Geezer columnists throughout the country are writing “I was quarantined as a child” columns. Some details might be relevant, even useful, to today’s younger readers.

We have been told a lot about how to supposedly stay healthy during the lockdowns revolving around the COVID-19 coronavirus.

But it is an entirely different matter to be confined within a house after someone becomes actively sick.

The “Quarantined” sign went up on our front porch twice, as I recall. Once was yellow, for chicken pox. I had it. The other was orange or red, for the mumps. My father had that.

A Google search shows that today’s signs often say nothing about the specific disease or condition. Political correctness at work?

When I was quarantined, for about a week, Mom stayed inside with me — at a distance. Dad stayed nearby with his brother’s family, and visited daily, outside. He placed bread and other staples on the front porch (the milkman delivered milk in those days). He waved, and we shouted back and forth through the glass of my bedroom window.

When Dad was quarantined, I moved out, and stayed with another uncle’s family. I don’t know much about what he and Mom did during that time. I do recall that there was no joking around. In the 1940s, mumps in adults could be a killer.

When I was quarantined, I was not just restricted to being inside the house. I was stuck in my bedroom, period. For the first week, I could not even use the bathroom. I used what we euphemistically called a “chamber pot.” Look it up. Yuck.

On a stand outside my bedroom door was a bowl containing a Clorox bleach and water solution. I will always remember the smell. Mom washed her hands in it whenever she gave me something or picked up something from me, empty plates, etc. I had to do the same.

My bedroom door was not closed. Instead, Mom hung damp sheets there, changed daily. The idea was to trap any “germs.” Maybe, pre-air conditioning, it helped to cool things, too. It was not until I got older that I learned to distinguish between “bacteria” and “viruses.” Mom shook Clorox/water solution onto the sheets by using a Coca-Cola bottle equipped with the cork-bottomed sprinkler head we used in those days to dampen laundry before ironing. Today, we have spray bottles if needed.

I was luckier than most other quarantined kids my age. Dad, a sports junkie, had bought three or four plug-in radios. I could keep one in my room and listen to the programming. The news did not matter much to me back then, but I did like the songs. Television? Nope. Not in those days.

For the first few days, boredom was not a problem. I was sick, throwing-up sick, feverish sick. Mom slid a bucket of warm water into the room for me to give myself a “sponge bath” every day, using a washcloth, not a sponge.

I do remember feeling joyous when I was allowed to use the bathroom again, though it was another few days before the quarantine was lifted.

I want to say that my quarantine lasted for two weeks, but since I was about eight years old, my hazy memory might be imperfect.

Today, I have difficulty imagining how my preschooler grandchildren and great-grandchildren would cope with being confined like that.

Back then, there was no whining. We were dealing with life-and-death situations. Measles, mumps, chicken pox, scarlet fever and polio were killers, or could lead to complications. If Dad could not work, we could not eat, unless extended family or neighbors helped out — and since those diseases usually swept through neighborhoods, most families had their own quarantines to follow. Without being told more than once, we knew to shut up and bear up, or get smacked by parents who were themselves stressed out. Different times, I guess.

At age 10, I had a quasi-quarantine experience from complications of a ruptured appendix, including three months out of school. Reading was my lifesaver. Dad bought the 22-volume World Book Encyclopedia. I read it from A to Z, even reading the last volume, a bibliography and appendix.

Does all this sound grim?

It was.

Quarantines are.

Prison inmates say that long-term solitary confinement is dehumanizing. That’s a big word for “driving us crazy.”

We are social animals.

Happily, today, we have technology. Last week, I saw three of my six children, literally: Skype or Face Time using our smartphones. Facebook and text messages keep us virtually connected despite the physical isolation.

Back in my childhood, I could not use the telephone for fear of spreading germs. Mom would holler upstairs that one or another grandmother said “Ciao!” or that an uncle said hello.

The good news is that I survived. Most of us will survive this lockdown, though inevitably our country, our economy, our wealth or lack thereof and the rest of our lives will be changed.

The bad news? Segregation, by any name (lockdown, quarantine, shelter in place, social distancing) is bad.

The alternative is worse.

¯¯¯

Denny Bonavita is a former editor at newspapers in DuBois and Warren. He lives near Brookville. Email: denny2319@windstream.net.