The sound of silence?

"White silence is violence."

I stared at the sign held by a protester standing on the steps of the Colorado State Capitol on my T.V. screen. When the image changed I continued to ponder what the sign meant. To me. To you. To America. To Mr. Floyd. 

I pondered for a lot longer than the 8 minutes and 46 seconds it took to take Mr. Floyd's life. 

Just a couple of weeks ago I sat in the comfort of my living room watching armed white Americans (some carrying automatic assault rifles) standing on the steps of the same Colorado State Capitol demanding that the Governor relax, no - remove, the economic restrictions put in place to protect us from a worldwide pandemic that has now claimed more than 105,000 American lives. The not-so-veiled threat of course was that if Governor Polis did not 'reopen' the State on his own the protesters would do it for him. 

"White silence is violence." 

Four words on a handmade sign. Silence. Merriam Webster defines silence, among other things, as forbearance from speech or noise. To not speak up, to not speak out, is to remain silent.

What appalls me most about Mr. Floyd's death is not that it came at the hands, or more accurately the knee, of a police officer. What struck me as I watched the horrible video was that three other police officers, no - three other human beings, stood silent and did nothing as the life ebbed from Mr. Floyd as he lay on that Minneapolis street. In 2020 does police training truly not cover how to intercede when a fellow officer crosses the line? In exactly these types of situations? 

Newscasts from around the country showed police officers kneeling in respect for Mr. Floyd. In Denver, our police chief, Paul Pazen, walked arm in arm with Black Lives Matter protesters through the streets of Denver. The message of course is that they are different than Mr. Chauvin, the white Minneapolis police officer who's knee killed Mr. Floyd, and the other three officers who stood silent. I'm not sure I believe them. 

Statistics show that a black man has a 1 in a thousand chance of being killed by police in his lifetime, 2.5 times the odds for a white man. In a Kyle Clark (9News) interview this week Denver Mayor Hancock acknowledged that Denver police had murdered 3 men of color in just the recent past. And Colorado has a very suspect history when it comes to race relations.  

If I were to make a protest sign it would ask "Will we let the past define our future?" If you believe the answer is yes then there is no hope that Mr. Floyd will be the last of an already too long list of those killed by officers purporting to 'Serve and Protect'. Change is hard, but it is possible. 

If we choose not to be silent.

As an aside, it was literally almost two years ago to the day that I was writing in this blog about Colin Kaepernick teaching me a lesson. Truly, the lessons are there if we only heed them.

The angels among us

Man... I really should have named this blog something different than ‘The Road That Beckons’. Something like ‘Living the Good Life’, or ‘Retirement Dreams’. Or perhaps steal the title from one of my favorite books ‘Eat, Sleep, Ride’ but expand it to ‘Eat, Sleep, Ride, Kayak, Hike, Camp, Travel, Cruise’. I should have known that calling it ‘The Road That Beckons’ brings along the reality that not all roads are equal. Some (most?) lead to wonder and amazement, but a few lead to dead ends and some of those dead ends can be bleak and scary.

We’ve all seen the inundation of ads thanking first responders for their heroic efforts. Candidly I find these ads suspect and I don’t need my local plumbing company, law firm, internet provider, or fast food joint telling me to be thankful for all those EMT’s, Nurses, CNA’s, and Doctors who are risking their own lives to save the rest of us from the ravages of COVID. Even as the nation is contemplating thumbing their once thankful nose at them as we potentially reopen minus adequate testing and with no cure or vaccine remotely in sight.

This particular blog has the title of ‘The Angels Among Us’. Perhaps you believe in angels already. I had never really given it too much thought, at least until last Tuesday. When a couple of them saved my life.

Those who know me know that I can be a wee bit stubborn and contrary. So far be it for me to need my angels for anything related to the current pandemic rage. Nope, no Corona Virus for me. Instead, I opted for that old standby.... but wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Couple of weeks back I was on a mountain bike ride relishing the singletrack trails of Bear Creek Park. I was having a great ride but about an hour in I started to feel suddenly very short of breath and like I was going to feint. Mountain bikers may not be the smartest bunch of coconuts wearing a bike helmet but I did the right thing. I stopped and rested for about ten minutes before making my way back to my car, went home and took a couple of Ibuprofen and took it easy. Couple of days later, another bike ride, this time through Chatfield State Park, and again, after an hour, I started exhibiting the same symptoms. This time I was a little farther from my car at the Mineral Park & Ride and it was a struggle all the way back. Hmmm, this was starting to seriously get my focused attention. Now I’m not one who likes visits to Doctors offices but it seemed a trip to my Primary Care Physician was in order. Tests were done - Spirometry, Blood, and a chest X-Ray. And... all came back normal. Wonderful! Except we still had no idea what was behind my symptoms...

