I have, in my life, watched at the distance as humankind has dealt with natural and unnatural disasters, floods, fires, plagues, dental plaque, and pestilence, all included and none exclusive.

I have always thought that nothing of this sort would ever affect me. I live on high ground, we don’t have spruce fire-starter, and there are no locusts here in Alaska. The dental plaque, well that’s another story and one I don’t feel like telling right now.

Now a natural disaster is breathing down my back, or so it seems. Here I am in Portland, Oregon, by plane three hours and 55 minutes from home. And there is a virus that’s going viral right here, in my

I'd rather take a boat

sister’s backyard. It is very disconcerting. I might get infected on the airplane ride home. I would take the overland trail if I could, just like Lewis and Clark. As in lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my.

Problem is, I think that soon, Canada won’t be allowing us supposedly infected Amerrricans into their country. Who can blame them? We are a rather miserable lot. If we don’t do ourselves in by means of mass shootings, a virus will do the job for us. This gives more meaning to the words going viral.

I’m more scared for my little sister than I am for Pete and me. Tomorrow I’ll go food shopping with her and she’ll stock up on provisions and then I won’t have to worry about her. Not that she’s such, but all the lazy, lethargic individuals who don’t get out much and eschew group activities are the ones who are going to live. This is going to give new meaning to Darwin’s concept of the survival of fittest.

El’s friend Jerry remarked that I should wear a coffee filter and use a bandana to hold it in place. Imagine that, me a non-coffee drinker, taking a moment to inhale the Starbuck fumes. Masks though, their main purpose (as I understand it) is to keep others from catching what we have, rather than the other way around. I don’t think that most of those who are wearing them really get this concept. People just don’t care about others to the degree that they should. It’s a sad world, indeed.

All this gets me to thinking something I often think, which is that there are far too many people on this planet at this point in time, and this is nature’s way of saying whoa, you all aren’t cutting back on the numbers, so I am going to give you an assist. And so if mother nature has her way, what will be left in a few months’ time will be just a few – chiggers (see yesterday’s dispatch).

So, I guess that as far as air travel goes, I should be more worried about this virus than I should be about the plane going down. So what’s worse, a quick and horrifying death or a long, slow, lingering death? Hmm, I’d rather go yet another way, hypothermia has for a long time been my death of choice.

This is the most morbid dispatch I have ever written. I seriously doubt it will go viral.

59. 2/29/20: End of February