My doctor book says that Chicken Pox is a common, mild infectious disease of childhood. It also says that it is a rare disease in adults. That's what it says. The virus is spread from person to person by airborne droplets. Patients are highly infectious from about two days before the rash appears until about a week later. The rash consists of a mass of small, red, itchy spots that become fluid-filled blisters ina short time. After a few days, the blisters dry out and become scabs. That is, if you don't scratch them. Then you have a real mess. Allow me to describe what happened at our house.

This was back in the late forties. My little sister complained that she wasn't feeling well. She had a rash that itched like crazy. I asked my husband to check out the rash to try to figure out what it could be.. Back in the day, parents wanted their children to have the usual childhood diseases to get them out of the way. For instance, an episode of chicken pox would race through our one room schoolhouse and that would be it. No need to worry about chicken pox for a while.

She had a rash on her chest and under her arms. "Yup," he said. "She has the chicken pox." That meant she would stay home until she recovered. No problem. That's the way things went back then. We didn't bother going to the doctor for such a minor thing. However, the problem didn't end there. It did for my sister but not for my husband.

About two weeks later, he developed a terrible itch. Then he broke out in a rash of small red spots from his waist down to and including his feet. Waist up, he was fine. It was so bad that he couldn't go to work. After all, he was a delivery person for a local lumber yard. He didn't go to the doctor, either. We knew he had the chicken pox. I felt sorry for him. He itched like crazy. Adding to that, he couldn't keep down any food. Nothing agreed with him. Wait a minute. He could keep down an ice cold beer. My father would sit with him all day, consoling him in his misery and enjoy ice cold beer together, many ice cold beers.

This wouldn't last long, I figured. As soon as the blisters scabbed over, he could eat solid food again and go back to work. Wrong! When the blisters scabbed over from his waist down, the red itchy spots appeared from his waist up. You couldn't lay a finger anywhere without touching a blister. His hair was matted with them. Words can't describe what a mess he was in. He oozed everywhere, but only from the waist up.

When he could take no more, even with the help of ice cold beer, he asked me to cut off all his hair My husband had had a head of thick beautiful wavy black hair, but never again. First, I took shears and cut as closely to his scalp as I dared. Then, after shampooing his head of chopped hair, I took the clippers, without an attachment and buzzed off the rest of it. He looked terrible but felt better.

When all the scabs disappeared and his appetite returned, that was the end of his beer drinking therapy. Back at the lumber yard, the fellows didn't believe a word of only being able to keep down beer. With years of hindsight, I am wondering, too. Would both my husband and my father lie to me?