Nana Biography

So they tried to scare you, and this reinforced my faith.  I’m not a Christian Scientist, I’m not a mind healer, I don’t believe in any of that. If you’ve got a broken leg, fix it, but there’s something about attitude that I really do believe in, and I think that’s, I think it’s proved out with all three boys, and as I say, they never went to the doctor, never took them to one, Leonard was 10 before he went for his first appointment with the doctor, he was a very healthy child, all three of them, maybe I was lucky, a lot of them said “you were lucky. They didn’t have this and they didn’t have that“. And I said "I think they did have this and that. They all had mumps, they all had chickenpox, they all had everything", and I said, “what does the doctor do in those days? There were no shots for measles and chickenpox and stuff –. I said, “what does the doctor do that you can’t do yourself at home? “I said, I had the measles and they kept me in bed and gave me orange juice or whatever. 

So I was sensible, I stayed quiet at home, I didn’t let them go play with people, and I said, “look at all the money I saved“ (laughs).  “So when I finally took Lenny – did I tell you about taking him to the doctor for his first – well, I was divorced, and I decided that I could no longer rely on just calling up a practitioner, and you know I did call practitioners for the children once in a while when they were sick, so, we changed Sunday schools, I told you about that, and I decided that I’d better take them down and have a physical exam. Len would be the first, and then I would take Sam and the other one, so Leonard, I explained to him that the doctor would Undress him, and probably look at everything, including his little penis, and up his back and tap him and do a lot of things, and I said, “ it won’t hurt you, it just kind of find out if you’re in good shape “. Well, I went to Dr. Burt Davis, did you ever hear of him here? He was wonderful. And he began asking me what shots he had, and I said he’d never had any shots (laughs).  He asked me who he had gone to before, and I said this was his first trip to a doctor.

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