NO VAX NO RACKS- JACK

 Hunting is a mostly solitary pursuit. All season long we deer hunters hit the woods, morning and afternoon. After dark we check in with each other for "the report," the day's sightings and possible kills. There hasn't been much to report lately. The deer seem to have disappeared. It's been a year of diminishing returns. But, we all had the last two days of muzzleloader to look forward to for meat. This is our tradition, to gather at my shack and put on drives to take does. It usually works and it is always fun. Last year (before the Covid vaccine was available) Bird shot a nice doe and UB had a big four point pass under the cemetery stand. This year that buck is a nice six point shooter. Everybody was looking forward to these drives, a little holiday socializing and possibly getting one of these shooter bucks off their beds. Then, like an unwelcome guest who pours "one more" drink and keeps putting another record on the turntable at 4:00 am while you check your watch and yawn, the Covid is back.

      Most people stay away from discussing politics and religion with close friends and family. These prickly subjects are divisive and in order to maintain the peace everybody seems to sidestep them. But health is another matter. Even though the pandemic was politicized by Trump at the outset and Q-Republicanism is resembling a cultic religion, I have no problem asking people their vaccine status. To my surprise one of our hunters had a very sick (unvaccinated) daughter at home in bed and he was also unvaccinated and sick. WTF? How is this possible? In a word: Trump. This two legged virus, a boil on the ass of society can be blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths and the mass hysteria that is infecting half the country.

   I can honestly say I have no Republican friends (or so I thought). I knew of a few in-laws and maybe a niece or nephew or two who leaned right, but over the years I've stepped away from my more racist or rightwing cohorts. I just have nothing to say to them anymore. Life's too short. Their flaccid reasoning and absurd rationales for their "beliefs" are weak, non-critical pablum that falls apart at the slightest objective examination. I can't be around them. So, to find out one of my hunting buddies was an anti-vaxer, sick as a dog on his couch, as our deer drives loomed was more than disappointing.

   The consequences of not taking responsibility for your own (as well as your family's) health almost two years into a global pandemic are becoming crystal clear. Not taking advantage of a vaccine that has been proven safe and effective, while spewing a litany of excuses that run from government body intrusion (abortion anyone?) to fear of needles is just plain ignorant and shameful. You may be a smart, tough, fearless person, but you are acting like a complete idiot, a petulant child. Now you are sick. Your daughter is sick. Your other children, wife, father and grandchildren are all at risk of catching the virus. If you go to the hospital you are stressing out the system and all my health-worker relatives who will take care of you. Think of your community. Did you not see this coming? You are way smarter than this. I fear for you and all your family's health. This was all perfectly avoidable.

   So Monday is a bust. Drive drives 2021 have been canceled. As photogGeorge put it "No vax no rack." No poke, no joke. As much as I thought I had purged my inner circle, my Covid bubble of outliers, this was not in fact the case. Now we are all paying the price. I'm to get my booster on Wed. or before. I thought everybody I knew was at least vaxed. Turns out I was wrong. Because of this we all may be eating canned chicken and Majestic Farm pork chops in 2022. But at least (the LGM willing) we will be alive to sit at the table, venison or not. To all my friends and loved ones (Republicans or not) Pulleeeeze-  GET VACCINATED!!!!! Before it's too late.