospital, which is still there in New Orleans today. The neighbors were kind enough to pitch in and donate their gas ration to my dad thus enabling him to take me to New Orleans.

The trip down was not like it is today from Lake Charles to New Orleans. Today a person can zip down Interstate 10 and be in New Orleans in about 3 hours. Back in the 40’s however the trip was long and hard down the old Hwy 190, through Lafayette, New Iberia, Morgan City, Houma and then north up to New Orleans. It was a long hard hot trip and besides my dad’s old car didn’t have air-conditioning and was just about on it’s last leg.

We made it though. My mom related to me that when we entered the hospital the nurses immediately took me from my mother’s arms and rushed to an isolated ward full of other children who had contracted polio. She says she didn’t hold me again unto after 13 weeks of isolation. I can’t remember any of the treatments, but my mom said is was very painful. I am sure I owe a lot today to the very kind and wonderful treatment I received in that hospital. I know that when I finally was released my brother later told me that I held on tight to a black nurse by the name of Caledonia. I wouldn’t let do and cried to stay at the hospital.

On our return trip I can remember one thing in particular. I raised up from lying in the back seat of our car, looked out the window and saw a cow grazing in a pasture. I pointed and said my first word, “Cow”. My brother tells me that they were all surprised because by that time I was four years old and had never said an understandable word. The word “Cow” then was my first word. They tried and tried to get another word out me but I would give.

I have so much to be thankful for. The March of Dimes paid for all my treatment at the Charity Hospital and later when I was 12 years old they paid for three operations, two on my right leg and one on my left. Today I can almost walk normally. I still have a ¼” build up on my right shoe and my right leg is very weak, but I am thankful for caring people and living parents that took care of me all of those years after I fell victim to that dreaded disease, Polio.