Life in the land of Covid.

 Wending my way through this life has been interesting to say the least.  As I enter my (what I hope are) twilight years, I find myself in a unique position.  I have gone though my life without a lot of medical problems.  The removal of my tonsils when I was 12 was the only surgery I really needed.  I still have my appendix and have very few medical issues.  A few tetanus shots, necessitated by stepping on rusty nails, was all I ever needed.  Until now.

Welcome to the land of Covid!  I did the responsible thing I got my vaccinations.  I had 4 of them to be exact.  I wore my mask.  I isolated.  I did everything just like the CDC recommended.  And for the first  year all was well.  And then I had some work done on my house.  Very nice man.  Single and only a few years younger than me.  An anti-vaxxer.  He was careful.  He wore his mask.  Ya da, ya da, ya da. He caught Covid.  When he was first diagnosed, he called and enquired as to all my family and friends, sure that my house was ground zero.  Nope.  I didn't have it, nor did any of my friends.

He finally traced it back to some one he had worked with on some plumbing job.  So he let me off the hook on that one.  Yes, he was going to get vaccinated!  Then, no, he was not getting vaccinated.  He did not know what was in the vaccine.  Of course he doesn't know what is in the food he grabs from the deli every day either, but you know how men are.

And then, after two years of dodging the Covid bullet, I finally seen the second line appear on my covid test.  I was devastated.  I had been so careful, but I had him for supper one night and the next morning he tested positive for a second time in only a few months. That was all it took.  Responsible?  I think not.  Talk about Typhoid Mary!

I do have to say this, if you are vaccinated and still get Covid, you will have a lighter case.  I am very glad I was vaccinated, because had I not been, I am sure I would not be writing this today!  For the first day I slept most of the day and ate very little.  Second day was not much better.  I am still in quarantine.  I do not care if I ever leave this house again.  I do not want this again!  

The above was written several weeks ago, but it is still fresh in my mind.  I do not want to get that crap again, but here is the deal.  It is still out there.  It is still being passed around and I am sure it is still killing people.  I have the masks that I wear which are the approved ones, but I seem to be the only one wearing one.  I went to Walmart yesterday and there was myself and one other old lady with a mask.  I go in the neighborhood drug store and they wear no masks.  A few employees wear masks at LaGreese, but very few of the customers wear one.

I used to have Covid stats in my toolbar and checked them every day, but then I decided that was no longer necessary.  So where do we stand on Covid?  I do not know.  I sometimes think I am the only one worrying about it, but then I may be the one in charge of worrying.  The sad thing is I remember the days of iron lungs in hospital corridors and the death toll from polio.  I remember the days before vaccines for childhood diseases when quarantine signs were tacked on the front doors of houses and the inhabitants could not leave until the doctor said they were clean and free of germs.

I also remember that when I had my babies, I dutifully took them for thier  "childhood" vaccinations.  There was never a question of whether they wanted them or not, just something we did.  It was being good citizens and that is what good citizens did.  It is a little hard to find people of my era that does not carry the small pox scar. And now there is something going around called Monkey Pox.  De ja veau?

Could very well be!

The other shoe just dropped!

 Whether our friends know it or not, Roe vs. Wade was the glue that held it all together.  It actually made it possible for women to have a say over there own reproductive organs.  It made us "equal" in more ways then just one.  For years I have watched and listened to the debate over right and wrong as to the use of my reproductive organs and finally became comfortable with my body and choices I made for it.  Roe vs. Wade saved a lot of lives in the years it was law.

Abortion is not an easy choice, as some people might think.  I can still remember back to when I was still in high school and the gossip was rampant about a woman who did "back alley abortions."  I forget her name, but I still remember snippets of gossip about "Mrs. Somebody" who, for a price would perform an abortion supposedly on her kitchen table.  Some one pointed her out to me and she just looked like a normal everyday woman.  No appearances of a "baby murderer" to me.

Time passed and abortions became more common.  I cannot spout dates and laws, but I do know that at some point the "procedure" became legal.  Of course, there were steps that had to be taken and it seems to me that maybe the father even had to give consent.  I did know a girl who had one and when it leaked out she was shunned and eventually moved away.  But of course, my memory of that is not clear.  Time has passed and a lot of things have changed, but apparently, the need to put limitations on what a woman can and cannot do with her body has not.

What you do in the sanctity of your home, with your body is none of my business.  Apparently, it is the business of the Supreme Court and the judges that set on the high bench and decide what some law that was passed many years ago.  What lofty goals they must have!  How they can set on the highest court in the land and pass judgement on a lonely, scared little girl in a back alley abortion clinic is more than I can understand.  I am sure there is a story that brought her there.  

