Like Reloder, I had an uncle who contracted polio and survived well into his 80s. His legs were pretty useless, but his arms and chest were so powerful he could hold himself out horizontal from a post. He worked a full career as a mailman, even though he couldn't get out of his truck. Helluva guy. I miss him tremendously.
Polio, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, mumps, and even the occasional case of cholera were very much around and on people's minds in the 50s. It was a rosy, golden era - in nostalgia. If you lived it, not so much.