I was now experiencing shortness of breath and feeling feint doing something as simple as taking our dogs for a walk. Now for most of you you're probably well ahead of me and the warning signs are screaming in the background. I didn't want to acknowledge the elephant riding on the bike with me, but my family history does include heart disease going back several generations on my father's side. I'm sure I was hoping my Primary Care Doctor would find something simple like an upper respiratory infection, prescribe some antibiotics, and I could pedal on my merry way. He hadn't done that so I was forced to consider the second, far less favorable, path of possibilities.

Knowing my family history I had been under the care of a couple of Doctors at South Denver Cardiology Associates for several years. One of them, Richard Collins (now retired) had convinced me almost from the get-go to switch to a plant-based diet and had put me, like millions of other Americans, on statins to control high cholesterol. The diet and statins, along with lots of exercise and no smoking or drinking, worked but he was clear with me - there was a genetic component to this that could not be ignored.

So I made the call to my current South Denver Doc, Dr. David Schuchman. They're not seeing many patients in-person due to COVID, but after hearing my symptoms he scheduled me in almost immediately. The Angels were starting to assemble.

I wasn't exhibiting classic symptoms - no chest pain or discomfort by example. Except when experiencing symptoms I felt perfectly fine. Still, he thought it prudent to get me in for an angiogram and heart catherization and explained that if they found a blockage they'd insert stents and I could likely go home the same day as the procedure which would take about two hours. This procedure has become so routine its now considered outpatient and the catheter is now threaded to the heart through a tiny incision right behind your wrist. OK, wasn't real thrilled about having stents in my heart but even there the technology has come a long way. The stents are now drug-infused to prevent many of the complications of old (like 10 or 20 years ago) so how could I go wrong? The road ahead seemed to be well-marked and easy to follow.

Tuesday, the 21st of April, was a beautiful Colorado day, sunny and promising warm Springtime temperatures. My procedure was scheduled at Littleton Adventist Hospital. Driving from my home, traffic was non-existent thanks to Colorado Governor Polis' Covid Stay At Home Order so in no time they were taking my temperature, making sure I was wearing a mask, and whisking me off to be prepped for the procedure. They only allowed my wife to accompany me a little way so soon I was alone not aware that the next time I would see her, if ever, would be nearly a week away,

It's about time for some good news don't you think? The angiogram did find almost a complete blockage in the right coronary artery and two stents were inserted. Blood was now flowing the way that it should. When I awoke in recovery Dr. Cedrone, who did the procedure, thought he'd like to keep me overnight just for observation. While disappointed not to be going home immediately I was willing to spend an extra day making sure everything was fine. Little did I know but the Angels were really starting to assemble...

Tuesday night I went to bed around 9 p.m. and quickly dozed off. It was time for my next Angel to prepare to step on stage. This Angel took the guise of a CNA by the name of Sydney Bailey who has apparently just completed her Nursing Program. Apparently sometime in the middle of the night she was glancing through the monitors and thought something on mine looked off. What she didn't quite know was that my heart had developed a fatal arrhythmia. If she had not checked on me when she did I would have passed from this life in my sleep never to inflict another blog posting on my kind and gentle readers. If Angels earn their wings, in my book she earned hers in that moment on that night.

Her awareness and quick actions set in motion a multitude of steps that would extend the better part of the night and the rest of the week. CPR, defibrillation, another trip to the Heart Cath lab to check to see if my stents had collapsed (they hadn't), intubation and being placed on a ventilator (that same device made famous by COVID that we don't seem to have enough of).

I awoke midmorning on Wednesday and quickly realized something had happened though I could only guess as to what. With a tube down your throat and your hands in mitts (so you don't try to yank the tube out) its kind of difficult to communicate but eventually the nurse allowed me to use a white board to ask some questions. By mid-afternoon they had removed the tube (something I would not like to ever experience again) and I was on a path not of my choosing but one I was happy to follow given that the alternate trail was literally a dead end.

By Thursday the doctors were recommending that I have a combination pacemaker/in-cardiac defibrillator implanted and that procedure was set for the following day. After what happened after my first procedure I was understandably very (VERY) nervous about having them do anything to my heart but agreed after coming to the conclusion that this would protect me going forward and give me a new lease on life. Still, I was counting on more angels to see me through.

