A View From the Foxhole

The trashmen just came, humping through a misty rain, doing their jobs. I retrieved my can and yelled a big thank you to them. They raised their fists back. There was a big lump in my throat.

I E-mailed my friend Tony that he was born for these times. With his wife, Joanne, he has already started up with the Court House Diner a meal delivery program for seniors, as well as donating the materials for a cadre of women with sewing machines to make masks for Cape Regional Hospital. On top of this, he is keeping his workers paid and on the job. I don't always agree with his politics, but I have no problem with his heart and energy. I am proud to have him as a friend.

I saw online the inside of a planeload of waving and smiling people, and was floored to find out that they were doctors and other medical personnel traveling to New York to help there. That is a form of bravery that is becoming almost routine in these strange and dangerous times. No one can question America's courage.

I know everyone reading this has seen this kind of courage one way or another in one place or another, from the supermarkets to the drug stores to every other place where people are doing their jobs – jobs that once were routine and workaday, but are now vital and crucial. 

My sister Jean and her husband Vince brought me meat loaf dinners yesterday, putting them inside my porch door and getting air hugs and kisses in return. I can smell and taste these meals, thank God.

Okay, there are two times a day when I almost get overcome with a deep and almost physical panic. The first is when in the dim minutes before deciding to get out of bed, I realize that hundreds of thousands of Americans are going to die soon. I might be among them. The wheel spins. I shake it off and take a piss and wash my hands. Coffee and classical music on my screen porch helps, no matter how cold out there. Today being April first, I listened on Youtube to Aretha singing “April Fools” and it brought back so many deep and precious memories of my time in heyday San Francisco when I first heard the song.

The other time of near-panic is watching the daily Trump Shitshow. Yesterday, it occurred to me that if Wes Craven was still alive, I would accuse him of writing Trump's dialog. There is the president of the United States congratulating himself in advance for keeping the body count under 200,000, which I strongly doubt will be the case. If what has gone before is any indication, our health system might very well simply collapse under what is coming, no matter what the well-meaning doctors Fauci and Birx are peddling, which is that if America totally follows social distancing, we can keep the death numbers down. Despite all the good and true citizens out there, there are still morons among us, putting America at risk every day. Their leader is the president.