Week 50 - our guest this week is our erstwhile Storyteller from Texas

 Edited BY

G P Kennedy

Graeme - North Texas

 I got my second shot last Tuesday. My Liberation Day is Monday, April 12th.

Four million Americans - residents of the United States - received a vaccine in a single day this week. The country now has the will and the skill to administer vaccines safely, in huge numbers.

As of this writing, nearly 20% of all US residents are fully vaccinated. Around a further 30% have had their first dose. Nearly half of the population is fully vaccinated or on the road to there.

There is a sense that the end is in sight.

Here in Texas, our governor lifted the mask mandate and opened up the state 100% on March 10.

People continue to do what Texans have done for 150 years or more - their own thing. Most businesses still require masks and most people choose to wear them when out and about.

 I got my shots because I registered early, and benefitted from being in a priority category. Educators are considered first responders for the purposes of vaccine eligibility.

I feel a little embarrassed to be cast in the same light as people who risk their lives every day.

The greatest risk to me, as a college instructor, is a moderately troublesome paper cut, or sharp side-eye from a teenager who has run out of truck breakdowns and sickly grandmas.

 So, next Monday, I will venture out for a cold adult beverage – some cold adult beverages – poured by someone else. I will use these beverages, in part, to wash down a massive, juicy burger and its accompanying hot, salty fries, cooked by someone else. A different other someone will wash the dishes. 

 I will be kicking back on a sunny, 7 pm patio somewhere, with my favorite person in the world sitting to my right.

The temperature will be somewhere north of 80 Fahrenheit/27 Celsius. Life will be sweet.

 The bitterness of isolation; the sickly aftertaste of teaching online, and the tang in my nostrils of last night’s beer bottles in the trash, will be cast from my mind. Not forgotten.

 I chose to lock down tight; chose to order groceries and take away food, to be delivered to my door by almost-always black or brown Dashers and 'Carters. I had the comfort of working online. Many did not. Many put themselves in harm’s way so I did not have to.

 I trusted science – from the Latin word scientia, meaning knowledge.

That knowledge led to confinement. Next Monday, that same knowledge liberates me.

 Thanks to everyone who made this possible.  

Sincerely. Immeasurably. Thank you.