A lesson in living life to the fullest

On this day, June 23, Jonas Salk died in the year 1995. Salk is probably the greatest man I've ever personally met. It was a chance encounter. Salk, who pioneered the polio vaccine at the University of Pittsburgh -- my hometown, had returned in the 1980s to the city of his greatest achievement to make a speech. Dr. Salk had agreed to meet with the media before his remarks. I was at the time a reporter for a radio station and had hurried to Pitt that day with a sense of anticipation. Salk was a hero.

Being a child born in the late 1950s, I have only a dim reminiscence of how virulent a virus polio is. I say "is" because polio still exists around the world, although it has been largely eliminated in the United States. (Rotary International still identifies worldwide polio eradication as a goal.) There was a time when, if someone came down with polio, streets were blockaded and quarantine signs were hastily erected. Children were especially vulnerable. Polio scared people like few other things could. A historian once remarked: "Paralytic poliomyelitis (polio's formal name) was, if not the most serious, easily the most frightening public health problem of the postwar era." President Franklin Roosevelt lost the use of his legs due to polio. It left many others wheelchair-bound for life, if you were fortunate enough to survive, that is.

Dr. Salk did not hold a news conference. In an informal setting in a Pitt researcher's small office, the eminent physician sat behind a desk to speak with us; he was not in the best of health. He had come back to Pennsylvania to discuss his work on a vaccine for HIV, which was being conducted in La Jolla, Calif.

As Salk spoke with excitement about his research, I remember thinking: "How do you top inventing a vaccine that saved millions from the scourge of polio?" Salk managed to avoid the trap of Buzz Aldrin, the astronaut who experienced a deep depression after becoming the second man on the moon in 1969. For Aldrin, it seemed there were no greater mountains to climb. After you walk on the moon and you're an astronaut, what do you do next? After you invent something that stops polio in its tracks -- freeing generations from the terrors of a crippling virus, what impossible rock face do you attempt to best after that?

In his twilight years, Salk sought a new daunting challenge. In the 1980s, that was AIDS -- which was the late 20th century's worldwide killer, particularly in Africa. Today's treatments for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome often extend life -- sometimes for decades, as is the case with basketball's Magic Johnson. Perhaps Salk's work helped in some way; I'd certainly like to think so.

Having a challenge, something that seems just beyond your grasp, can be refreshing. The challenge can be with altruistic motives -- as it was for Salk, who refused to consider taking out a patent on his polio vaccine and decided to find a new Mount Everest. But a challenge can be more personal. Maybe the challenge for an alcoholic is to stay in daily touch with an accountability partner -- and to get to an AA meeting. Perhaps the challenge for a college student is to learn to manage time in a way that ensures all the work gets done. It might be the challenge for a senior is to stay healthy long enough to make it to a grandchild's wedding next year.

Challenges are invigorating. Salk found a new challenge after reaching the crest of a very high mountain back in 1955. Another hero of mine (and perhaps yours as well), Jesus of Nazareth, may have had challenges in mind when he said: "I came that you might have life -- and have it to the full."

Dr. Jeff Long is executive director of the Chateau Girardeau Foundation, a part-time faculty member at Southeast Missouri State University in religious studies, and a retired United Methodist pastor.