Monday Ruminations

 So I get up this morning and know there's fresh snow outside.  No, this is not a reason for rejoicing, because the air temperature a few miles to the north and east of me is showing as 31 degrees.  For those of you in that new, fashionable "Celcius" thing, we're stuck in the antique days, which means it's too damned close to snow becoming liquid to be particularly comfortable.  So I headed upstairs, and outside.  And yes, it was RAINING on the snowpack.  We'd received about an inch or so, possibly more, but the rain deposited a fairly solid crust on top of what was left.

Which seemed to be a pretty fitting way to start the last Monday of 2021.  And then the thoughts started wandering as I shoveled the sidewalk so my in-bound nurses checking my foot might not crack their skulls open on the nice nasty little slope in my concrete sidewalk.  

The first thought was once again that the last classy person involved in Dallas Cowboy Football left when Tom Landry retired.  To blow out an opponent with the score Dallas did last night sends a pretty loud statement.  That being look at us, we're so classless we do not care about the dignity of anyone.  We'll run the score right up and over you.  I do know that Drew Pierson pushed off in that game against the Vikings, and we all know some cheaters don't get caught when they cheat.  They just profit.  But there are those of us who know what happened.  Class will out, crass is obvious, and karma is gonna be a bitch, some day, for some folks.  Me included.  

So I decided to act upon a wiggling worm in the back of my head that was dropped there yesterday.  As one does, when one is one, I attended an Eagle Scout Ceremony for a young friend of mine yesterday.  I grew to know this young man about a dozen or so years ago.  And then, due to the press of life, changing events, and the lack of time and resources to do anything fun, I lost track of him.  Earlier this spring, I managed to reconnect to him and his sister, and discovered that, despite a truly abhorent and appalling series of events and misfortunes, this young man AND his sister have not only come through difficulty with their heads held high, if that Karma bitch ever gets around to doing her job, there are a few people who damned well know they're in deep doo-doo.

This young man is definitely not among them.  But in conversing with other adults in the room, as one does, I learned that the Scouting program I drew a huge amount of training, joy, and satisfaction from, and returned only a very small amount of effort, was once again in rather desperate need of a few people in key areas.  Such as folks who might help these young men - and women, these days - to complete some of the small tasks that required a healthy amount of work to advance, and some folks who have a bit of experience in the field to advise people who are seeking their Eagle award.

So today I fired off an email to an organizational unit which might be able to use me.  And yes, I recognize that many of us seek to avoid that particular phrase, but when I see what has happened around leadership and the like, it is painfully obvious that we need trained, ethical, intelligent, self-aware, and DECENT people to be leaders.  Because there's at least one mistaken Eagle Scout who happened to fall under the greed and influence of another significant piece of rot in our own country, and use what little influence he thought he had to try to do everything which he knows is absolutely wrong.  But then again, the good people and good examples do not shine so brightly unless darkness is also around.  So I have a good, solid example of what not to do, should the question arise.  But that's not my job.  My job would be to encourage the young people to look at the information available, make an informed, intelligent, ethical decision based on what needs to be done, and then do their best to lead others in accomplishing the goal.

Which is where another thought turned today.  It occurs to me that I'm really going to stop bugging people to get their vaccinations up to date.  As we have seen with the virulence of this pandemic and it's deadly results for far too many, there are going to be plenty of people who choose not to avail themselves of life-saving treatment for whatever reason.  And that's fine.  For those who are allergic to a known component, who cannot for whatever reason physically GET the vaccination, I still feel terrible.  But for those who CHOOSE other methods of avoidance, for whatever whackadoodle reason they have, that's fine.  Because there will be vaccinated survivors.  And there will be more vaccinated, than unvaccinated.  That's just obvious.

And what is truly obvious is that those of us who have gone out to a medical professional, bared an arm, and taken the shot for our selves, our families, and our communities, well, it's pretty damned obvious we care a whole hell of a lot more than some do.  Those who wish to argue the point may choose to do so, but I'll not waste my time, or theirs, with a response.  I'll simply note that if you CHOOSE not to be vaccinated, well, we'll be sure to tell your survivors after you've died that you were just a petrie dish of infection, waiting to pass it on to others, and did not care all that much for your descendants, your future, or theirs.  I mean, you want to argue the point?  Okay, look me up in ten years.  Assuming you're still alive.  Which I won't give odds for, but if you're betting on herd immunity to save your ass, well, bub, that ain't gonna work, because you aren't worth it.  Too many folks don't see your existence as equal to theirs.  They'd rather walk their germ-filled pre-carcass bodies around, incubating and mutating another batch of virus to spread to all of their loved ones because they'd rather be dead than get a shot.  And history will remember them as a statistic - if that, at all.  

And that's fine by me.  If you CHOOSE not to get a vaccine that can save your life, get out of the way.  Let those who DO want to live continue with their lives.  Just drop off the mortal coil, and get out of the way.  You were likely a candidate for chlorination in our gene pool, anyway.  You see, a focus on the future is required for a particular species to continue.  And too damned many of us aren't looking beyond the next fiscal quarter results.  So the sooner they bugger off, the better.