My Oldsmobile

It was the summer of 1966. I was in the Navy, assigned to the USS Hector based in Long Beach, California. When I wasn’t on duty aboard ship, I lived off base with friends Joyce and Gary Morse. Their house was at the corner of Poppy Street and Cherry Avenue.

Frequently, I would leave the Morse’s house and drive south on Cherry Avenue, a busy 4-lane street with a speed limit of probably 45. There was a stoplight that I got stopped at most times, and the next stoplight would stop me too, unless I drove as fast as I could from the first stoplight to the second. I knew that I had to get up to around 65 to just barely squeak through the second light, which would be yellow.

One day in July I was doing my normal thing, and as I approached the second stoplight it turned yellow as usual. And, as usual, I kept my foot on the gas. But this time there was an oncoming car intending to turn left across my lane. He apparently did not see my car, and I was not able to get far enough over to my right to avoid him, and he accelerated right into the driver’s side of my car, hitting me just behind the back seat.

The impact spun my car around such that it hit the stoplight stanchion dead center of the rear bumper going around 60 backwards. The stanchion did not move. The back of my seat collapsed, and I flew into the back seat. The well-padded back seat. I was not injured.

If I had hit that stanchion going forward at that speed, there is little doubt that I would have died. There were no seatbelts in that 1956 Oldsmobile 88 – which was totaled. 

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PS -- Jason recently took and sent me a photo of an old 1955 Olds 88, which triggered this memory of a day long past which I was lucky to survive.

Statistical Anomaly

Johns Hopkins Hospital's website is keeping track of the COVID-19 numbers worldwide. This morning's statistics show at least one anomaly  -- the disparity between the Big 4 European nations' death rates and the U.S. death rate.

	Cases	Deaths	% Died
Italy	162,488	21,067	13.0%
Spain	177,633	18,579	10.5%
France	131,362	15,729	12.0%
U.K.	94,847	12,107	12.8%
Totals	566,330	67,482	11.9%
U.S.	609,685	26,059	4.3%

The difference is glaring, and I have to wonder "What's up with that?"

And I have to wonder why the news media haven't been chattering about it.

Uncertainty

Here on April 14, 2020 there is a collective tension, an anxiety, and an eagerness to get our lives back to normal.

If someone credible were to give us a date on which we could turn the switch, well then, a lot of that tension and anxiety would dissipate. People would start the countdown to the liberation, smiling widely while marking the days off the calendar.

But there is no credible expert able and willing to predict that date, and that’s problematic. The uncertainty of how long this social distancing/economic shutdown/joblessness/coffin-stuffing crap will last weighs on us.

Never mind the uncertainty of what kind of world we will live in afterward, never mind the uncertainty of what the “new normal” might be. All of that is up for conjecture, but it’s the timing that’s on my mind today.

People can and will adapt to the new world order. Human history is full of examples to show that those of us who survive this virulent virus will go on and deal with whatever we must. We’ll collectively grit our teeth and put the poncho over our heads and not only face the storm but prevail.

People sentenced to prison can pretty much bank on an end date. Military service has a discharge date attached. No matter how shitty the day, prisoners and soldiers can remind themselves that they have “only X days/weeks/months/years to go.” Having an end date is comforting.

When Hitler was bombing the crap out of London, the residents had no way to know how long that would last, didn’t know if the next barrage would score a direct hit on their own bomb shelter, didn’t know if the Germans would invade and enslave them. Know what they did? They gritted their teeth, put the poncho over their heads and not only faced the storm but prevailed.

So I don’t want to hear any whining.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Don Turpin posed a question yesterday:

When this is all over, how would you like your life to be changed from the old when we do get our lives back after the pandemic?

Which generated some thoughts in me, not really toward how I would like my life to be changed, but more toward how my life will change.

If I may digress just a little, I'll observe that the "war" word is being used far too much and far too erroneously. "It's like a war zone." "This is a war." Etc. People who talk like that are, I think, people who have not seen a real war close up. I'd prefer that people would reserve the "war" word for, well, war.

What we have here is a very stressful time for most people. One might say the situation is traumatic. Following that line of reasoning, then, it's logical to expect, when this is all blown over, post-traumatic stress syndrome in many, if not most, of the people who survive.