The Friday procedure went like clockwork and after about an hour and a half I was awake and heading back to my room for more 'observation' in anticipation of possibly being released on Saturday. I'd be remiss not to say by this point the original complaint - shortness of breath and feeling feint - had disappeared which was a wonderful thing. In their place of course I was now bruised over much of my body, my sternum where they had done CPR was extremely painful to the touch, I felt like a pincushion from IV lines here, there, and everywhere, and I now had a 3-4" incision below my left collarbone as well as a not-so-discreet lump in my chest that was the actual implanted device. My angels and I truly had a busy week.

As I write this I'm now at home taking things one day (one hour?) at a time. I went for a walk yesterday and today with my wife and puppies and feel amazingly... alive.  Alive. Thanks to the angels among us, that's more than I could hope for. And for that, I am truly thankful.

Grand Reopening?

So there we have it. President Trump, not quite understanding the Constitution he swore to uphold four years ago, is proclaiming he has “total” authority to reopen the country. The Governors push back saying it was the States who implemented the shutdown and stay-at-home orders and it will be they who decide when and how their individual States start making the return to whatever the new normal will look like.

I humbly submit that both the President and the nation’s Governors have it wrong.

It will be you and I, and millions of individual Americans, who will decide when and how the nation ‘reopens’. Perhaps you, like I, are starting to think about the level of risk you’re willing to accept going forward. The risk, of course, being catching the COVID-19 virus and possibly dying from it. There’s also the risk of passing it unknowingly to our loved ones as well as others in our communities.

My wife and I have been to the grocery store just twice in the last six weeks. We’ve supplemented that with ordering groceries online thereby transferring most of our personal risk to some Braver than We Instacart or Amazon shopper. How quickly will we regain our comfort level to return more frequently to our neighborhood grocery store? The President or the Governor of our great State can’t make that determination for us; only my wife and I can do that.

We haven’t eaten at a restaurant since late February. How soon will we be comfortable going back to our favorite eateries that more often than not before the Pandemic were standing room only. Neither Mr. Trump or Colorado Governor Polis can force us to start eating out again. There’s talk that when restaurants do reopen the wait staff will continue wearing PPE (masks and gloves) as they serve us and that establishments will take the temperature of their patrons before allowing them to enter. Yum.

The good news is that Apple and Google, those twin bastions when it comes to protecting our privacy, are developing phone apps that will alert you when you (or at least your phone) has been in close proximity to someone carrying COVID. Are you going to self quarantine every time your phone pings with an alert? How many times will that alert go off as you stroll down a crowded street? If it pings, how safe will you feel returning home to your family?

Do you have kids? What calculations are going through your mind as you try to determine what will make you feel ok about having them return to crowded classrooms, or after school soccer practice? Take your child to a packed daycare because your employer has reopened? I’d bet it’s not going to be automatic just because some government bureaucrat or even your boss insists its suddenly safe for the schools and daycares to reopen.

A tough calculus will come in the decision to return to your place of work once your employer says to come on back. There’s talk about continued social distancing in the workplace. Great. How are you going to get up to your office on the 10th floor? Use a crowded elevator? That contact tracing phone app that tells you you've been exposed to the virus - picture it going off on everyone's phone all at once in the elevator. Twenty people suddenly looking around wondering who's the Carrier.  Climb the slightly less crowded stairwell? Will you return to using Light Rail or public transit for your commute? How about attending all those lovely face to face meetings you’ve been missing so much?

The litmus test, the canary in the coal mine, for me will be when I feel comfortable going to, of all things, a movie theatre. Stadium seating, comfortable as it may be, is the antithesis of social distancing and I used to cringe long before COVID when the person sitting next to me was obviously under the weather. For you it might be returning to Coors Field or Empower at Mile High Stadium or the Pepsi Center. What’s going to make you feel safe crowded in with 80,000 of your closest friends? Just Mr. Trump's or your local elected official's say so?

I fear the last to gain back trust in their own sense of safety will be the elderly, especially those in assisted living and care facilities. I’m going out on a limb here but I’ll bet the directive from Big Brother to reopen will come way, way, way before it’s anywhere close to safe for us to resume visiting grandma and granddad in person again.

Of course, everyone is waiting for the promised vaccine for COVID. Yet no vaccine is 100% effective. 80-90% effectiveness would be considered outstanding but that leaves ten to twenty percent of us still at risk of catching this nasty bug. And if COVID has demonstrated anything its that it is not your grandaddy's flu.

