Covid Wars II

 I was perturbed by my potential exposure to Covid last weekend when I spent an hour in close proximity, albeit outdoors but maskless, with my gardener E when I learned at the end of the hour that he wasn't vaccinated. With the highly transmissible and deadly (to the unvaccinated) Delta strain sweeping the country and the world, and breakthrough cases on the rise, I felt vulnerable again, just as I felt for most of 2020 and in January and February and I didn't like the feeling one bit. 

I worked so hard last winter to try to beg borrow or steal a shot and protect myself and others, and now that shots are easy to get (you can literally get a shot anyway anytime anywhere practically), why wouldn't anyone, everyone go get a shot? It protects us all. Could I get infected and be a carrier, although asymptomatic, and possibly infect others?

I have been doing a modified version of self quarantining since the weekend, wearing a mask whenever I'm around people, indoors or out. I had been not wearing a mask when talking with people outside but I'm through with that for now and I will be asking people regularly if they're vaccinated. I always wear a mask in stores anyway, where I live it's just what most everyone does as protection for others because, apparently, there are a lot of total jerks out there who aren't vaccinated for mostly selfish and ridiculous reasons.

I attended an outdoor Episcopal service on Sunday at a church I go to only occasionally, usually only once a year, so the folks there don't know me. It was an intimate service, very pleasant, set on a playground type cement floor outside in a small hollow down some steps from the front door leading to a basement entrance. There were 18 folks there for the hour-long service and besides being an outsider I was set apart because I was the only one who wore a mask. I feel like we're at the entrance again to a dark, forbidding tunnel again that recently had been brightly lit except that the lazy or scared or ignorant or conspiratorial unvaccinated people have doused the lights.

Covid Wars I

 My lawn cutter, whom I regard as a friend, had tens of thousands of dollars discharged into his checking account by his employer a couple of years ago, when the firm changed its retirement benefits,  emptying his job-related 401K and destroying its tax-deferred status without informing him (adequately) of  the consequences.  It might have been an ESL problem.  E recently asked me to help him get the money back into a tax-deferred state after so long a time.  I'm no expert but I suggested using the money in an annual Roth IRA purchase, to restore shielding the money again over time, year after year.

I asked for and received Mutual Fund forms and information for opening an IRA and last weekend, I spent an hour on my porch with E, sitting bent over a Little Tykes table as we pored over the forms and prospectuses in close proximity.  At the end of the far-ranging discussion, I happened to ask if he was vaccinated.  I was stunned when E said, "No."

I was also a little angry, because I had visions of becoming a breakthrough case of infection because of my lengthy close exposure to him even though I am fully vaccinated and it was outdoors.  If I had known he wasn't vaccinated at the outset of the hour, I would have worn a mask.  I told him he could probably throw out the beneficiary forms made out to his children as, because of the virulent Delta variant, he could be dead by the end of next week.  He said that variant was somewhere "out west" and not around here.  I assured him that wasn't necessarily true and that it was highly transmissible and well as being very deadly.  99% of all Covid deaths currently were of unvaccinated people, so without sufficient time to file and publish purchase forms, his estranged wife would get it all.

E said he would get vaccinated that week.  We'll see.

Blood

 Earlier this month I donated blood for the 3d time this year, the 132d time lifetime. INOVA loves my O positive blood.

I received a $10 Walmart gift card for my effort, the third such reward gift card I have received in the last three years for donating blood. Next winter I'll put one gift card in each birthday card for my three estranged adult sons and send it to the best address I have for each one, two in NC (their mother lives there and my sons are nearby because they are all, obvious to me, still in thrall of this, in my opinion, covert narcissist with pathological lying tendencies) and one in Richmond, I think, if he and his achieving wife are still married.  This last child I have never had an adult address for so I just send his card to my house addressed to him in care of me, and then I throw it in his box in my basement which he can have if he comes to get it or upon my demise unless the executors of my estate pitch those three boxes (one for each of my children) in the trash first.

I hope the cards will benefit each of them in some small degree. I also hope that my overarching message to these three special people will resonate with them to some degree that volunteering is beneficial to society as a whole.

 The last I heard from or of any of them was in 2007 when the youngest one was ready for college and he wrote to me ("Dear Peter") asking me to provide for the full payment of all his tuition and fees for the four years he attended, which I did. I was sad he didn't let me know if he actually graduated, although I know full tuition and all fees for eight full semesters were paid for over the next five years (I guess he took a year off, and hopefully he finished up by the end of his eighth semester). Basically he also went to two years of prep boarding school on money my mother left to me to be used for his benefit--which his mother sued me for (she was eventually assessed costs and penalties by the court of almost $50,000 for bringing forth unjustified and harassing litigation) and then used it anyway to get him out of state his last two years of high school because, I believe, she couldn't or didn't want to handle the little darling anymore and so she packed him off without even telling me about it; and then never has a single word been said by any of these three boys (now men) to any Lamberton in over two decades expressing any appreciation or acknowledgement in any form for my mother's (their grandmother) generosity towards them as they each received about a $100,000 fund from her in custodial accounts to be used for their benefit.

