Measles no longer part of childhood

"No soldier outlives a thousand chances."

— E.M. Remarque

I heard on the car radio the other day that Georgia had only three reported cases of measles this winter.

Can you believe that?

I imagine you, like me, grew up in an America where everyone got the measles.

I got them. My sisters got them. My little brother got them when he was 16, stricken – believe it or not – on a golf course in the middle of a round.

Somebody from the clubhouse called our house, and I had to drive out to find him lying in the shade beside a tee box.

"What's wrong with you?" I asked with compassionate irritation (or irritated compassion ... it's a fine line.)

"Heat rash, I guess," he said.

He didn't look good, and he had those little red bumps that had begun to reveal themselves.

"OK," I answered. "Want me to finish the next three holes?"

He declined and we went to the doctor's office where the diagnosis of his pestilence was delivered with routine disinterest.

I don't recall much concern because getting the measles back then was like learning to parallel park – everybody had to cross that bridge, although usually younger than my brother.

Generally you missed a week of school to suffer and itch and whine until nature ran its course. Then they went away and you bounced back, ready for recess and your friends and hoping you could still remember how to do long division.

It was the same deal with chicken pox (which also itched) and mumps (which sort of hurt).

It seems I caught all three of these afflictions from my sister, who was one year younger and suffered a weakened resistance to communicable diseases, stray kittens and Huckleberry Hound cartoons.

It was the cartoons we both missed most because we were confined to a distant bedroom far from our only household TV.

It was all unpleasant, particularly for a youngster forced to endure childhood's Trifecta of Terror: illness, boredom and confinement with a disagreeable sibling.

My grandmother, who had barely survived the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918, would look in on us from time to time and bring us a glass of water. She would add ice cubes, if we asked.

Indulged patients, we would alternate our requests to break up the monotony.

We also kept trying to get her to move the living room TV into our room, but we knew that was impossible because the TV was big and blocky and outweighed our kitchen refrigerator.

So we itched. We endured. We survived.

We even remembered long division.

Huckleberry Hound should be so lucky.