164

I have this huge social network from being the sports editor at The Brownsville Herald to writing as an independent journalist for the last 40 years, from teaching and coaching in the BISD to three marriages, from painting the streets red in Brownsville to hanging out in Matamoros. I know thousands of people. I've known so many people in our town that in my memories the dead outnumber the living.

That number has just grown. I'm adding three more to a long list. In the last two days a member from my first Brownsville family, a former colleague from the BISD and a pachanga pal have all passed. My Facebook feed has become one endless obit and there is no end in sight. From the local level to the national level, our leadership is failing us. As incompetent as our county judge and president among many others have proven, our state wants to reopen the schools. Only isolation will thwart COVID's death march and Texas is choosing the opposite strategy. Either we social distance or each of us will soon be a distant memory.

This is no longer a disease that is ravaging the nursing homes or killing individuals with pre-existing conditions. The pandemic is wreaking havoc among the baby boomers, Generation X yuppies and the millennials. They are being cheated out of their longevity. I look at the photos of the recently departed in which they are brimming with health and I recall the family gatherings at Christmas, sitting in the stands at Sams Stadium cheering on our teams and drinking in the Palm Lounge talking shit.

Are these days done? The people that made these moments special are done. Are we done? I don't leave my house anymore except to shop at HEB and pick up curb-side orders. Is this the new normal? Have the good times come to an end? I can stay at home, write, exercise, walk, read, fuck, play the guitar, sip wine, watch movies and be content, but my three sons, one step-son and one step-daughter aren't as easily satisfied. I have had my fun and in simplicity I find joy. The kids are young and filled with vim and vigor. They want to live. They want to learn via their own mistakes, but with COVID filling cemeteries, they aren't in a position to make  mistakes. Not only could they pay for their errors, but they could be conduits of sickness and death for their family and friends.

I started this article late last night and I am finishing it in the early afternoon the following day. In that interim two acquaintances have lost their lives and two others are battling for their lives. These are four well-educated professionals. They are individuals who would have abided by the basic guidelines as articulated by the medical experts, but there is staggering evidence that letting down one's guard for a moment can accelerate a permanent knockout.

I am not saying that Trump is as bad as Hitler or Stalin, but because the people of Germany and Russia didn't stand up to these tyrants, millions died. We must go mano-a-mano with this despot in order to save our country from perdition. Why? Because Trump is evil with all the makings of a tyrant. He is talking of postponing the November 3rd election as well as making voting more difficult. He is also saying that he won't necessarily accept the election's results. Nobody has contributed more to 150,000 dead Americans and 4,500,000 sick Americans than Trump. Nobody has been more responsible for our crashing economy or the civil unrest across the nation.

Herman Cain, a Republican presidential candidate in 2012, attended Trump's rally on June 20th. Disdaining a mask, social distancing and a large gathering, he died 50 days later of COVID. Texas Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert, another Trump stooge, refused to wear a mask. He tested positive a few days ago. Other prominent Republicans in both the political and business worlds have imitated Trump's juvenile behavior and have either followed Cain to the grave or Gohmert to a hospital. If the repercussions of COVID continue to reap a gruesome toll, these enabling Republicans who have refused to keep Trump accountable will follow him to defeat.

A pair of Trump supporters told the press that they would rather be dead than wear masks. We're not surprised by this foolishness. Trump has condoned the worst behavior in millions of Americans. We wouldn't be opposed if Trump's Republicans adopted the same attitude. If they are willing to pay the price for their stubborn stupidity, so be it, but like Islamic suicide bombers, they want to take Democrats with them. There is nothing they won't do or won't accept in their utter prostration five times daily before the Ayatollah Trumeini. As to the virgins that Trump has promised his fanatical followers, they shouldn't be astonished if they are sentenced to hell with whores, their own wives passed from man to man who grab them by their pussies and the rest is history.