Bill and Bob, Where Did You Come From (LaFond, Gehring, Imes ...

water and repeatedly went in the water and rested on
the sandy beech. I became exhausted. The next day
I was sick and could not move my right arm. The
local doctors could not diagnose the problem and finally
sent me to the U.C. Hospital in San Francisco. Here my
ailment was diagnosed as poliomyelitis and they prescibed
electrical treatments and massage three times per
week. It was a long trip to San Francisco for my mother
and me. My right arm was also put in a metal and canvas
brace which held it out horizontally from the shoulder.
It was an awkward contraption, with my elbow jutting
partly forward and bent so my hand was in front. These
treatments were continued as long as we were in Berkeley
but when we moved to Imperial Beach the second
time (1923) there were no medical facilities and besides
there was little sign of improvement. The brace, too,
was soon outgrown and discarded. The permanent weakness
to my arm persisted but made I ittle difference in
most of my activities and future life, although it prevented
me from participating in school athletics and other
physical activities requiring the use of my right arm.
Imperial Beach
My grandfather was having trouble with the chicken
ranch and thus my father quit his job and we all moved
to Imperial Beach. I throughly enjoyed my boyhood
growing up on the farm. I ran barefoot during the
summers in bibbed overalls. I did have some light chores
but it was mostly play. I sometime helped with the
chickens, feeding them a ri1 ixture of grains (corn, wheat
and milomaize) and a mash of ground grains. Other
chores included cutting up alfalfa and kale, grinding
shells, cleaning the chicken houses, gathering eggs.
cleaning those that needed it with steelwool, candling
them and packing them in 30-dozen crates. I helped
shock barley hay which grew well during rainy years,
but poorly in other years. When we raised celery, I
folded newspapers, sewed them in loops and wrapped
the growing plants to bleach the stocks, for only
bleached celery was acceptable at that time. We had a
manual washing machine which agitated the clothes by a
push-pull handle. It was my chore once a week to
help operate the washer and hand wringer. But most of
my boyhood was devoted to playing -- climbing the
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