Where Have You Gone, Ozzie and Harriet?

I woke up this morning like I do all mornings and that is a good thing. Today was different. Diane gave me a nudge and asked how I was feeling? I instinctively said “Fine” but then she pressed the issue saying she was waking up with a sense of ennui and wondered if I was experiencing anything like that. It dawned on me, I was. We aren’t sick, we have a pension (at least for now), the kids and grandkids are handling things, it’s summer, so what’s up? I’ll tell you what’s up. I wouldn’t attempt to define it but we have some sort of mental fatigue. We are both exasperated by our own Bill Murray “Ground Hog Day” existence.

The first blog that touched on the virus was posted in March sometime, then another entry a month later, then three weeks after that, and so forth for the past four months. It has been 120 days and in every entry I found a way to look for that silver lining but today, I just can’t see it. With the exception of a couple of states of which Illinois is fortunately one, Covid-19 is winning. Sure, deaths may be down but numbers of positive cases continue to rise dramatically throughout the Sunbelt and West Coast. We feel pretty safe here in Macomb, but then all we old folks are just one “non-masker” away from potential death.

Diane and some women from our old neighborhood have a Zoom get together each week. Less than a month ago, one of the friends recounted that a 73-year old woman who is not overweight, exercises regularly, doesn’t smoke, takes no prescription meds, eats right, and basically practices a healthy lifestyle had just tested positive for Covid. The next week, we got an update about her friend. The lady stayed at home for 5 days but her breathing became labored. On the 6th day, she entered the hospital for some oxygen treatment. After 24 hours, she had to be put on a ventilator—12 days later—she died. Unfortunately, she had gone to a family gathering of about 20 people held outside with no one wearing a mask and got the virus. Now she’s dead. That’s me, that’s you, that’s any of us in the Fourth Quarter. I just don’t get it.

I don’t want to get political and will do my best not to do so here, but I just want someone, anyone, to lead us out of this crisis before the pandemic steals more of our lives from us than it already has. ZOOM and FaceTime are terrific, but we need to be with our loved ones and not just see them on the screen. Every day that passes puts us closer to the finish line and this is not how I want to spend my time before I have no more time to spend.

So far, I have interviewed four highly-respected doctors and asked each of them, how do we stop the spread of 19? All of them had the same response. “The one thing we can all do is utilize social distancing and wear a mask.” Will this eliminate the virus? No, but it will stop it in its tracks until a vaccine is available. Would anyone choose to have a doctor perform surgery on them who is not wearing a mask? Of course not.

Can’t the President just mandate that we wear masks? I know it is unenforceable but it would send a message. I don’t like to wear mine; the doctors told me they don’t either but they have to–we all have to. Let’s be considerate of others. It is not a sign of weakness or even a violation of our First Amendment Rights. It’s just a temporary inconvenience to show consideration of others.

People didn’t like seat belts but now we don’t give it a second thought. Smoking is prohibited in public places, and we seem to be doing just fine with it. So wear the damn mask when you enter a building. Don’t do it for yourself but do it for others. At the federal level, and there is plenty of miscreant behavior on both sides of the proverbial aisle, figure out what needs to be done and as Nike says, “Just do it!” Surely as a nation, we can figure this out.

My parents were wonderful people. I love them to this day but their four sons were raised in a small three-bedroom house where Doc and Connie, between them, smoked 5-6 packs of Phillip Morris Commanders and Parliaments a day. All four sons suffered respiratory issues in part due to secondary smoke for the 18 years that each of us grew up in that house. Smoking was cool back then but science has taught us irrefutably that it kills people. Not wearing a mask is the same.

Walmart just got it right–no mask, no entry. I grew up on Ozzie and Harriet. David and Ricky were such nice boys, just like my brothers and me. It was the 50s and we pretty much did what our parents told us to do. Like the Nelson boys and kids on Father Knows Best, we respected our parents and really didn’t want to disappoint them. What’s going on today? I find myself not angry at young people but rather disappointed. To the ones I see on tv I can only say the level of arrogance and complacency they display for my generation is sad to see, very sad. It’s like cigarettes. The proof is undeniable, they kill you. Not maintaining social distancing is the same. It won’t kill YOU, but it might kill Mom and Dad or Grandma and Grandpa when you give the virus to them.

If we all “did the right thing” for a month or six weeks, we could get control of this horrible plague. We were “on our way” and then politics got in the way and we opened up the economy too soon. Today we are on the downward slope; whereas, if we had been prudent and cautious like a certain Dr. with a capital F suggested, we would be ready to open our schools and stores and restaurants and bars and salons and all the rest. But no, they worried about getting reelected and now the economy will suffer another tailspin. Please, someone who matters, speak truth to power until there are so many of you that truth prevails. Please, I don’t want to lose any more days, months, or years of my life to a stupid but deadly virus.

I remain confident that the day will come when all this is just an awful memory. We survived the Spanish Flu of 1918 which of course was not Spanish at all and we will survive this too. I just want it to be sooner rather than later. Tick Tick Tick.