You ever feel like a fish out of water?

 

I sometimes feel like a fish out of water... and no, I didn't do that. Found this fish half-mile from closest water... and it made me think.

I feel sometime lost and am betting I'm not alone. The world that used to be wasn't always incredible, but it was pretty darn good. 

These pandemic months are now almost a year long, and while the light may show the end of the tunnel, we still have to make it that far. 

Sadly for many, the canary has already died.

The next surge-upon--surge upon--upon surge predictions are for 450,000-plus deaths with more to follow until we reach herd immunity in mid to late summer or even later. It still feels insane to think that some don't take this whole thing as a fact. One 'Letter to the Editor' guy even urged 'all true patriots' to throw down their masks and walk proudly anywhere they choose.

Well, as Joseph Stalin who ruled The Soviet Union for more that 30 years said, "One death is a tragedy. But one million deaths is a statistic." And he should know.

The New York Times in May of this year ran four full pages (1,000 names) of covid-19 victims along with a defining sentence on each individual, taken from their obituaries, to personalize that vitally important individual who once lived, loved and was loved, is more that a statistic. But we forget.

Imagine that if The NY Times ran the names of all the victims to date (about 350,000 and counting) it would need 1,400 pages... and counting. Really!

And while many still feel it is their inalienable right not wear masks nor practice social distancing, some do fall victims themselves. But most think they get away with it. Sadly, we do not know how many others subsequently become infected from them and yet they feel no responsibility. And now, the greater peril is at hand as a recent mutation has made that strain considerably more contagious.

"Bummer of a birthmark, Hal.
by Gary Larson

Here's what many of the most vulnerable of us--the older, those with compromising health conditions, the oft-trodden minorities and those living in poverty-- feel like.

We have an invisible target on our backs... and it's open season every day.

We will, as a world,  reach herd immunity we believe... a point where so many of us are immune and the virus has fewer people to infect. Experts theorize (a specific number is not projectable) that perhaps 70 or 80 percent of us have to be immune because we have either received vaccinations, have caught the virus and lived or have caught the virus and died. (Gulp!) As cartoonist Gary Larson would say to the most vulnerable, "Bummer of a birthmark, Hal."

 If you are young and crazy or old and dumb or anywhere in between, the virus doesn't care. As uncle Sam would say if he were this virus, I WANT YOU!

So aside from the virus and the terrible tole it continues to inflict onto us, there is also the loss of landmark restaurants and businesses, the instant militarization of differing ideas and the guns to back them up, the loss of friends and relatives, the disconnect of parents to grown children and grandchildren, the covid-19 way of Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year, Birthday, Wedding, out of school learning, political hate and rancor, etc., etc...

I SOMETIMES FEEL LIKE A FISH OUT OF WATER.

There is no doubt that we can do better as a people. Going back lots and lots of years, my freshman English teacher made us memorize poems we would remember all our lives. So far, so good I guess.

His favorite: There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it scarcely behoves any of us, to be chatting about the rest of us. (last line to be delivered in double time and with emphasis or I will slap your fingers with my ruler, he said.) A little out of vogue, would you say?

But... as Lena Horn sang in the stage play Showboat (and Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Holiday and Ava Gardner also sang) "Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly... " then you know there is no room in this world to feel like "... a fish out of water." So world, we've got work to do to get America right again. The most important challenge in the world starts with the first step.