Ravings of a Long Haired Dude

What The Heck is "Normal"?

I saw something on CBS Mornings and on the local news this morning that together really burned my hide.

According to CBS Mornings, there was a disturbing statistic. There were 232,000 new pediatric Covid-19 cases during the past week.

In an interview on News Channel 11, in Johnson City TN, a woman was complaining about mask mandates in schools. She said something along the lines of “We just want to get back to normal.” I thought “Honey, what the hell is wrong with you?”

I’m sorry to break it to all you people. This ain’t normal. People like that who act like it’s normal are exactly the ones who are keeping things from getting back to normal. If everybody did what they should, I believe that we would all be much closer to normal than we are now.

I have a stake in the masks in schools debate. Several schools in Northeast Tennessee have mask mandates. Unfortunately our wonderful Governor Bill Lee, in his infinite wisdom, signed an executive order requiring mask mandates in Tennessee schools to have an “opt-out” option. This allows people like our “normal” friend to allow their children to go to school maskless. It must be remembered that this is the same Governor that declared Covid-19 a “controlled public health issue” a couple of months ago.

My son has two stepdaughters. They are 8 and 11 years old. They are our granddaughters in every way. Justin and Maggie are meticulous about doing the right thing about Covid. They both still work from home and have groceries delivered. They are both vaccinated.

In spite of their parent's best efforts, both children are in isolation because of positive Covid tests. Who knows? Maybe they would have caught it anyway without the "opt-out". I can't help but believe that they would have stood a better chance of avoiding it if all students were masked.

They aren’t seriously ill, thank the Lord. Still, we have to worry about Multisystem inflammatory syndrome now.

I pray that enough people will do the right things going forward so that we can finally get to a real normal.