WITH A WHIMPER?

     Remember, once upon a time, when we had a flight to catch for a great vacation? The running around for needed items. The frantic last minute rundown if we packed it all. The double checking of all appliances. Finally, the aahh as we settled into our seats, no frantic cleaning in sight, and awaited our arrival in our chosen paradise to be. Good memories. Fond memories. Funny ones too. But now, now these are but dim memories and I wonder, I truly do, if these memories will take on life again, if we will fly again, laugh and mix together again, spend holidays with far flung families again.
     Like it or not, our lives are changing and I think they are changing for a good future in many ways. We now realize the dangers of pandemics, the necessity of preparation and plans, the not so blase way of life that thought nothing of popping onto a plane and flying off somewhere. We will have to adjust but we can do it. We have surpassed other problems, come back, and hopefully this time we will come back with sense and a dose of reality and what ifs.
     Yet I wonder if we have learned anything positive from this tragedy as we continue to bicker and nitpick, run a White House which is definitely short on brains, a President who is such a compulsive and inveterate liar that entire shows have taken to parsing his lies over the months and the lies trying to cover  up the previous lies. Who is in charge? Who is on those proverbial bases? No one knows and the results of this frayed approach to problems are the main reason why we are in these messes to begin with. Ain't that the truth!!!
     However, despite it all, there is hope. Many people are complying with regulations as difficult as they now make life. Most of us are contemplating a life reminiscent of the Great Depression and the Spanish flu epidemic. Unsure, uncertain of health and finance, worried for family members, unable to be with them, most of us are doing the right thing. Is that 'right thing' the very thing that will help this planet of ours as the very visible reduction of air pollution can be seen via satellite, via breathing? The Lord works in mysterious ways, does He not? So perhaps with a whimper, right now, is what we need to do.
     Unfortunately, though, there are those who are tending towards the bang part of the question. Worry has increased with fear for the elderly and just look at our government levels, especially federal, and realize how elderly most of our presumed leaders are, how exposed they are and then what? What if there is a massive die off or a major sickening of them? Who will lead? What will happen?
     And here it comes. In times of duress such as  now, people often tend towards the strong leader, the one who confidently assserts that he/she has all the answers and if we have to give up some cherished traditions, well, so be it. Many of these so called leaders are actually worse for us, for humanity, but people are people and that is truly a worry that should be eating away at our peace of mind.
     A report by the Southern Poverty Law Center details the fearful rise of white nationalist groups. People turn towards someone who appears to have all the answers. HBO presents the series based on The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth. Watch it as it unfolds. See history repeat itself. Right here in America. Decades ago I wrote a play for the eighth graders to perform for Holocaust Memorial Day and it portrayed a nation vastly different than the one we live in. But it is possible. And it can happen and perhaps it is even happening as I type these words.
     How many times already have we heard nasty, vicious, ancient canards arise anew. The Jews are doing this. They knew about this and spread it for money. Seemingly sane public figures are buying into this and follow along as easily as those during the time of the Black Plague, of the cholera outbreaks, who listened to hatemongers of the time, including the Churches of the time, and blamed it on the Jews. 
     Riots, pogroms, vicious murders and all to no avail for this is a problem of cleanliness, of watchfulness, of understanding and preparation. Furthermore, calling it a Chinese virus, a foreign virus, as that moron of the WH continues to do, is not helping but rather hindering and building up roars of xenophobic feelings and bad, truly bad reactions from it. These very bangs, this growth of the hate industry, are what we need to eliminate, to once and for all understand that we are one people, the people of Earth, facing a global pandemic along with other global and existential problems. 
     Maybe, just maybe, hopefully, one day we will have a leader or leaders who understand this. Soon. Like today!? Like yesterday?!
     No, I do not wish to go out with a whimper, though I will follow the new conventions of life as we stumble toward a possible lessening of the drastic effects of this virus on our society. But I will not go out with a bang of violence and hatred either and if a bang is necessary, let us bang out the bad, the thoughts that belong in a museum of the ancient and disproven. Will we ever get there?
     "Life is a journey; living is a struggle." So said Mike Tyson and he is so right. The sooner we realize that, the sooner we realize that it takes hard work and sacrifice on the part of us all if we are to keep our world, improve our world, the better we will be. The alternative is not really where we want to go.