Mr. Jack Didn't Mind Getting Sick!

      Did they have to call it swine flu? Good golly, that just sounds unwell! It certainly gives the pig world a bad name; and adds a whole new meaning to going "hog wild".        

      I have not actually seen or heard of any connection between this newest strain of influenza and its curly tailed, four legged namesake. Maybe this latest outbreak started in Swine, Texas or at the University of Arkansas. I missed the deadly Spanish flu that swept the world in 1918. And I somehow managed to duck the bird flu that flew by a decade ago. But don't think that I have gotten off scot free. 

           Our whole town got sick in 1960. Runny eyes, headaches, ringing ears, draining sinuses and violent vomiting were the order of the day. Red Melton allowed that the tractor and implement salesman from Paducah had brought the disease into town with him. Mr. Jack Guthrie argued it was one of them Yankee visitors that stayed at the old hotel. The consensus down at the City Café was that it had to do with the mosquitoes swarming up out of Jarrell Switch Bottom.  Dr. Holmes passed out a lot of aspirin and paregoric. Most folks drank sassafras tea or SSS tonic and sweated it out at home. A few of the more desperate souls put that awful smelling sulfur poultice thing around their necks.  Mr. Jack lived for three weeks on Wild Turkey and honey.  He was the happiest sick guy I've ever seen.    

           It got so bad that Y. D. Moore, our mayor, finally called in a health specialist from Memphis. We were hoping it was going to be some national epidemic that would be named after us. WHDM started a "name that disease" contest.   Phil Chandler came up with the "B. D. Flu". Bonnie Clayton thought it ought to have "McKenzie" in the title. Buddy Wiggleton insisted we call it the "Jarrell Switch Rot Gut Blight". Red drove all the way up to Paducah to get that salesman's name. 

           We got together over at Bo Booth's house and thought we ought to nominate our sickest guy to be kind of a spokesperson for the town when Walter Cronkite came to interview us. We certainly didn't want some well looking guy on t. v. explaining how devastated we were by this rare and contagious disease "that started right here in our midst". We had to pick someone with a workable knowledge of the English language and who contained a whit of elocution. We didn't want to sound like one of those tornado victims in Arkansas.  We eliminated Mary E. Pendleton right off. The town wasn't that sick!

           Johnny Stoker suggested Leon. "He talks a lot and he would look good on t.v." There wasn't no way! I knew Leon better than anyone. He'd call Mr. Cronkite "Walt" and ask him if "Jack and his daddy had enough money to beat Dick Nixon in the fall." Leon was a liability before we knew what the word meant! Susie Branon was my pick. She was the prettiest sick girl we had. And she was really smart. But she had about recovered. We needed to figure on when CBS would get here and be ready THEN. Someone was going to have to volunteer to stay sick until we could make our network debut.

We gave out an award for the highest temperature. Nobody could come up with a way to judge a vomit contest...but one thing was for sure. If we could just get Mr. Cronkite down here, we were fixing to show the world some reality t.v. they would not ever forget!     

      The health specialist poked around town for a week and a half. He wore rubber gloves and a mask. It was the first time I'd ever seen either. Leon said he looked like an alien! He spent a lot of time at the swimming pool and out at the city dump.  He never one time ventured down to Jarrell Switch Bottom. 

      Daddy figured he was taking his time because he was getting a steady diet of collards, corn bread and cherry pie from the boarding house. There could be some truth to that. I noticed that no matter how busy he seemed to be or how urgent his work, he always managed to be very close by when Mrs. Fletcher rang that bell!

      He actually lingered a mite too long. By the time he discovered the town's water supply had become tainted and was the cause of all the vomiting, he was sick himself. He didn't get out of bed for another week. They sent investigators up from Memphis looking for him. Leon reckoned "Them rubber gloves didn't do him much good."

      Mr. Luther Brewer took care of the water problem. And before school started in August everybody was back on their feet. You'd think we'd all been happy. Truth is, there was a little let down. Our town had a chance to become famous and we had blown it! At least, Walter Cronkite never showed up. Me and Nicky Joe Stafford figured it wasn't too late. If we could just get them mosquitoes out at Jarrell Switch stirred up. Or, if we knew what to sneak back into the water supply. Maybe we could contaminate the hamburger meat at the City Café..

      Or we could send Walt a picture of Mary E.; tell him it was a new strain of hoof and mouth disease. I bet he'd come a'running...

                Respectfully,

                       Kes