It's well-known that our parents who lived through the Great Depression were changed by it. I believe that we will be permanently changed by this pandemic, and in ways that we cannot, with any accuracy, predict.

That is not to say that we can't effect some changes by willing those changes. So, circling back to Don's question: How would you like your life to be changed?

Mannequins

A funny thing happened to me on my way to Nordstrom to photograph mannequins. The store closed. The sign said something about a virus. 

I did a lap through the mall to see what was there -- or, more accurately, what wasn't there. Shoppers weren't there, even in the stores that were still open at 1:30 PM.

So I took a few photos through the windows. My intention was (and still is) to write about different styles of mannequins. This one is Lobotomy-4 style. The dash 4 indicates right-handed. 

More coming when opportunity resurfaces.

Tail Light Malfunction

Tail Light Malfunction

That was the message on the dashboard of my (well, our) Lexus. The tail lights looked OK to me, but when the brake pedal got pushed the left light got brighter and the right didn’t.

Driver’s Manual out of the trunk and open to page 403. There are 2 bulbs behind the trunk liner on the right side, one of which is called “Tail Light.” Off to Lexus dealer with the old bulb in hand. Dude hands me a new one, he collects $3.27, I get home, put it in, find Tail Light Malfunction on the dash.

Back to the Manual. Page 405 shows a 3-bulb cluster mounted behind a little door in the trunk, one of which is called “Brake/Tail Light.” I get the old bulb out, go see my new best friend at the Parts counter, buy two new Brake/Tail Light bulbs, pay $12.87, go back home, replace both L & R bulbs, and find no message on the dash. Success!

Kudos to Lexus for running a diagnostic test of all the bulbs in the car every time the car starts. And kudos to Lexus for even having a liner for the trunk lid. Those are the little things you get (that don't get listed on the new-car window-sticker) when you move up to a “luxury” car, I guess. Even back in 2011 Lexus built those things in.

If I were the kind of guy who would bitch about my (our) Lexus, I’d bitch about the Tail Light Malfunction message not saying Brake Light Malfunction instead. But I’m not that kind of guy. 

Attempted Murder

There weren’t that many of them, maybe 10-15 thousand, but they were an elite fighting force. They set about their mission immediately. The mission was simple: reproduce rapidly and, attacking in concert with the newbies, kill me.

This particular virus specializes in destroying sinus membranes, lung linings, and throat tissues. The small invading force succeeded immensely, wreaking havoc on my respiratory system. Within 24 hours. I got a headache. My back, which had been virtually pain-free since the recent cortisone injection, started to be its former self. I sneezed violently. I coughed so hard I strained a stomach muscle. My voice dropped an octave and sounded weak.

Defense Condition 5 (“DefCon 5”) is the default defense condition in peacetime when there is no discernable health threat. When word of the invaders reached Central Command (wherever that is), CC called for DefCon4. Antibodies and scouts were called up. The scouts reported billions of casualties on both sides, but the viruses were winning. So DefCon3. The regulars were already taking a beating, so the reserves got called up. They kept losing, so DefCon 2 – the draft was hurriedly improvised. My body temperature got turned up; fever kills viruses. Retraining sessions got underway – these new invaders were a bit more advanced than the ones that had been repelled a year ago. In addition to AK-47s and daggers and blow-guns, these guys have Derringers and poisons to put on the tips of the blow-gun darts. And they’re sneaky – they can hide behind a corpuscle.

This virus is not going to kill me. DefCon 2, as I write this 72 hours after the onset of symptoms, has evened the score. The invaders are no longer advancing. Soon they will be in full retreat and my body will begin the healing process. I will walk outdoors again.

No prisoners will be taken; I will gleefully kill every last one of those little bastards.

My body’s defenses have been aided to no small degree by Nurse Judy’s care and attention. She has provided attentive comfort, in addition to homeopathic supplements and her homemade chicken soup. I am blessed.

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January 22, 2021 - The above is dated Jan. 26, 2020 and I had never heard of COVID-19. A few weeks later, it was all anyone talked about. I wondered whether COVID had infected me in January, so last summer I got an antibody test. It was negative, which either means I didn't have COVID or the test result was wrong. I will likely never know which is true.