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FedEx

A Goat Roping

February 7, 2021 by Peg Leave a Comment

Last Thursday morning at 8:00 a.m. Peg and I joined supplicants from numerous Oklahoma communities at the Grant County Health Department in Medford, Oklahoma, population one thousand. Medford is 105 miles from our home in Barnsdall, Oklahoma but there were pilgrims there from even further away. The convocation had the feel of a Hadj with the tiny health department being the Ka’bah and Medford being Mecca. Instead of seeking a later reward we were all beseeching the higher authority, our government, for salvation here and now from COVID-19.

The congregation consisted of a continuous stream of persons all of whom had the same color hair, were of similar size and shape and shuffled along as if in fear of falling. Because Medford’s Health Department is staffed with small-town Oklahomans who were born in the 20th century they were unfailingly friendly and efficient. Peg and I arrived early, of course, as did many others and were welcomed in out of the forty mile per hour cold wind gusts into the 10’ x 20’ reception area. We were there about 45 minutes, most of that time being required to see if either of us had a bad reaction to the shots; we did not. However, since these supplicants were mainly friendly refugees from an Oklahoma of the 1940’s and 50’s, in that time we learned more about them and they about us than any government census worker ever would.

Our experience with the fine folks of Medford, most of whom were unpaid volunteers, was difficult to reconcile with America’s over all response to COVID-19. Whereas our federal government should receive praise for developing vaccines in record time, we have fallen way, way short in delivering the vaccine. Every day the battle we are in with the constantly mutating virus becomes more dangerous and ’Ole 19 has already killed over 450,000 of us.

Toni Morrison (1931-2019) has her main character, Milkman, in her novel Song of Soloman thinking, “Perhaps all human relationships boil down to: Would you save my life? or would you take it?” Morrison clearly understood Franz Kafka’s (1883-1924) anguished frustration with the legal system in his novel The Trial. Kafka’s main character, Joseph K, cannot even get the legal system to explain what he is charged with or why. William Shakespeare’s (1564-1616) Macbethsums it up: “Life is a tale told by an idiot”. Apparently Morrison, Kafka and Shakespeare were trying to get their governments to provide something as essential as a COVID-19 vaccination or whatever basic public service they needed then.

Whereas most of us are amazed that our government ramped up vaccines in about one year, the euphoria over discovery appears to have interfered with actually inoculating us. It is as if we have been so proud of finding a potential prevention of the plague that we have failed to develop a plan to employ the prevention. At the rate we are inoculating ourselves ’Ole 19 will mutate us out of existence. Supposedly millions of doses of vaccines will soon be shipped to CVS, Walgreens and Walmart. That is great but if our government has to use the existing Internet portal system, the virus will outpace us. We must be able to sign up “at the door” of the pharmacies or have the vaccine delivered and applied at our doors. We have already appropriated trillions of dollars to respond to COVID-19. We have spent enough taxpayer vaccination money to send a trained UPS, FedEx, Amazon worker or National Guard soldier to every one of our 330 million citizens with a needle and a vile of vaccine and the knowledge, training and emergency supplies to check for and respond to any bad reactions. Although in the millions of shots already given there have been virtually no deaths reported. We are allowing an extremely unlikely deadly reaction to the vaccination to interfere with the delivery of the vaccine and the almost guaranteed possibility the virus will continue to kill us in huge numbers if we do not quickly vaccinate a large percentage of our population. Another possibility would be to have the vaccines delivered directly to us and then allow us to contact medical providers of our choice to inject them. After all, millions of us receive billions of doses of medication by mail already.

We inoculated the whole country for polio without so much as a ripple. We all have had shots for smallpox, measles, TB, etc., etc. without this bottleneck. As Jonathan Reiner, Professor of Medicine at George Washington University, said back in January 2021, “The bottleneck is actually the logistics of vaccinating people (not the supply of the vaccine)”. And former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb stated in The Wall Street Journal, “New variants of the virus that appear more contagious increase the urgency to deploy the vaccine as fast as possible”.

