Opinion: Vaccinations are so important

Just when it looked like the COVID-19 Pandemic might be coming to an end, it got worse. First the Delta variant and now the Omicron has sent us all back for booster shots to go with our vaccinations.

I have a hard time wrapping my mind around people in the anti-vax movement.

One of the really great things about America is the right to make our own decisions in regards to healthcare, childbearing and other aspects of our personal lives.

It’s hard to imagine churches that are opposed to getting a COVID-19 vaccination. Some are opposed to any medical treatment. How can they not realize that it is God who has allowed medicine to advance through the ages and a vaccine to be developed?

I remember standing in line for hours waiting for a polio vaccine. We first got the shots (terrifying for a little kid) and then the sugar cube, which was more like a treat.

I can still visualize a little girl in line in front of us. She had these tiny little arms and she was screaming her head off. The needles looked so big I was sure it was going to punch all the way through her arm. That must have been fairly traumatic if I still recall it 60 plus years later.

To this day I prefer to get shots in the hip instead of the arm. Unfortunately, they won’t let you “drop trou’,” at a public clinic, which I realize is a very good thing.

My oldest brother Rocky Hill had polio so the threat of the dreaded disease was very real. My husband also had polio as a child.

In school we learned the polio vaccines were developed by Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin. The way I remembered which was which, Sabin and sugar cube, both had a B in it. A couple other mnemonics I used are old favorites. To spell geography remember “George Elliot’s Old Grandpa Rode A Pig Home Yesterday.” For Arithmetic It Is “A Rat In Tommy’s House Might Eat Tommy’s Ice Cream.” A second, less politically correct version is “A Red Indian Thought He Might Eat Turkey In Church.”

I’m sure there must be others, but those are the only two I ever learned.

Anyone who knows of others, please send them to me at the email address below.

Long days and pleasant nights, have a blessed weekend.

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Readers may contact Tami Jo Nix by emailing tamijonix@gmail.com or following @TamiJoNix on Twitter.