Scientists

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• When Jonas Salk, working with many other scientists, developed a vaccine for polio, they first tested it on animals. It then needed to be tested on human beings, including children, who were the most likely to contract the disease. Of course, children can be very afraid of getting a shot, and some of the children participating in the study started crying. William Kirkpatrick, who worked at the D.T. Watson Home near Pittsburgh, a home for children with disabilities, volunteered to get the first shot of vaccine so that he could show the children that getting the shot did not hurt. On July 2, 1952, he became the very first person to be inoculated with the polio vaccine developed by Dr. Salk and others.

By the way, Dr. Salk did not want the vaccine to be named after him. He thought that a better name would be the Pitt vaccine because he had started working on the vaccine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School. Of course, people were grateful that a vaccine to stop the deadly disease polio had been developed. A merchant in Hohokus, New Jersey, painted the words “THANK YOU, Dr. Salk” on his shop window. Teachers had their young students write thank-you letters to Dr. Salk. (Actually, the fame that came to Dr. Salk was a bit much. When he became engaged to Françoise Gilot, the media annoyed them. To protect their privacy, they announced that they would be married on a certain day, but they actually got married the day before the announced date.) Albert Sabin later developed another polio vaccine that supplanted the Salk vaccine. Humanity is deeply grateful to both men.

Dear Harlan: I am a freshman girl in high school. I always thought I would be one of those girls who all through high school would not have a boyfriend and never get a date. Now, less than two months into the school year, I am dating a junior whom I really like. We have many of the same interests and have pretty much the same friends. And that's a problem. One of our friends, who is a senior, all of a sudden likes this guy, too. I am majorly upset about this, mainly because the other girl's crush came out of nowhere. It's really nobody's business who I date. But I'm tired of looking like the bad guy when I didn't do anything. What do you think of this? — Not Feeling Like Juliet

Disney it ain’t.

I think you know what I mean: all those lovely Walt Disney cartoon movies, in which the birds flutter lovingly around the sky, and the fawns gambol in the meadows, the butterflies flit about like ballerinas, and the ever-so-cute bunnies and squirrels and chipmunks scurry — the word probably was invented to describe cartoon rodents and lagomorphs — nearby.

I'm 39, and married four years to a woman I dated for two. She's the mother of my two stepchildren, 13 and 16. The problem is, I may be in love with a girl from high school, the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. I've always felt she was the one I was meant to be with. She was popular, and, well, I was not. Still, I can't honestly say that if I'd asked her out, she'd have said no. I wrote her love letters and sent roses on her birthday, which she called to thank me for. Over the years, I haven't stopped thinking about her, and dream about her frequently. At my high school reunion, I heard she's single. She's my Facebook friend, and I wanted to say hi, but she's never on. Yesterday, my dream about her was so emotional that I nearly woke up in tears. I love my wife, but she's more like my best friend. Should I let this affect my marriage? Could I, should I, pursue the woman of my dreams? — Pining

Free Speech

• Paul Zindel’s books for young adults have often been censored or challenged by would-be censors. Mr. Zindel responded by keeping track of the ideas of the people he calls the CensorKooks. For example, one woman in Pennsylvania wanted to censor the word green in all school textbooks. Why? Green is the color of the Devil. In Cincinnati, a man wanted all vowels to be censored from all library books. Why? “If you can’t say it, you can’t do it.” Mr. Zindel once heard a would-be censor on a talk show scream, “And what are they teaching in our schools? They are teaching ‘Catcher in the Rye’! ‘The Pigman’! And ‘Lord of the Flies’! — three of the filthiest books ever written!” The would-be censor might have been better able to present his case if he had actually read these books — or he might have decided that these books didn’t need to be censored.