A holiday in rural Tennessee in the plague years

[70sEraVet]

On Thursday, my wife and I attended a Veterans Day Program in our town in a rural Tennessee county. It was held indoors in the Community Center/hurricane shelter. I was a bit dismayed right away, when I saw how full the parking lot was - the building would be full capacity.
We were greeted at the door by one of the hosts of the Program, and I said out loud, "Oh, my mask" while fishing in my pocket. "No, you don't need masks", he reassured me. We put our masks on.
We walked into the room, looked around at the sea of faces (maybe 150?), and my wife whispered " Nobody is wearing a mask!" I said "Well, were providing a service. If somebody wanted to wear a mask, but they were shy about, they'll see us and go 'Oh look! They're wearing a mask'."
Anyway, the guy who greeted us at the door started the Program, announcing who was going to give talks, etc. And he mentioned that Reverend so-an-so was supposed to give the Invocation, but he had Covid. He assured us that it was an asymptomatic case.
I'm sitting there, and thinking about that Reverend, about how I'm sure he's a nice friendly guy - no doubt he shakes the hands of all of his parishioners, probably even hugs those who seem downcast. You might even say, he's a very WARM guy (103 degrees?). And of the people who are in attendance today at this Veterans Day Program, maybe half of them are active members of that congregation. So, there's a 50/50 chance that the person sitting next to me was a handshaker; maybe a 10/90 chance that I was sitting next to a hugger (he DID seem a bit downcast).
It was hard to enjoy the rest of the Program. But everyone else seemed to have a nice time.
I'm sure the Reverend will be glad to know that I was thinking about him.

[Javaman]

1. you're braver than my, I would have turned on heel and left. nt

[Deuxcents]

2. Me, too

I still bow out of invitations. Probably will for a while n I make no apologies

[Ferrets are Cool]

3. I would never have even considered going, but once seeing that crowd, I would never have gone in.

[Tomconroy]

4. The NYT does these hot spot maps. They show in color the

Last edited Sat Nov 13, 2021, 08:43 AM - Edit history (1)

Worst parts of the country. You look at the cases map and the west doesn't look good. The south looks very good. You look at the hospitalizations map you might conclude that it's all close to over.

[Hortensis]

5. :) Sounds very like a funeral we attended for the father of friends.

He was very old, had lived there in rural north Georgia all his life, as had most of the members of his church. We were definitely odd ones out. We're vaccinated but it was inside, so we came late and found ourselves not unexpectedly the only ones with masks in a packed church of at least 150 nice people, sat in the far back, and left asap.

Not religious ourselves we were unable to depend on a loving god and just did what we could to avoid joining the honorees to come. Rude performance overall, but our friends excuse our California heathen foibles and don't expect more from us.

[LastDemocratInSC]

7. Your final paragraph is a gem. Thank you.

[Hortensis]

8. :) Easy to tell real friends from others these days.