Jon was the middle son, and as he grew into a teenager he was a hellraiser. He came down with polio at a time when a “good” outcome was not ending up in an iron lung. His mother later said that she thought God had given Jon polio to slow him down and turn him away from his bad behavior.

Then Jonas Salk came along, and began testing his vaccine on young polio patients. The tests were blind, of course, but everyone knew he’d been given the vaccine and not a placebo. How else to explain the fact that his polio stopped progressing?

Stopped progressing, but not before it cost him the use of his right arm. But sent by God or not, it did turn Jon around. His brothers both became truck drivers, but he couldn’t because of his arm. He took over the family’s appliance repair business, back when appliances were meant to be repaired. He could fix just about anything that was fixable.

He got married and had two kids, owned a string of laundromats, and, like the rest of his family, seemed like a magnet for collecting junk. He finally sold the last of the laundromats and retired, but you wouldn’t know it. He still went there nearly every day, still fixing things and still collecting junk.

I’ll miss you Jon.

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  1. jamiek reblogged this from reagank and added:
    idea, obviously.
  2. reagank posted this

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