The sad part of the whole thing is there is no right or wrong to this ordeal.  My God knows the paths I have walked and the places I have been.  He knows the decisions I have made and why they were made.  I have been divorced 5 times.  Divorce is wrong.  Hope they do not decide to set my divorces aside because that could get damn messy!

The fact of the matter in this is that women have now taken a back seat to the functions of their own bodies.  It is not a man over woman victory here,  it is a statement that basically says, "Do as we say.  We are better than you at deciding what you do."  Many years ago when I campaigned for gay rights, which will probably be the next right to fall, there was a speech that went like this:

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• By David W. Virtue

www.virtueonline.org3/26/2007

When the Nazis came for the communists,

I remained silent; I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,

I remained silent;I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,

I did not speak out;

I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,

I did not speak out;

I was not a Jew.

When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.

Gay Pride Month

 Having been raised in Kansas I have ideas about politics that I should probably keep to myself, but you know me!  I will first go on record as saying, I was raised by a Republican registered voter mother and as such, I respected her opinion.  As I grew and matured, I realized that I was probably going to choose a different party.  And I did indeed choose differently when I became active in Colorado.

I became involved in the gay rights movement, which did not gel well with my mommy, but that was the route I choose and if I had it to do it all over again I would still have chosen that road.  Now my mother had a very good friend and co-worker who just happened to be gay.  Gibby was also a friend of mine.  We worked together and he helped me with the kids Christmas one year.  Good friends are hard to find and even harder to keep.

Sadly this all transpired at the time that a disease that was called HIV was rearing it's ugly head out in California.  It was the "gay disease" because it seemed to only affect gay people.  It was the "hot potato" of the political world at that time.  No one wanted to address it.  It was as if the politicains completely ignored it, "it" would go away.  Sadly it did not.

Randy Shultz wrote a book and named it for what it was "And the Band Played on".  It entailed the inaction that occured during that period.  The government continued to ignore the "gay disease".  It was indeed a phenomena in that only gay people got it and only gay people died from it.  Since it only affected that one segment of society it was not important.  But then it began to bleed over into the WASP community and that was a wake up call.

I do not have time nor inclination to go into all the  ramifications of the governments inaction at that period in time.  This is about my friend Gibby and how his life meant something to my mother and to me.  Gibby was not infected at the time I left Hutchinson.  Dates mean nothing to me in my memories of him.  I only know that I was living in Colorado when I got the call that Gib had moved to California and  he had tested postitive for the virus.  He wanted to come "home" for Christmas.  Mother was concerned about "catching it".  So to make a long story short, Gibby died in California and is buried some where that was not disclosed because of the "shame that surrounded his death."  His family was afraid that someone might "dig him up" and "desecrate his body."  And the Band Played on.

But as with most of life, time moved on.  The disease was named  Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and later and finally settled on as HIV (human immunodeficiency virus).  It is no longer the dark secret that it was in the beginning.  Since the death of my sweet Gibby, I have been very active in the movement.  Some one in California started a memorial quilt with panels for each death designed and executed by someone who loved that person.   This is a link to that project.

I have designed and executed a miniature to be held here locally and shown the month of December at out local library.  We usually have a ceremony of commemeration on December 1, which is designated World AIDS Day.   Covid put a stop to that!   I have once more digressed so let me get back on track.

This is gay pride month.  So my hat is off to Gibby and all the pioneers before him who stood up and said "Yes I am gay!  And I am proud!  It is who I am!"

I am proud to say that I helped bring gay pride to Pueblo.  It is what it is and I have plagues in my china cabinet that proves I am more than just a clanging cymbal.

Smile down, Gibby, because I will never forget you and your unconditional love to me and my family!  And thank you to the doctors, nurses, health care providers and all the people who jumped into the fray to restore sanity to a period that had none at the time.

Peace!

Winter doldrums, spring fever and summer sweat.

 My world is a wonderful place!  Winter is behind me and since it was a mild one and all the geese survived, it was a fairly good one.  Spring bursts forth with a wonderful display of leaves, foliage and flowers to stir the juices in my soul and make my heart sing.  Now we enter summer.  I like summer.  Not sure why, but I do.  It brings out the bugs, bees, hummingbirds, and vicious summer storms.   The first three things I really like.  The summer storms I can do without!

Now, Kansas was a different story as far as storms go!  Most days were just days.  Some were hot and some were hotter.  Some times it rained and some times it poured!  But always in the summer we watched the sky line for the clouds that could bring the tornadoes.  There always seemed to be a feeling in the air of what could be.  The tornado clouds were low and dark and the storm trackers were in their element as they scurried from one area to another to get a closer look at impending doom.  The air seemed to be full of electricity from the approaching storms.

