The weather has warmed in our part of the globe. But then again it is almost May. Our lonely goose has a friend with him today. I wonder if Mrs. Goose came back to find her lost husband and show him the way home? He appears to be extremely content and subsequently followed her into the pond for an afternoon swim. The Gander now has a reason to smile as he is no longer alone. It is much the same for us as we emerge from the darkness of our Pandemic. We rejoice in the miracle of being alive! I have witnessed some smiling faces as we have had celebratory birthday dinners in both Cape Girardeau and Paducah as well as Cunetto House of Pasta on the Hill in St. Louis. You can’t wear a mask while you are eating and drinking. The sheer joy and abandon of the people that were venturing out of the Covid Dark Tunnel into the light of Vaccination Freedom…was palpable.
I was a participant of the excess of the 1980’s. I remember the Yuppies. I recall when Lladro ceramic figurines were plentiful in the department stores in our area along with Waterford Crystal Santa Claus’s each holiday season and I vividly remember standing in long check out lines at our University Mall where customers would have not 1 or 2 or 3 credit cards denied…but finally finding the magic one that still had enough funds on it to pay for their purchase. This was before the Debit card and yet I was struck that almost no one paid with cash… Down payments on new homes kept getting smaller…until you could purchase a new home that was much above your income with no money down. There were not many smiling faces in those days of debt upon debt and the supreme struggle to keep us with the Jones.
We are all much more equal than we thought. Some of us had big jobs and lofty positions…others of us had good middle class jobs and we thought to ourselves, ‘At least I am not homeless and in the trouble that that poor bastard is…at the end of the lane,’ and some of us were desperately poor and hungry and cold…and we wondered why God seemed to love some while forgetting us. With Covid we discovered that many of our brothers and sisters are a legend in their own mind. They are making an impression…but it is not the one that they are seeking to make.
Each of us has a little muscle called a heart that propels us forward and when it stops…we are totally equal… Money and fine silks and satins and gated communities really did not make us smarter and certainly not wiser. Our wealth was not an accurate barometer of our ability or leadership or wisdom. We seek the consult of the rich…in place of the Sage. We seek the counsel of the holder of lands and vehicles and boats and country club memberships as to what they have to say about life…and the teacher and the minister and the social worker…we are certain could not tell us anything that we do not already know. We have become a credentialing society rather than a people that respect education and science and medicine and law.
Perhaps we have learned a valuable lesson as we emerge from the equanimity of our shared 2020/2021 Pandemic. Perhaps we will look for individuals in the mold of Mother Teresa…rather than a psychotic narcissist…to tell us the meaning for life…
The Jazz Man 
I remember those times when everyone was going mad “Access takes the waiting out of wanting” thankfully I was taught by my father that “If you do not have the money, you cant have it”. At that time there must have been thousands – hundreds of thousands of people dragged into debt from which they would never escape. and if you enter into a contract with no idea of where for all to repay then that is stealing. (and the 8th commandment tells us – thou shall not steal.)
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