Parable

 

We have always been on the cautious side, when it comes to risk. I drive the speed limit. I try to stay out of crowded places.

The children have no concept of risk. Even four teens, only the one who is almost nineteen has any idea. The others, they just don't get it.

It reminds me of a parable that I've been telling. This tells a little about what we've been going through, even though we have teens, whereas the story is about a one-year-old.

A couple has a young boy who always, the minute he's outside, makes a bee-line for the street. Several times they catch him right before he gets to the busy road, and he's almost hit by oncoming cars. They are exasperated. It's almost every time that he just lights out for the road.

But there isn't much they can do. They hear about leashes for kids, and the wife says, "I'd never put my kid in a leash." To her, that's treating your kid like a dog, and she can't do it. So they do nothing. They watch carefully every time they open the door. Sometimes they almost don't catch him in time.

As time goes by they become steadily more exasperated. What can be done? Finally the leash begins to look like a good idea, and they do it. It's a relief, to open the door, and not have to chase after him. They feel a little self-conscious out in public, but at least it works.

One day a woman says to the wife, "I would never put my kid on a leash." She responds, "Well, you never had a kid who ran out in the street, did you?"

update - still only one in the zipcode

I think that if you lived in this area all your life, you might feel that such a thing as covid will simply never show up around here. And I think to some degree you'd be right. It's relatively sparse up here, in terms of people, and we don't share a whole lot of enclosed spaces - Allsup's, maybe, or Family dollar, or a school entryway.

But really what it is, I think, what accounts for our luck, is that so many of us lead isolated lifestyles. How many of us even go down in the valley? I'd say, a few dozen work down there. But that's it. It just doesn't have that much opportunity to get us.

My biggest concern is the kids. They're hanging around all together, spreading whatever germs they have, and taking them home to share. That means we parents will be the first to go. Everyone else, their kids are out of the house already it seems. The ones who are raising young ones, no problem, the little ones aren't getting it so much. It's the ones about 14-25 who are spreading it like wildfire.

And it's not entirely their fault. What are you supposed to do, stop growing for a few years while it passes over? I don't think that's going to happen. I think a lot of these young people gave up fighting it off. They said, well, I can lock myself up, but I can't really bear that either.

It's partly that it doesn't hit them as hard, and they know it. They get over a flu, or another kind of virus, and go on with their lives. You can tell them that this one's worse, and your parents might die from it, but that doesn't mean that much to them. It means a lot to us, but they're like die?

They give us a confused look. Like we were trying to explain algebra.

Covid in Cloudcroft

This is a town of under 800. There are a few hundred more out in the mountains, and in places like Timberon, but altogether there a aren't a whole lot of people. That works in our favor. We are inundated by people from the lowlands on times like this, Labor Day weekend, and they all come up here thinking we have fresh air and lots of room. We do.

I'll be the first to admit, I thought we'd be swamped by now. with the steady stream of visitors coming into cramped spaces like Allsups and Family Dollar, surely someone from the lowlands would have brought it by now. Instead we have one case still in our mountain zipcode. And one squared, cubed and to the fourth power is still just one.

I don't know who it is and won't speculate here. All I can say is, best I can figure, they've kept it out of Allsup's and Family Dollar. If we were swamped, we'd know it. After all, it would only take ten cases to be over one percent.

I have friends in Florida - swamped. Iowa - swamped. Southern Illinois - swamped. It's not pretty out there. And I feel incredibly lucky up here.

It's my bad luck that my kids need, by biological imperative, to go out and be with their friends. It's my good luck that they think Cloudcroft is a happening place, where there are lots of good people they like and can relate to. And it's my further good luck that as far as I can tell, in our almost-nine-thousand feet, sunny breezy clime, the covid just doesn't have a real foothold yet.

Long may it stay that way.