Bubba soldiers on

I’m just sittin’ here listenin’ to the sewing machine click and grind.” I’d called to ask Bubba McCoy how he was negotiating the virus. I could hear the racket in the background.

“She’s been in there sewin’ for days.”

That would be Bubba’s heroic wife of 50 years come June. “Mrs. Bubba,” which sadly is all I’ve ever called her, has restricted his diet, kept him in church and counseled him gently in matters of conscience.

Now she’s making colorful state-ofthe-art cloth coronavirus masks and leaving them in a box on the porch for friends—anyone, really—to come get. She is emerging as the facial fashion designer for the county, not to mention the chief public health protector.

“These masks have got these two long sets of ties, at the top and bottom, but I have to get her to help me with mine,” Bubba said. Why is that? “Tying it behind my head or slipping it over my head — either one’s a problem.

“For one thing, I’ve got a big head. And you remember I had that rotator cuff that the doctor over in Little Rock wanted to cut on. I went on the Internet and saw a film on it. It looked to me like the doctor had a machete and a jackhammer, and they had this plastic screen set up that blood was spurtin’ on. And then I read I’d have to sleep sittin’ up in the recliner for weeks after the surgery.

“I decided it wasn’t hurtin’ that bad. “It turns out you can sell cars and watch TV without ever reaching around behind or up over your head. So I’ve managed to maintain a full life.

“I can pull a T-shirt over my head.

But a pullover sweater with those arms … I gave all mine away.”

Speaking of watching television, Bubba told me he lost four days of self-isolation to binge-watching five seasons of Friday Night Lights on one of those streaming things his granddaughter set up for him.

“I don’t know how I missed it before,” he said. “It’s a hell of a show. And they roll one episode right into the other. You don’t have to move. I sat there day after day in my PJs growing stubble and talking myself out of getting up to go the bathroom.”

And how is he passing the time otherwise?

“Some days I find chores to do around here, and that’s good. I went crappie fishing again, and I’m goin’ again tomorrow. I’ll call you if I catch enough to fillet you a few pieces, if you want. [I did.]

“Some days I just sit here tryin’ not to pull all 17 of my hairs out, not that I could reach up and do it. And some days I just can’t take it and I get her to put that mask on me and I go to the car lot and sit. Then I breeze by the grocery store or the hardware to pick up something I don’t need.

“If you come over for some crappie, I’ll give you some tinfoil, too. I’ve got about a dozen rolls. I buy one whenever I can’t think of anything else. And you need to get one of these masks. I’m gonna yell in there after I hang up and tell her to sew MAGA on one for you.”

Speaking of that: Had Bubba been watching his president’s lateafternoon briefings?

“Not if I can help it. I’m gonna tell you something: As sick as I think Trump is making you, I’m finding myself feeling the same way about those smart-aleck reporters.

“And that little Dr. Fusco or whatever his name is [it’s Fauci] got right back in their faces the other day — didn’t he? — when one of them asked if Trump had made him say what he said.

“Let me ask you something: When did it get all right to sass the president of the United States?”

I said it must have happened when they wrote the Bill of Rights. But I said it came to the fore when we elected this preposterous second-place Russia-endorsed abomination.

“You need to get off that preposterous business,” Bubba advised. “I’m not sure the same ol’ same ol’ whining is a good look for you.”

Speaking of bad looks for me, I wrote incorrectly Thursday that the Wisconsin Supreme Court had gone from 4-3 the Republican way to 4-3 the Democratic way. It has gone from 5-2 Republican to 4-3 Republican.

The entire column was premised on a factual error.

In my mild defense, I would point out that a couple of recent key votes limiting the Democratic governor’s powers have gone 4-3, and that the one-vote swing from the recent election remains potentially pivotal.

But the short version is that I erred and am embarrassed and apologize, with a vow to do better.