The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

If you’re wasting time reading this instead of fumigating your house and property for coronavirus, you must be one of the countless many who are reassured that the epidemic coming to a town or neighbor near you is in good hands with the new Pandemic Czar, the veep, the man himself, Mike Pence. Sure, he fought the remedies for needle exchanges to reduce HIV back when he was the Guv of Indiana, but that was more about morality and Biblical teachings than it was hardcore science. Mike, in hindsight, probably wishes he’d read the tea leaves of public opinion a bit earlier, but it was Indiana so c’mon, let’s cut him some slack. Unless you’re old enough to remember when he claimed cigarettes didn’t make smokers sick. Doc Pence, faith based prognoses.

I did notice, however, the Prez didn’t call him the Pandemic Czar, that was me. In fact, he’s not really sure this coronavirus, even if he could remember the name correctly, was the real McCoy. Might get worse, might not, who knows? But … just in case, he brought in the Big Dog, Mike. If things go wrong, if things do get worse, if this cold or whatever it is starts killing people, especially people in this country, well, you can’t blame Donald. No, he put his second in command in charge. The buck will stop there.

Sure the Center for Disease Control stated unequivocably the virus was coming, sooner, later, who knows, but it was definitely coming. The President, thinking like his Medal of Freedom recipient, Rush Limbaugh, that this was just another hoax by the media and the leftists, claimed this was the same as that Russian interference stuff. Pandemic? They don’t think so. Fake news? There you go….

Mike stated today that the risk was really pretty low for this colonvirus or whatever the scientists are calling it. No need for panic, not much to be afraid of. He’s meeting with Congress and they’ll work out the details for a budget. If that doesn’t make you afraid, nothing will until bodies are being tossed in corpse carts for incineration down at the crematoriums for the diseased.

But me, why worry? Pence and his task force have the situation well in hand. You know, if they’re right about Rush and his Chicken Little theory…. Otherwise, you may need more than a hepa mask and two months worth of Costco supplies to see you through.

I heard a study recently that said the poor are more charitable than the rich. On average they give almost twice as much of their income percentage-wise to those in need than their wealthier brethren. They also volunteer more for charities and non profits, service groups and outreach programs. Basically, if my sociology statistical studies are still in semi-working order, this proves, not quite conclusively but damn close, the South End is way more philanthropic than our neighbors up yonder ensconced behind their key carded gated communities.
I had a friend tell me in all seriousness awhile back (in regard to my bemusement over her financial plight at the time) that a million dollars just wasn’t what it used to be. What exactly do you say to a pronouncement like that? Do you work out the math of inflation vs. income? Do you shrug your overburdened shoulders and just agree? Or do you take pity and offer up a loan …. you know, to get her by until that devalued million dollars returns to its rightful place in the economy?
These are tough times. Especially, I guess, for the rich. Or, more aptly, the folks who no longer count themselves among the Gatsbys of Camano. Their stocks have slipped, the value of their two homes has dropped, their retirement funds seem inadequate now, even their hedge fund broker refuses to return their frantic calls — that vast chasm between Us and Them looks like a ditch, not a Grand Canyon. And if sacrifices must be made — and believe me, they must — a little less giving to the needy is definitely the order of the day.
Meanwhile, down here on the Lower Tiers, we kind of see we’re all in this together. So we still donate, we still volunteer and we still give. We don’t have much, but it never seemed too little somehow. Even though a hundred dollars isn’t what it used to be.

I’m sitting in the local barbershop that just opened up in town humming that song ‘Almost Cut My Hair’, but apparently I’m not going to let my freak flag fly even one more day. I got mixed feelings. My hair was down to my shoulders, first time since back in about 1980 when I moved out here and drove school bus for the little felons I transported. Don’t ask me why but I got this wild hair to let it grow, see if it brought back hippie memories.

It didn’t. Just an old geezer growing his hair long in the modern era of ‘50’s crewcuts, some kind of rebel statement, not sure for who. Whom. Whatever. Shampoo bill hitting the ceiling and drying time about two days. Longer hair than the mizzus, probably confusing sexual identities, why not?

The two guyz in front of me look like they get a trim about every two weeks. My last haircut was two years ago. Probably saved me about $400. Or quite a few gallons worth of shampoo. Without possessing any superhuman strength, I still seem to have a Sampson/Delilah complex. But growing my hair long didn’t make me any stronger either. Warmer in winter, about all.

Most of my adult life, a haircut meant I was on my way to some kind of interview. Jobs, art committees, anything where I worried I might lessen my odds looking like a refugee from the 60’s. As I got older and greyer in the beard, I figured the length of my hair was the least of my worries, considering I showed up in jeans, goodwill shirts and a battered cowboy hat so soiled I might have been an Okie lost in the exodus from the Dust Bowl. Artist chic, I liked to tell myself. Right.

The thing about haircuts is that invariably I regret getting them. The upside is that hair tends to grow back, not like an irreversible decision. Another two or three years, I’ll probably be back here in the chair. Maybe for a trim….