Since I had a nest full of kids at the time, I watched the sky line and wished that this time I had a house with a storm cellar.  Now when I did have a house with a storm cellar I never went down there.  Storm cellars were just for that purpose and since no one went down there, spiders were prolific and BIG!  I harbored the idea that the tornado would suck all the webs and spiders out before I got down there, but I am not sure that was a rational thought!

A side note here on the cellar business.  When we lived in Glasco, which is in northern Kansas, we lived in a farm house that had a root  cellar.  This was a nice root cellar with concrete walls and floor and ceiling.  It even had a light hanging from the ceiling.  Of course, the first thing Duane and his brothers did was to "set" a crock of grapes which would ferment into wine.  Also something that would turn into some other form of alcoholic beverage in time.

The rules on this was that under no condition was myself or Maude, Larry's wife, to go into that root cellar.  That was "man business".  I also at that time had a little Chihuahua dog named Jake. (Jake will enter the story again!)  A couple weeks passed and the men went to work and the women stayed home.  We were very compliant about not going into the root cellar, but alas!  Much like the forbidden fruit that tempted Eve, the root cellar called to us.  What was going on down there out of our sight?

So one day we decided to just go look.  Two crocks were setting on the ledge and we lifted the cover and peered in at a stinking mess of grapes and water  with foam on top.  That was one foul smelling concoction, so we quickly covered it back up and scurried up the stair.  We saw no hope of any of that mess being of any use at all to us.

So the men returned home.  Supper was on the table so we ate.  Then Duane said, "Where is the dog? I haven't seen him since I got home.  That was unusual since Jake was usually there in case somone lost control and threw meat on the floor.  We began the search.  No dog.  After looking in all the usual places we gave up.  Duane then decided to check his alcohol progress in the cellar.  Lo and behold!  There was Jake shut up in the cellar!  How did he get there?  Were we in the cellar where we were not supposed to be?

Oh, no!  We would never break the rules!  Then how did that dog get in the cellar?  And try as I might, I could not lie my way out of that one!  I will not go into the scene that followed, but suffice it to say, I never disobeyed another rule that man made.  Never went into the root cellar again and the biggest blackest clouds could come and the storm that followed was mild in comparison to a husband who had been lied to by his wife!  

That was 60 years ago.  Jakie and Oopsie, my two dogs have been gone for years.  There is no one left to share my memories with anymore.  That is sad to me.  I often wonder if my mother had memories she wanted to share and I did not have the time nor the inclination to listen?  

I miss my momma!  I miss the old aunts and uncles!  I miss the history that I will never have a chance to learn now.  But most of all, I miss who I was then.  I was a 90 pound girl and the world lay before me.  Mother always said, "Hindsight is 20/20, looking back."

So I set here and remember and try to document just some of the history so some day maybe my grand kids and great grandkids will read some of this stuff and know that grandma had hopes and dreams and wants and needs.  Just maybe they will find a tiny corner of their hearts where they can bask in memories that will never pass this way again.

Peace and Love!

Will it ever stop?

 I don't know how you slept last night, but I did not.  Every time I closed my eyes all I could see was a mad man with a gun shooting at innocent children who were running in terror.  I can only imagine what was going on in their little minds.  To see their classmates falling with blood gushing from their wounds, must have been horrific.  This is their days of sand and shovels, recess and happy times.  Probably the only time they were ever in a position of violence was an incident on the play ground and that was controlled by adults who supervised and quickly settled the spat.  They may or may not have ever heard the words "school shooter" and yet here one was.

It is beyond even my scope of reality to imagine such a thing.  In my world no one is violent.  No one brings a gun to my house.  I own a gun.  It is a pistol.  It is in a drawer and the clip in another drawer.  I carry it when I travel when it rides in the glove box and the clip under my seat.  If I break down and a big mean man is breaking my window intent on doing me harm, I will assemble it and I will use it.  It is for my protection.

I can only imagine the scene when a man walked into a class room with an AK whatever it was.  I think the kids were at their desks.  They probably looked at him and wondered who he was.  When he shot the first child, they would have been surprised.  This was not a normal day.  As he continued his carnage the children would have watched in horror as their friends fell.  No doubt they scrambled for cover, but where do you hide in an open room?  Devastation was every where.  The teacher, who was their leader already lay dead and yet still the gun blazed as their friends lay on the floor with wide eyed , vacant stares.

