The Storm Around Us
Occasionally, you get the opportunity for a good extended metaphor. Those of us in the Gulf South know all too well what it is like to survive and recover from a storm. Most of us in the Gulf South can identify four stages of surviving a storm.
The first stage is the preparation stage. We know the storm is coming. So, from here we all make calculated decisions. Do we stay and mitigate or do we drive inland? Will we need to board up our windows? Do we have enough emergency supplies in case we lose power. You get the idea.
The second stage is the storm itself. If you are riding it out you just hunker down and do the best you can. If you’ve gone inland there is the worry that something bad will happen to your home or someone else you know. So far, everyone is in the same boat.
The third stage is the immediate aftermath. People are still fairly unified. Neighbors help neighbors and everyone pitches in. We clean up the damage. We make repairs. We deal with insurance adjusters, contractors, and the occasional con man trying to win one over during a crisis.
It is the fourth stage that is the problem. Some people get back to normal quickly. Some people never do. Talk to any charity and they will tell you the same thing. There is an initial enthusiasm that people have when giving that just goes away. People give around Christmas and then in January those charities dry up.
Most experts have said that it takes up to two years for most people to recover from a storm. Most of us just don’t have that kind of attention span. Amidst all of the political mumbo jumbo related to the pandemic, it is this fatigue that is costing us. Of course, one can’t avoid the other connection to a storm when we talk about the eye of the storm.
I vividly remember Hurricane Alicia as a kid. The eye passed over Galveston and Houston. Briefly everything seemed fine. Then the storm raged again. We knew it would back then, so we stayed hunkered down. Sadly, the eye of the storm of COVID came and went. We were told it was over. At every turn there has been an almost desperate need to put the virus behind us.
First, it was following the first lockdowns. People wanted to get out. Then, it was the warmer weather and the thought that viruses couldn’t survive in warmer weather. Then, it was an experimental round of drugs that were being peddled like snake oil at town square. Finally, we had a vaccine and the initial rush of most people getting the jab.
At each stage, the optimism was a fool’s errand. Weeks of progress were erased by super spreader events. Politicians desperate to save the almighty economy failed to uphold common sense safety measures. Some of them (cough Dan Patrick cough) even said they were willing to make an even swap. When that didn’t go over well he shifted his blame to Democrats and black people.
Storms come and go. They wreak their havoc, cause their damage, and leave some devastated. For a brief while, we all stand up and pitch in as much as we can. Then, we lose our focus. Life interrupts even the best of intentions. Even the most dedicated of people lose their focus. Obviously, some of us are not the best.
The virus is worse than a storm. If I hunker down and practice common sense measures I can keep myself and family safe during a storm. The virus doesn’t offer that kind of guarantee. The idiots ruin it for the rest of us. They clog up the hospitals. They infect those that are trying to be careful. They keep this thing going. Fatigue is real. So is being an idiot.
Sad but true. I have suggested to my daughter she get her kids’ school in New Braunfels to separate classes on whether or not kids are going to wear a mask. But of course they won’t. She said about 1/3 of the kids were masked at the kindergarten “meet your teacher” day. I’ve told my grandkids that if they are bullied about wearing a mask, telling them their grandmother told them only the smart kids wear a mask.
1Sandino @1, Your doubtless very reasonable daughter doesn’t have a chance against the tide of Rethuglikanism around New Braunfels and Comal County, where they vote 71% Red [still more Dem than my county]. One of my hometowns when it was 1/10 the size of today, it has really changed in the last forty years or so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comal_County,_Texas#Politics
2Once more, with gusto! If people (presumably adults) continuously demonstrate they are just too stupid to live, who am I to stand in their way? FREEDUUUUMM!
3My daughter’s school reported four positives this past week and it was the first week of school. That doesn’t count kids that didn’t show because they were positive. For instance, my campus had one positive report to school but had several (and this is just the SPED population which was 95 students) that didn’t report due to COVID.
This is beyond just petty politics at this point. We never had those numbers last year because we had half the students at home and we required masks. It’s beyond just simple idiots. It is fatigue. Even well-meaning, educated people are simply tired of holding up the slack.
4” Fatigue is real. So is being an idiot.”
Amen, brother! Even here in doing-pretty-well Maryland, we have enough people defying common sense to keep COVID
5going indefinitely. School starts soon, in person, and I think masks are required for staff and kids–but that doesn’t help with the adults beyond school who exercise their “freedumbs” at the expense of the rest of us. Yeah, I’m tired–but masked every time I leave the house. It’s going to be a long haul.
Great post, good reply’s Question what else can we do? So sad back to lock down masks & no fun for awhile. Then wondering why its so hard to not hate people who are Trump supporters.
6We bought a box of 25 Blue Folders so we could switch off occasionally. I leave the used ones out in the sun. UV and all. I’m badgering my doc for an ASAP booster, since we care for a five year old. Of course he goes to school in an elite area, and the kid pickup area and school interior are 100% masked. I think I could cause a riot by showing up with no mask.
7That’s California North for ya. Just one of the reasons I moved back to Cal from … wait for it … Fuhloridumb.
Good analogy.
And speaking of storms, I saw an interview on C-SPAN not long ago with the author of a book about Q called The Storm is Upon Us. He talked about how some of the basic things about it have been around for years in other conspiracy theories and scams. But also so many other aspects of how it’s directly effected the repugnantcan party, and as a result our entire country.
IMHO relevant to almost everything happening for the last few years.
I’m not doing it justice by a long shot. It’s about an hour long and it’s just a couple guys talking so an action packed Vin Diesel movie it ain’t.
But I highly recommend it.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?512768-1/the-storm-us
8”Fatigue is real. So is being an idiot.”
Headline of an editorial in the Portland, Maine, paper a few days ago: “COVID is contagious. So is stupidity.”
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