The USMC Museum

Last month I visited the USMC museum in Quantico for the first time. It featured a schoolchild art exhibit on the theme Welcome Home. This entry by Jessica Wu, grade 12 in N. Quincy High School in MA was judged best in show. Excuse the surface glare. To me this surreal piece is haunting and gripping because it can be interpreted in different ways. It can be seen, as in almost all other entries, as a joyous reunion of returning or triumphant vets with their families. It could be so here, as the vet stands in the open door, his lower body dissolving into his cast shadow as his wife holds his picture to her bosom and sheds a tear. Her young daughter sees the entering spectral image and reacts with joy. Will the woman turn and fling herself into his arms in the real world? Or is something amiss here, is this a dream of the woman and will he ever return in the real world? I scoured the background for clues, looking for the equivalent of a Gold Star on the walls. The 2 pictures over her left shoulder offered no clue. The clock is frozen at 3:05--what notable event in history or in the past occurred at 3:05 pm? (3:05 am?) The calendar is circled at the 12th day of the month. Why? Are those flip-flops on the welcome mat, or peace symbols? Where is the boy who could be associated with the basketball, as the girl can be associated with the doll house? Is that a leggo or a transformer toy with the other two toys, and why is it there? Is this a picture of loss, or of a return to "normalcy?" I think that it's a great piece.

Here is another, more representative piece in the show, which came in first in its sub-class, submitted by a 7th grade schoolboy if I remember correctly. It shows that the day is joyous, as the returning Marine rushes to embrace his wife but also that times are tough in America as the spouse is in a wheelchair. She is crying, tears of joy no doubt. Or perhaps it's his mother?

Displayed prominently at the museum, along with scores of other weapons, is a tommy gun, the most iconic American personal weapon of WW2, instantly recognizable around the world, the 45 calibre Thompson submachine gun with a 20-round clip. It was designed by US officer John T. Thompson for WW1 to clear a trench of the enemy, a "trench broom" as he called it, but it wasn't patented until 1920, too late that war so it was marketed to law enforcement agencies and adopted with gusto by the gangsters of the Prohibition era. Entering WW2, American services had no other effective submachine gun so they purchased as many tommy guns as could be produced according to military specifications for combat. It was an expensive and time-consuming weapon to make, with metal-milling needed for the firing parts and the barrel, and polished wood used for the stock. It later came out with a 30-round magazine. It was replaced late in the war with the "grease gun," a 30-calibre submachine gun easily produced with stamped metal parts and a wire shoulder stock. But there was no replacing the image of the venerable Tommy Gun in American arms in WW2; think Sgt. Saunders (Vic Morrow) in the 60s TV series Combat.

 Check out this cover from the Saturday Evening Post periodical from October 1942, showing an American scout pushing through the jungle, probably on Guadalcanal, looking for Japanese positions while cradling the iconic 45 caliber tommy gun.

Sigh

 Recently I checked in with the Trumpite side of my family; after radio silence from 2016-2020, I call a particular relative on the far side once or twice a quarter. We usually pose one political question to each other (from our last conversation--which upcoming month do I think Harris will take over the presidency from a doddering Biden vs. do you actually think Trump won?) and do minimal sparring during the 20 minutes of conversation.

This relative has exactly the same educational background as me, graduating from an east coast prep boarding school and a liberal arts college, with subsequent very heavy exposure to the field of law. Yet somehow it's yin and yang, with the two touching but never overlaping anywhere apparently.

Among other chatter, we agreed to disagree about the Texas state legislative body--I learned that the irresponsible Texas state dems were taking a taxpayer paid two-week vacation elsewhere instead of doing their jobs, and my relative learned that the state repubs were busy enacting voter surpression laws and overthrowing popular will (democracy) instead of, for instance, addressing the dangerous state of their power grid which killed hundreds of Texans last winter.

I told my relative that I heard on MSNBC that 99% of the 6,000 COVID deaths in June were of unvaccinated people and I was imparting this news because I cared about my relative. My relative told me that 4,000 of those deaths were due to other causes and were labeled as COVID deaths because hospitals and doctors get paid extra for so labeling them.

I learned that this relative had already had COVID and was therefore immune for life whereas my relative learned that antibodies to COVID reinfection fade after a few months and getting vaccinated is the best way to avoid a possibly lethal or debilitating (long haul) reinfection.

After learning from my relative that the administration is trying to get everybody vaccinated for "unknown reasons" with unknown effects upon their bodies, we agreed to talk next month. Two Americas.