On a societal level Mr. Trump may have a point when he argues the cure can’t be worse than the disease. Whether Americans are going to automatically trust his judgement about when things are safe enough to resume 'normal' activities is another question. Of course I could well be wrong. Lots of folks are just itching to get right back into the old swing of things. Heck, there's a sizable population of less than civic minded people who never stopped. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

Nor will we likely knee-jerk our acceptance of what Dr. Fauci or other Health officials tell us. Everyone, from Mr. Trump to the scientists, to government officials, to us as individual citizens, underestimated to some extent the severity of what was about to hit us.  The old adage says 'fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.' Ultimately the choices will not be  made by those who think they have the power to decide. Each of us, individually, in our own time and our own way will have to decide for ourselves. Collectively, over the next days, weeks, and months, we'll be making millions of these decisions. May they prove to be the right ones. America, lets look before we leap; the waters ahead are uncharted and likely to be deep.

Where are we now? Really?

Safeway still limiting ‘essential paper products’ to
one per customer as I wait patiently in line
this last Thursday 

This was the week Bernie Sanders dropped his bid for the Democratic nomination for President. While he apparently had a ton of support among the young, history has shown that being young and actually voting don’t always correlate. Among the older population there was widespread fear of what was purported to be Sanders’ socialist agenda. How much of a socialist Sanders really is is debatable, and I for one supported his ideas for widely available and affordable universal healthcare as one option, but perhaps America needs to take pause in light of the current pandecomomic crisis as to how much socialism we’re really ready to accept. Rightly or wrongly Americans facing dire economic uncertainty seem more than willing to accept all the government bailouts they can get. The Federal Reserve and Congress are spending trillions (what’s a trillion? A one followed by 12 zeroes- $1,000,000,000,000) to subsidize individuals, families and business enterprises.

I’m not disputing the need for this stimulus, but if that’s not socialism at its grandest I don’t know what is. My wife and I will apparently be receiving $2,400 as a couple. What that does in reality for us is cut our tax bill, now postponed until July, by about half. I’m one of those crazy fools who have always been happy to pay taxes. I like having armed forces to keep me free, police and fire and ambulance personnel to save my bacon if necessary, roads that are more asphalt than pothole, and good teachers to educate our children. In short, I’m willing to pay my share.

I’m not a Republican (or a Democrat for that matter) but I share their belief that I don’t want government overly involved in my life (the difference between the two parties seems to boil down in how you define ‘overly’). Like many of you who are old enough (o.k. Boomer!) I’ve lived through lots of economic upheavals - Y2K, 911, and the last “Great Recession” just as more recent examples. I look at the grief former President Obama has gotten for his bailout of the financial services (banks...) and auto industry during the last recession and can only chuckle as America puts its collective hand out for a historic hand out from the Federal government today. Again, I’m ok with that. I think the Federal government, along with State and local government, has a role to play beyond just telling us to wash our hands, stay home, and wear a mask. But perhaps we need to finally be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that we’re happy to be the model of Capitalism in good times but have definite socialist tendencies when the stuffing hits the fan.

On the good news front, now might be the time to invest some of that financial stimulus you receive in manufacturers of that uniquely human staple, toilet tissue. The demand for this spiked in mid-March as much as 845% according to NCSolutions, a data and analytics firm that tracks these important matters. And while we’re not hoarding in April at the same rate as in March, demand is expected to stay strong:

“Will the workforce go back to work like they did before? If people work from home, this (increased demand for toilet tissue) could be much more prolonged,” said NC-Solutions CEO Linda Dupree.

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” Winston Churchill in a speech to the British House of Commons, October 22, 1945

How are you doing?

I hope this blog finds you well. Staying at home and social distancing aren’t the worst things that could happen to us. Of course, if you’re one of the 17 million plus Americans that now find themselves unemployed, or if you’ve had COVID or lost someone close to you through the virus then  it’s a completely different story. Increasingly there seems to be consensus that there will not be some grand “reopening” of America and that we will face a slow rollout of reduced restrictions State by State, City by City, town by town through May and perhaps into the summer. I fear that some of our Federal leaders will knee-jerk their efforts to get the U.S. economy rolling as soon as the crisis in New York seems to be under control. While N.Y.C. is a crucial part of our country the worst of the pandemic may be ending there just as it starts to peak in other areas.

Wuhan, China is now under the microscope. As the original epicenter from which the virus spread starts to reopen everyone will watch to see if the virus returns for round two.

In the Denver Metro area folks have now taken to howling at 8:00 in a western rendition of what Italians started from their balconies several weeks ago. I guess if we can’t sing opera like the Italians we can howl, and yes, I and my two huskies have been known to howl together long before we had ever heard of COVID-19. I can do a passable howl but it’s really just to get them started. So it’s been second nature to chime in now that howling is all the rage.

We continue to get out for occasional walks in quiet areas we know. Most of the more popular parks and trails are still filled to capacity even during weekdays now but within a 15 minute drive of our house there are quieter places less visited. The video below is an example of a walk we took the other day. Granted we headed out early in the morning to beat whatever crowds might materialize but when we arrived we found we had the area all to ourselves. Hopefully you have access to one of these quiet spots to find solace. I mean, I can only garden in the back yard for so long. How about you?

