School Shots

I remember that day, it was always an exciting but also a little scary. We had to awake early and eat breakfast; really only time other than Saturday and Sunday my mom would cook a big breakfast. Those were my younger days when I sported an afro and ma duke would put that sulfur 8 in my hair and pick it out real clean and nice. Then put he Vaseline all over me because I had that bad dry skin (what I know now as eczema). It was me, my mom, and my sister(my pops was in the U.S. Army so he was not there at the time). We would get on the city bus for a trip I enjoyed but my sister hated. I would look out the window and play a game that was really simple. Don‘t know the name of it but I do know we would name a color and as we looked out the window, if that color car came by then that car would be ours (In our imagination). I always picked red back then because most corvettes, camaros, and chevelles were red. It seemed like a forever ride to me but we were just going downtown; in which the city bus route might have been 30 minutes at the most. Once we got to the bus terminal downtown we would walk another ten minutes to the clinic which was right in front of the hospital.

The thing is I really was excited about this day but my sister; well you could see it in her eyes. She was always nervous about this day. She didn't say much and anything I did irritated her which was all the time but these particular trips were even worse. Her favorite words were STOP IT! This day I didn't pay no neve mind as I knew she was being extra just because of her nerves and fear. For her it was like awaiting on my mom or dad to get home after she had done something at school or on the bus that she knew my parents wouldn‘t approve of and she knew they had found out. She sat on the couch nervous just awaiting on the gauntlet of fire of a switch she may have to go get herself or the belt my pops took off as he walked it the house. I sort of felt for her but then again I thought it was funny. But the way she acted when we got to the clinic was sort of embarrassing. She started to cry the minute we walked in. My mom would always let me go first as she had to go in with my sister to hold her down. I would go in and pop, pop, pop it was over and I would get my piece of candy and a nice band-aid for a badge of honor. Then my sister! Well it was totally different, they would go in the back and my mom almost had to drag her. It got to a point where my sister would end up getting a quick whipping (ma duke would whip your ass in front of the police back in those days) Then you hear a quick scream and a couple of mumbled grunts and then another yell.

She would come out first with her band-aid on and a piece of candy but both her, my mom would come out with curls shaken and the doctors toupee would be about to fall off.

Dam all that to get the vaccines to go to school. That was the story every year. Parents fought to ensure we had what they thought was the best medical available. Now look at us!

Ironic ain't it? But I bet you still take your children to get their annual shots!