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You all become authorities on everything.

We do when we spend a great deal of time and effort educating ourselves, yes.

First, no museum guide would ever say....

That's right, they wouldn't (not counting the "Creationist Museums", which misrepresent actual science). Newsgatherer was fabricating false stories.

now you are saying that you know what every scientist and doctor in the country was saying about polio.

That's not what he said, try reading it again.

And no....my recollection is not a false memory. We DID have to stay indoors and not go out.

Because Polio is contagious. Duh. When you stay indoors, you avoid other people who may transmit it to you.

There was a fear in the country of this very thing.

Fear of leaving the house when Polio was rampant. Sure. But not for the reason you claimed in your earlier post. Please support your claim that "scientists" within your lifetime stated that "polio comes out of the ground". Feel free to cite any historical book, document, or other contemporaneous account you choose.

I strongly suspect that you're either misremembering, or you (or your mother) had original misheard/misunderstood, doctors using the euphemism of "soil" for "feces". (As in the phrase, "to soil yourself".) This euphemism was even more common half a century ago, which would make it a likely expression back in your youth, when doctors would have (correctly) warned people to avoid "soiled" items (including baby diapers) and other sources of fecal contamination, since that's the primary means by which polio is transmitted.

You or your mother may well have misunderstood a warning about Polio being found in "soil" (i.e. feces) as meaning in "dirt" (i.e. "in the ground").

Or, in areas without modern flush toilets, doctors may indeed have warned (correctly) that the ground and/or groundwater may be contaminated with infected fecal material. If so, this is hardly a good example for you to use to try to ridicule scientists, since that would have been (and still remains) *valid* advice.