The day has just about ended and I almost let this post slip away from me. I was already in my movie watching mode when it came to me that I hadn’t written a post yet. So here it is.
I m feeling a bit punk today because I let myself get some sunburn. The first burn of the year always causes me some displeasure. I actually had to put on my fleece jacket to stay warm. Not that the temperature is high, but the burn makes me feel cold.
People are really beginning to come out of their caves to participate in life again. Car traffic is definitely picking up, and there are more people in the stores. Tomorrow, I have to visit the grocery store to pick up essentials. I have worked down my stockpile of food to the point where I am scratching components to cook.
The bike path is now crowded during the week. With everyone home from work they get out to walk and ride often. Before COVID-19 it was only on Saturday and Sunday that the path was crowded. I waited until after supper to take a walk, and there were still many people doing the same. I reminded myself that it is Tuesday and that my bike club always took rides together on Tuesdays. The jocks rode in one group and the easy riders in another. I was always with the easy riders. We called ourselves the Turtles. Some riders can maintain 18-20 mph at a steady pace, but my average was and is still in the 12-14 mph range. It is no fun riding with people that leave you in the dust. So I rode with people who I could leave in the dust. Except, I adjusted my speed down to stay with the fun group. The fast group took a route on regular roads and completed twenty miles in an hour and twenty minutes. The Turtles stayed on the bike path and completed the same miles but it took a lot longer, plus we stopped for ice cream while the jocks didn’t stop for anything.
After spending two hours in the garden this morning transplanting and splitting Stella Dora Lilly’s I was consumed and could not do much the remainder of the afternoon. I took a shower and watched videos on Youtube, mostly comedy. Some of the better ones were of the Johnny Carson Show when he had Richard Prior, and George Carlin on at the same time. Their monologues were okay, but the banter between them on the couch was hilarious.
Tuesday is also the day my friends meet for a couple of hours to have a drink and friendly conversation. Normally, we met at the Stray Bar but it is closed, so we’ve been meeting virtually on Zoom. It is not the same as being with someone in person. We are unanimous in our anticipation of the state reopening next Friday. It won’t be a normal opening, but it will be better than the SIP.
I just read a piece about the various epidemics we have been through and how several of them had death tolls of 100,000 with a hundred million fewer people in the country. Yet, the country was never shut down. Now that COVID-19 is being defined and examined for what its is, the Monday Morning Quarterbacks are all jumping on the pile to cry “we didn’t need to shut down.” That is easy to say now that the facts are known. Where were these same people in February when it all began and nothing was known? I’ll tell you where they were. They were panicking because they didn’t have enough ventilators, or hospital beds, or personal protective gear. It is all we heard for six weeks. Democrats in particular complained heavily, no I must rephrase that from complained to sobbed dramatically. They didn’t know how to take action until the President showed them things could get done quickly, and he put their fears at ease. After the equipment shortages were taken care of the same people cried about not having testing. That too, was solved in a relative short time, but not by Democrats. after the testing was no longer a crying matter they switched to “we need a vaccine.” That one will take a while. I remember while I was working and I came to my toolmakers with a dicey problem with a ridiculously short timetable they would shake their heads and tell me, “look, the impossible we can do in a short time, but miracles take awhile.” Ninety percent of the time we figured out how to get the job done.
There is no question that COVID-19 will go down in history as a game changer for the world. We will all have to change the way we do things and the way we do business, and the way we treat people. It’ll be fun.
Filed under: Biography, family, Government, health care | Tagged: Covid-19, Hind-Sight | Leave a comment »