A social distancing jaunt

Photo courtesy of Colorado Public Radio

As of this afternoon Governor Polis of Colorado has asked Colorado residents to wear face masks when out in public.

As I had mentioned in an earlier blog, my mother in law had been kind enough to sew us some masks which until today we hadn't felt like we really needed to wear. Thank goodness for her, as I'm no seamstress (seamstrer?). There is now a website, the Colorado Mask Project, that shows how to make do-it-yourself masks if you'd like to give it a try. You're probably aware that medical grade (N95) masks are in extremely short supply and are being reserved for first responders and medical staff. Up until now most of the guidance was that homemade masks did next to nothing to protect you but apparently the thought now is that some protection is better than no protection. Viruses are very tiny and can easily penetrate most handmade masks but the masks may in fact help catch the larger particle droplets containing the virus that folks breath and sneeze. And since many folks are not showing any symptoms of illness even when they are already contagious that healthy looking jogger or cyclist who is breathing hard may be expelling millions of virus-containing droplets. The masks may help sequester those droplets.

Anyway, I hadn't planned on this being a newsy blog but there you have it. What I had really intended was to share something a little more fun, especially if you are really not leaving your house even for exercise. My wife and I had taken a bike ride into Chatfield State Park the other day. It was early in the morning as we were trying to avoid as many people as possible and you'll see in the video the Park was fairly quiet at least compared to normal. So sit back and take a spin with us. Hopefully, sooner rather than later, we'll all be out in the great Colorado outdoors enjoying again what our State has to offer...

Uncharted territory

Like most (not all) guys I’ll drive around in circles before I stop to ask for directions. Drives my better half crazy (unintended benefit?). Unlike a lot of younger fellows, I still prefer a physical paper map in my hands to get my bearings rather than the sweet melodious voice of Miss Google telling me in no uncertain terms that I just passed my turn. Still, I routinely find myself physically and metaphorically in uncharted waters and when I do I turn to past experience to guide me. Not just my own experience but the collective experience of the past that is perhaps the best definition of wisdom. As attributed (perhaps incorrectly) to Mark Twain, “History may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes”.

Like most of you, I’m hoping for the best in the situation we find ourselves in today. Looking for that silver lining, grasping at any sign of good news, whatever ray of sunshine I can find. Of course, there’s that other adage we perhaps should not forget - “The darkest hour is just before the dawn” (attributed to an English historian by the name of Thomas Fuller in 1650; hmmm, pretty smart for way back then). Many experts, and yes, even our President who seems perennially late to this party, are telling us that the next couple of weeks may see the peak of deaths from the Corona Virus. They say that ‘best case’ may see as many as 240,000 of our friends, family, coworkers, and community members succumb to this horrific pandemic.

If the numbers of expected deaths don’t get your attention then the economic turmoil probably will. You may be working from home or heaven forbid have been furloughed or laid off. Bills still come due and stimulus package aside it will be increasingly difficult for millions of American families to make ends meet. Landlords and mortgage lenders may (or may not) be temporarily forgiving but sooner or later they will demand payment for what they are rightfully owed. When that day inevitably comes hopefully we’ll all be in a far better place than where we are now.

California and Seattle, Washington are reporting a slowing in the deaths from COVID-19. The pandemic seems to have run its course in its source country to the point where, according to a Denver Post article, the market where the virus originated has now been deemed safe enough to reopen. In this country that place might somehow have been memorialized given the staggering woe it has inflicted on the world, but our Chinese friends seem more pragmatic in their approach.

Still, the news shows footage of folks ignoring stay at home and social distancing mandates. One pastor of a mega-church was even arrested back east for continuing to hold standing-room only worship services. Talk about putting your faith in God...

Perhaps our elected leaders might have acted
sooner and wiser if they had watched this...

So, if all this doesn’t give you pause and make you acknowledge the seriousness of what we are facing, then I suggest you take an hour from your day and watch an episode of The PBS American Experience series that shows how America handled a very similar (eerily similar) pandemic 102 years ago. It originally aired several years ago and I appreciate that it wasn’t produced as a reaction to today’s crisis. Because of that, it hits closer to home than many of the specials being shown that are an immediate reaction to current events. Whatever lessons we learn (or fail to learn) from today’s pandemic are learned again simply because we forget to heed what has already been experienced by those who have come before. Be warned, the program will make you sit up and take notice. If it doesn’t, well, there’s that mega-church back east where you can put all your faith.