Month: August 2020

The postal service has been getting bashed up a lot lately, or in particular, the new Postmaster General.  He deserves it, but I’m not completely sure the Post Office overall does.  That’s a topic for another day.

Over the course of the pandemic, we’ve taken, as have many or most of Americans, to ordering things online. Amazon has been an attractive choice because it’s been typically pretty reliable and it’s fast.  By golly, they’ve rewritten the rule on speedy delivery.  Forget the “7 – 10 business days”, which then run to two weeks.  In the early days of “tracking”, it was such fun!  Ah, pillow cases we ordered are in Des Moines.  Three days later, they’re still there.  Next day, they’re in Denver.  Wait . . . . . they’re going in the wrong direction.  We’d call Customer Service (which is often a misnomer), to find out they were rerouted because of storms in the mid-Atlantic.  OK, makes sense.  I don’t want my pillow cases blown out to sea by a Tropical Storm Umberto.

The fine folks at Amazon Delivery are doing yeoman work.  Each driver is dropping off, like, 8,000 packages a day, so they have to be efficient and work quickly.  They also now have to take pictures of the packages on my front porch to verify that they reached their destination.  So, funny story.  I ordered a book a while back for a friend – we share books regularly.  This was one I thought he’d particularly enjoy. I then, in my advanced stage of forgetfulness, received the email confirmation with the package sitting proudly on his front step.  Only, I looked at it and said to myself, “That’s not my front porch – what’s up with that?’’  The bottom line here is that I had to contact Amazon and apologize profusely for forgetting where I had had the package sent.  I also had to promise that I wouldn’t do it again any time soon and that I’d keep a detailed log of what I send and to whom. That’s only fair.  If I expect superior service from them, they should expect it back from me.

Amazon trucks are flying in and out of our neighborhood like hummingbirds in a rose garden. Where are they going?  Who ordered something?  Did I?  Or on the days that something is expected, each truck must be for me, only it isn’t.  The driver is running into the house across the street.  Dear God, those people are ordering stuff all the time.  They must be made of money.  Then, he’s back with something for me.  Ok, my stuff is essential.  Not something from Publishers Clearing House, because I only ordered it last week.  It won’t be here for at least a month, and then they’ll put it in a package box at the mail house.  Now I have to try to decipher the box number on the key tag because it’s all smudged.  I usually get it the fourth or fifth box I try.  

Back to Amazon Delivery.  When we first started ordering that way, there had been an element of whimsy in where they left the packages.  Sometimes the package would sit smugly on the front porch or steps.  Every so often, though, they were left in front of the garage door.  Had one of those in a rain storm.  It turned out to be for my neighbor.  Not only did the delivery guy get the house number wrong, . . . . yup.  Soaked through, and I had to deliver this soggy mess next door.  I was apologizing, and I didn’t even make the mistake.  They’ve misdelivered a number of packages to our back door, so I had one of those adorable slate plaques made that have our name and house number on it.  People have said it looks so nice, and I have to explain that I had it made especially for the delivery people.  

Our house sets down a bit, so we have a small brick terrace out front and stairs going up to the driveway.  If you’ve read my blog on the newspaper delivery person, you’re acquainted with the setup.  He tosses the paper conveniently under the bushes or, if he’s in a hurry, up the hill about 50 yards away.  Recently, the package delivery folks have taken up his approach and are leaving things at the top of the steps.  Perhaps they’re unaware that we share those steps with  three other homes.  They can’t walk a few extra steps to put it by the front door?  Now it’s fair game for whoever happens to walk by first. Not an ideal situation.  

I was listening to a program on public radio a few weeks back.  They were talking about “shadow” delivery trucks whizzing about urban and suburban areas.  Apparently, they are able to track regular delivery trucks, or maybe they just follow them at a safe distance – probably ex-KGB – and these shadows look the same except they don’t have the corporate logos on the side.  They wait until the regular delivery trucks have made their stops, then they swoop in and take the packages.  Apparently, that’s why the Amazon folks are now taking pictures ON the front porch.  Yes, we were actually there, in case you don’t believe me. It’s proof that it really was delivered.  We’ve all heard about the stories of Christmas packages being lifted from entry ways and front doors.  This, I guess, takes theft to the next level and makes it more organized.  How desperate are these thieves that they’ll buy a cargo van to steal my pillow cases?  I can understand the ten rolls of toilet paper, but really.  

The other big mystery is the timing of my deliveries.  Why is it that my neighbors get their packages at like, 10 AM.  Mine never arrive much before 5 PM.  I’m usually on the lookout all day.  Like right now, I’m waiting for a new door latch for the screen door out back.  My daughter saw a chipmunk coming in and out of the back porch, it’s little furry face peaking in through the glass slider, and as she doesn’t interactwell with nature, took exception.  So, I fixed the hole where the screen had come away from the frame, but noticed that the door didn’t really stay shut too tightly either, so I ordered a new latch to keep it closed.  Anything to thwart those plucky little chipmunks that live in the yard. They’re the same ones that eat my tulip bulbs, so I’m not terribly sentimental. Amazon to the rescue because I’m not allowed to go to the hardware store.  When I suggest it, she gives me a look of exasperation and shakes her head. The latch is arriving today some time – probably just before I go to bed. They say they deliver any time up to 9 PM.  Wow, these folks work late, although they’re probably sharing in Amazon’s abundant profits.  Yesterday was Sunday, and I had a delivery due.  By dinnertime, it hadn’t arrived, so I thought, oh, well . . . . . . Checked the tracking and it said “out for delivery”.  And it was.  Somewhere about 7:30, it arrived.  They didn’t ring the bell, but a picture popped up on my phone.  I don’t believe that we’ve yet missed a delivery and on the day it was promised.  I’m thinking, . . . . . . well done!!

