Through the past brightly
So this is the new year
And I have no resolutions
For self assigned penance
For problems with easy solutions
So everybody put your best suit or dress on
Let’s make believe that we are wealthy for just this once
Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn . . .
— Death Cab For Cutie from
“The New Year”
This is New Year’s Day. For me. I received my first injection of the Moderna vaccine this afternoon. Yippee-kiyay. Huzzah for Science. I was warned I might feel a little sore and lethargic. This was good news because a little sore and lethargic is pretty much my normal state of existence.
I’ll be needing a booster in 28 days of course. Even so, I feel I can finally resign 2020 to the rearview mirror. It was a year gripped by a brutal, insensate plague upon the land. The pandemic was a bummer too.
Happily, Lyin’ Donald Trump, was beaten like a gong by the 81 million Americans who hadn’t swallowed the orange Kool-aid and, like the monstrous spider, Shelob, from “Lord of the Rings,” he hauled his bloated carcass, down to his lair. Mara-lairgo. Hah! That was too easy.
COVID-19 has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, even the poor schmucks who believed it was a hoax. “I ain’t wearin’ no mask.” I honestly don’t recall people being this stunningly pigignorant 40 years ago.
“I ain’t takin’ no vaccine.” Really? Because if you think it will mess up your brain, I’m pretty sure that train has left the station I’d take the vaccine if they shot it into my eyeball. So you pandemic-denyers and anti-vaxers, let me know when you build a helicopter that flies on Mars and maybe you’ll get my attention. In the meantime, my money’s on Science.
If I seem unduly harsh here, let me remind you that over 500,000 men, women and children have been killed by this virus in the space of a year in this country. By comparison, the Spanish Flu of 1968-69, which the skeptics constantly bring up, killed 33,000 and after 7 months. had largely dissipated.
Conspiracy theories abound. My favorite, which I even heard from my Trumpy nextdoor neighbor, an EMT, maintains that any death from any cause is reported as COVID by hospitals in order to get more money from . . . somewhere. This is, of course, patently absurd. If anything, COVID cases are probably underreported by as much as 20%.
We’re never going to be able to return to any semblance of normalcy unless everybody plays by the rules. Thanks to the lies perpetrated by the Child-king, millions of misled Americans came to believe that masks were for sissies or worse, that the pandemic was a Left-wing hoax. I’ve heard reputable reports of COVID-19 victims denying with their last gasping breath that it was not coronavirus that was killing them. Man, that’s some offthe-hook Trumpism.
I live in a small town. Our local supermarket has large signs at both entrances stating that masks are required and will gladly supply them. 99% of the folks I encounter there are in compliance but there’s always one or two camo-clad, smug-faced “rebels” not wearing masks. “I’m not going to live in fear, by God.” In stupidity maybe. If I carried a taser . .
Enough lecturing. This next section is purely for the edification of my non-michigander (yes, it’s not “Michiganian”) readers. The rest of you, feel free to follow along. Here’s pretty much everything I know about Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The UP. Yooperland.
Although I’ve lived in Michigan on and off for the past 55 years, I’ve only been in the UP four times and never for long. Once on the return leg of a motorcycle trip, with a camp flashlight bungee’d to my moribund headlight, once on the return leg of my honeymoon after signing over all our Travelers’ Check to the Nazi Justice of the Peace in Lincoln County, Montana, once for a great time with my brother-in-law at his deercamp near Escanaba and once at a family gathering on Drummond Island that I don’t feel like talking about. I’m not counting just crossing the bridge to St. Ignace
Holy wah! My vaccinated arm is getting sore. We’ll save the Yoopers for next week.
And so it went.