MISSING IN ACTION

I’ve been in El Salvador for most of the past two weeks.

When we go away, Ellen and I often go to Latin America. In addition to this recent trip, we’ve been, on eleven two-week trips, to Nicaragua and Costa Rica 3x, Colombia and Puerto Rico 2x and Mexico once.

Though I like cold weather, there are multiple reasons we’ve usually headed south at this time of year. Doing so fit within my work schedule, which required me to work six days/week in spring, summer and fall, such that I couldn’t go away then.

Plus, by heading to Latin America:

We get to visit my beloved sister in Texas along the way. You only change one time zone and thus, don’t get jet-lagged. There are plenty of pretty places in Central America: old cities, mountains and especially, beaches that have great, warm surf, adjoin rainforests or palm trees and have awesome, colorful sunsets. The weather and food are predictably good. Stuff down there is inexpensive. And I speak and (usually) understand Spanish with the (mostly) friendly natives.

But I’m not trying to convince anyone to go there. You do you.

Nor do I think that the US should allow every Latin American who wants to enter and reside here to do so, or to provide free housing, free hospitalization and gift cards to those who do. Doing so seems unsustainable.

Next week, I’ll post about Latin America, especially as it pertains to Coronamania and shots. I need some time to process what I saw and heard this time and on prior visits. And to examine the limits of my knowledge.

—

While down there, I went mostly off the grid. Thus, I just finished reading and replying to the comments for the past two posts, which I wrote and scheduled before we went away.

Sorry about the typos in the vaxx post. I didn’t properly proofread that one before I posted it. But I stand by the simple notion that allowing parents to opt out of vaxx schedules would enable us to learn if the many mandated shots have caused autism or allergies. For the reasons stated in my prior post, allowing parents to decline vaxxes simply would not create a mass scale public health crisis. Those who maintain that skipping shots will endanger kids are contemptible demagogues. I strongly suspect the opposite is true, i.e., skipping vaxxes will improve health.

But let’s stop the vaxx worship/mandates and find out.

—

Some wanted to know what happened with DD and Grange after the radio show prank. I called DD a few hours after the first call and told him that it was a joke. He was angry. But I told him that he was no worse off briefly believing that we had won; he might even get a call the next day telling him that we had. At least for a few hours, he got to imagine how fun that trip would be. As Robert Louis Stevenson said, “It’s better to travel hopefully than it is to arrive.”

And, as with traveling to Central America, imagining entails no jet lag.

DD took the prank way harder than did Grange. DD eventually forgave me; at least that’s what he said. DD often busted on people. He could, as my mother used to say, dish it out but not always take it. I appreciate a clever prank that doesn’t involve false bad news, even when it’s played on me. But I guess not everyone does.

Caller ID would prevent such a prank these days. Technology has taken much of the fun and spontaneity out of life. When we travel internationally, Ellen and I plan very little, taking each day as it comes and talking to as many strangers as we can. They say interesting, funny things and suggest destinations to us.

I haven’t heard from DD in almost twenty years. He married someone who makes and sells jewelry out of coins, whom I suspect bought the Covid Scam and thus, it’s likely DD also did so. I’ve lost plenty of friends over the Scamdemic. It was the most malicious prank ever.

During the past five years, I’ve made new, smarter friends. I need sane friends now more than I need to reminisce with others about goofy stuff we did together in our teens and twenties. Besides, my newer, clearer-thinking friends lead more interesting lives, have accomplished more than my old friends and can laugh and make me laugh just as well.

Thank you for being you.