Back in May, when COVID-19 looked like it was gradually getting under control, I wrote an insightful and enlightening post about wearing face masks.  I said, in so many words that folks unwilling to wear face masks were too stupid to live.  Ok, not in those so many words, but something less threatening, less harsh, less Trumpy. 

Well, folks – well done, America.  You stopped wearing masks in public, you started gathering in large numbers – at the beach, in bars and nightclubs, you moved back into restaurants and shopping malls.  You got tired of the inconvenience. You wanted a quick return to normal. Nice job.  Fifteen hundred deaths in one southern state alone.  The President telling us confidently, as he did in March, April, May, June and July that he’s fully on top of the problem and that his administration has risen to the occasion.  Meanwhile, the pandemic experts, including his own people, are saying the exact opposite.  

We’re now heading into the start of the new school year.  We could have been preparing for a not-quite but slightly modified soft landing.  Instead, we have Secretary of Education DeVos telling us that all schools can and should be fully returning to classes, because “children don’t get the virus.”  Not sure exactly what planet she’s on.  In an opinion letter to the editor yesterday, a teacher, no less, stressed the importance of students being back in the classroom.  This person teaches in one of Boston’s elite exam high schools, so perhaps it will be safer there than in all of the other public schools in the city.  I doubt it.  Is it more important to save young lives or reach arbitrary academic achievement benchmarks?  If America’s students end up a bit behind, is that irreparably damaging their lives?  Won’t they catch up at some point, or are their lives permanently scarred? I’m of the view that young people are remarkably resilient and they will catch up. As a local representative wrote today, “what happens if one student gets sick?”  There’s the question, isn’t it?  We know how highly contagious this virus is.  One case rapidly becomes dozens, becomes hundreds, spreading like the wildfires of California.  Stopping the spread in our schools once it starts, where even “social distancing” is more dream than reality, will be terribly risky and dangerous, and very difficult to achieve.  No, we should have been spending our time since June improving the quality of internet learning, bringing back only the special learners and those few that can’t survive online.

An article in the paper this past week mentioned that a high school age hockey player from Massachusetts participated in a tournament in Connecticut back at the end of July, and thoughtfully brought the virus home with him.  This despite the Massachusetts ban on sporting events across state lines.  Apparently, there were players from New York at the tournament, and that was the tracked source.  To make things better, his team played in two tournaments here in New Hampshire after that.  Just great. Is youth hockey really that important that it’s worth risking lives?  We’re just starting to understand that there may well be other health risks far beyond recovery from the virus, particularly among athletes.  Yet professional baseball players are sneaking out to bars and football players are sneaking companions into their hotel rooms. What does it take for people to understand that this is very, very serious?  

Still another news release detailed how a fundamental church just a few miles down the road from me, resumed services in June and held a youth summer camp in July, and since then has had 16 church and family members test positive for COVID-19.  The state Department of Health is investigating the possible causes, but all of the infected people belong to that church.  I’m not a specialist, but I don’t have much trouble connecting those dots. The senior pastor was puzzled.  Really?  Apparently, God wasn’t protecting his flock quite as thoroughly as he thought.  And isn’t that the point?  So many of ministers, pastors, and churchgoers think that there’s an invisible force field protecting them from all harm, because that’s what God does. Only he doesn’t.  God doesn’t seem to work that way.  I guess these deeply religious people figure that the rest of us are on our own.

Then, of course we see the unmasked face of Herman Cain, sitting surrounded by people with no effort to distance at a Trump rally, just a few weeks before he mysteriously contracted coronavirus and died.  The poor man, but wasn’t he challenging fate just a bit?  And will it change the way a president chooses to campaign?  Probably not.

We in America are at a crossroads.  We hold the record for most cases and most deaths of any single country in this pandemic.  We’re not allowed to travel to most places in the world now, and probably won’t be for some time to come. The Canadian Prime Minister won’t come here. Our healthcare system, which we thought was the envy of the world, is overworked, undersupplied, underfunded, and exhausted.  I’ve come to believe in the t-shirt that says, “Science doesn’t care what you believe.”  Isn’t that the truth?  Infectious diseases in the forms of viruses and bacteria are learning to adapt, grow, and reappear in ways that we’re still trying to understand.  We do know that these diseases don’t pay much attention to religious beliefs or political principles. The Black Plague centuries ago raced from Asia to Europe because people didn’t know about basic hygiene.  Now we know quite a bit more, but we’re still in first grade about this one.  We do know, though, that this one is airborne, and that wearing face masks could prevent hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of infections if we would just pay attention and listen to those that do the research.  Issues of “liberty” and “freedom” don’t even enter into the discussion.  One doesn’t have the freedom to stand in the middle of a shopping mall and yell, “fire”.  It’s not about freedom of speech, but about safety.  One doesn’t have the freedom to drive at whatever speed one wishes on the highway or in a neighborhood without consequences.  Again, not freedom but the safety of those around you.  So too is the mask.  It protects you, and more important, it protects everyone else from you.  So, to the freedom fighters among us, save it for voting rights, access to medical care, rights of immigrants, peaceful assembly.  Just remember to stay safe, wash your hands, and for heaven sake, WEAR A MASK!!