What do we do to stop this?  What is the solution?  Guns are legal.  It is everyones right to have and use a gun.  Constitution says so.  Where does your right to own a gun supercede my childs right to enjoy a safe environment at school or play?  The second amendment comes into play here.  That amendment has been waved around for years like a mantra for the over zealous who really have no idea what it means.    Maybe it is time for us to take a new look at it.

Maybe it is time for us to send some people to Congress who can pull their respective heads out of their respective hiding places and ask what the second amendment actually says.  I am not a scholar, but as I recall it speaks of a " well regulated militia" in conjunction with the right to "keep and bear arms".  When the constitution was written the arsenal was not the guns that are made today.

My brother had a .22 rifle.  It was to hunt rabbits which we ate.  Over the years guns have become symbols of something I know nothing about. Apparently a man can arm himself with a full aresenal that includes an AK 47 and anything else he is man enough to carry and go wherever he wants.  It is only when he begins to shoot at people that it becomes illegal.  Not so in my world!

Keep your guns!  Store them where the sun does not shine!  Fly your Confederate flag.  But not in my world.  For years I have donated to animal welfare, veterans, St. Jude, the church, homeless shelters and things like that.  No more!  I am now going to be putting my energy and money to changing gun laws.  Sandy Hook, Orlando, and now a little town in Texas.  It has got to stop and if gun owners cannot police themselves, we will do it for them.  The NRA is one of the biggest contributors to government elites and that has got to stop.

I implore you who are reading this to join me in researching candidates a little better.  See who supports them.  The NRA is not our friend.  The guy with the Confederate Flag flapping out the back of his truck is not our friend.  Our friends are the kids who did not make it home from school yesterday.  Our friends are the standard bearers who placed them in the ground and covered them with dirt while tears fell like rain.

May God grant me the courage the change the things I can, the strength to accept the things I can not and the wisdom to know the difference. (from AA and this is not accurate, but you get the idea.)

Kansas at it's best!

I did not plan a trip to Kansas, but here I am,  I knew I was missing my sister and my nieces and nephew, and it was my desire to travel back home a some point, but just not right now.  Kansas is rather notorious for tossing a tornado into the mix when you least expect it and that is why I had not wanted to come here at the height of tornado season,  But here I set!

Today I had lunch with my friend Joe at Skaets Steak Shop, which is owned by my sister .  Then on Saturday my daughter and her husband will be here with 3  great grandkids,  Probably have supper with Alina and Tom, spend some time with Evelyn and then get up on Sunday and head back to Colorado.  I grew up in this neck of the woods so i know a few people.

Right now the weather is kind of cool, but it knows how to get hot and humid when it wants to!  I am hoping it will not do that, but who am I?  The wheat is looking good and I think there will be a bumper harvest this year!  I tried to call cousin Daryle, but no answer.   Sister Donna is asleep on the couch, so I am left to my own devices.  I think I will wander down stairs and see what became of the room I used to sleep in when I came.

Guess I am at a loss for something to do.  Just wanted to check in,

An incident.

 Incident is described in my Webster's as 1."an occurence or event.  2."a seemingly minor occurrence that can lead to serious consequences."  And that all sounds so simple.  Something happened and it was of no importance on a normal day, but when a life is lost through something that should not even matter, it is a different story, isn't it?

My son had a friend.  They went to school together, rode bikes together, smoked pot together, drank together and then began to work, date and become responsible adults together.  There was an "incident" and now the friend is dead.  It all began so simply with a cell phone call.  The lady on the phone drifted out of her lane, just a little.  Seemed innocent enough in itself.  But the car in the lane to her left had to swerve to avoid a collision.  He saw the car pull into a drive and followed to tell her what had almost happened because she was on her phone instead of paying attention.  He was in her driveway when her husband looked out and seen a stranger waving his arms and confronting his wife.  He opened the door with a gun in his hand and shot him.  No questions.  No communication at all, just pulled the trigger.  Now, I ask you, who was right?  No one.  Who was wrong?  No one.

The lady who had been on the phone tried to do life sustaining measures to save his life.  His girlfriend watched as his life ebbed away.  The man who pulled the trigger cried.  An incident?  Seems like there should be a word that better fit the circumstance.  Who knows.

Did anyone learn anything from this incident?  I hope so.  I hope the woman on the phone can wait to answer the next call until she is parked.  I hope the man who shot him will take a breathe the next time he has a loaded  gun in his hand.  And I hope his girlfriend can find the help she needs to deal with this incident.  They had been a couple as far back as I can remember.  No doubt she is being told there is help, but finding it is a whole different matter.  

Rest in peace Matt.