Editor’s note: This is another column in Bill Boyd’s new series, “The Way It Was,” about growing up in Marysville. Bill continues to work with the Union County Historical Society to obtain information for his stories.
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It was sometime in early November of 2020, when I realized that I had neglected to get my annual flu shot. I usually got it in September, so a few days later, a friend took me to one of those “drive-thru” clinics that were set up to give flu shots during the Covid thing. I figured they would be mobbed with people, and I was prepared to wait quite a while.
Boy was I surprised. That place was really well organized. They had three or four nurses who were giving shots in the parking lot. I didn’t even have to get out of the car. And we were in and out of the drive-thru clinic in less time then it would take to get a couple of sliders at a White Castle drive-thru.
Best of all, of course, I didn’t feel a thing, both during and after the shot. They have made a great deal of progress in flu shots since they were introduced in the late 1940s. They were anything but painless then.
I got my first flu shot in January of 1951, when I was in basic training in the Air Force. They marched my whole flight group over to the base hospital, where we would get the shot. Before entering the building, however, they asked anyone who was allergic to eggs to raise a hand. Two or three boys put up a hand, and they pulled those guys out of our ranks, and they didn’t get the shot. I think those early flu shots used a lot of egg whites in their formulation. So those two or three guys were excused.
The rest of us filed into the hospital to get our shot. Oh man, did those early flu shots hurt. To give you some idea, our barracks chief, Sergeant Pudlik, got his shot with us. He was a big guy, tough as nails, and a tackle on the base football team. But when he came out of that room, there were tears running down his cheek. And he had a sore arm that bothered him so much, he would wince when he saluted for the next day or so.
Now fast forward about nine months or so, to sometime in early fall of that same year. I was still a student in the Training Command, and it was time to get flu shots for the next flu season. A bunch of us talked it over, and we decided that if they ask about egg allergies again, we would raise our hand to avoid getting that painful shot. We would rather get the flu than get the shot.
A few days later, they marched us to the hospital. And once again, they asked anyone who was allergic to eggs to raise a hand. Oh man, you wouldn’t believe how many hands went up. It wasn’t just my group of friends. It was at least half of our Flight, maybe 40 or 50 guys.
They told everyone who had raised a hand to step out and make a new formation. When that was done, they marched all the guys who didn’t raise a hand Into the hospital to get their shots. Our group just stood there in formation as we watched those poor guys come out the door holding their arms.
Then we waited for them to march our group back to the barracks, but they didn’t do that. Instead, they lined us up in front of the hospital door. You see, in the past few months, they had developed a new shot they were testing for people with egg allergies. We got the regular flu shot, and then we got a second shot, to deal with the allergy problem.
Can you believe that? They gave us two shots, one in each arm. One was that same painful flu shot, and the other was a new shot to counteract the allergy to eggs. The next day we all had not one but two sore arms. I still think I would rather have gotten the flu.
Those wishing to contact Bill Boyd can e-mail him at williamboyd514@gmail.com