The craziness of signing up on Internet portals, waiting in lines of vehicles or waiting in lines outside in the weather adds another level to Dante Alighieri’s (1265-1321) Inferno. Americans can order everything from food to computers over the Internet and get them sent overnight right to our doors with simple instructions on how to use them. A packaged, pre-loaded syringe packed in dry ice is not a space shot problem. A looped YouTube video and public TV demonstration would get to 99% of our cell phones and homes for those who wish to DIY.

If our government does not think we, their bosses, are competent to give ourselves or our families shots then why not use each state’s National Guard or our 2 ½ million regular military personnel. When I joined the United States Air Force fifty-eight years ago, they gave us enough inoculations in one day to save the world from all known diseases and some not even thought of. Surely we can adapt from that system.

By the way, in a week or two after we get the promised email notices from the Oklahoma Board of Health, Peg will have to get back on the online portal to schedule appointments for our second shots at a location somewhere around the state. Hopefully it won’t take a month of checking daily/hourly to schedule the second dose as it did with the first. And, of course, we each have to get a separate appointment within the three to four week allotted period before the next dose is due. All this must take place while the virus continues to out fox us.

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Filed Under: COVID-19, Gavel Gamut, Oklahoma Tagged With: Amazon, Barnsdall Oklahoma, COVID-19, CVS, Dante Alighieri, FedEx, Franz Kafka, Grant County Health Department, Hadj, Internet portal system, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, Jonathan Reiner, Ka'bah, measles, Mecca, Medford Oklahoma, National Guard, Oklahoma Board of Health, polio, Scott Gottlieb, smallpox, TB, the virus continues to out fox us, Toni Morrison, UPS, vaccine, Walgreens, Walmart, William Shakespeare

The Prairie Sirens

December 25, 2020 by Peg Leave a Comment

Peg and I like living in the country. Our nearest neighbor’s residence is within sight but not sound. Even the occasional gunshot is but a faint report. No one just walks over as they used to when we lived in town. Of course, with ’Ole 19 raging no one would do so in town either. So town living resembles country living for now. Perhaps a few million vaccinations will reprise neighborliness. Although I find myself gradually becoming acclimated to the solitude. I do not believe I am as yet completely misanthropic but I can sense the progression toward it. Even the occasional arrival of a UPS or FedEx driver now causes an initially negative reaction. There was a time such an event brought forth excitement. Now not so much. My current reaction is more like someone whose emersion in a good book is interrupted by his or her spouse’s request for attention to some task in need of immediate attention. Really, is there anything going on in our COVID-19 world that cannot wait? After all, if Congress and the president do not deem matters essential, why does Peg?

Anyway, life on the prairie in winter, especially during the pandemic, has a baleful bucolia about it. One is aware of the potential for evil in the outside world but the solitude insulates the senses from it. One begins to gradually retreat from the angst brought on by the cacophonous environment that assaults us every time we interact with our complex culture. On the prairie such things as politics and boorish behavior recede from one’s daily consciousness. If a person can detach him or herself from television, self-delusion can seep through the veil of awareness. Maybe 2020 was a bad dream and merely the detour we have had to take to get to the future.

But the sirens of prairie reverie can lull us into hopes that if we ignore the world it will leave us alone and, more importantly, that all will be well. It is similar to our hopes that by eating only chocolate we can lose weight or that more wine is the answer to depression. When the chocolate and wine are gone our clothes still will not fit and our problems remain. As we learned from Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), simple living and a desire to eschew government do not result in solutions to complicated societal problems. The hard work of day-to-day living and operating a country cannot be accomplished by wishing it so from the prairie. Somebody has to turn on the lights.

I may find myself drifting toward a desire for a reclusive Elysian prairie existence, but I expect hard scrabble involvement will be called for, at least by millions of other citizens, if I want to continue to enjoy my detachment.

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Filed Under: COVID-19, Females/Pick on Peg, Gavel Gamut, JPeg Osage Ranch Tagged With: baleful bucolia, COVID-19, FedEx, Henry David Thoreau, ignore the world, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, living in the country, reclusive Elysian prairie existence, the prairie sirens, UPS

Another China Virus?

September 12, 2020 by Peg Leave a Comment

Log Futon Before Assembly

When I have nothing to do that’s what I do. When my wife Peg has nothing to do Amazon’s stock rises. I do not recall a promise to love, honor and spend countless hours schlepping around Peg’s mail-order treasures but she assures me it was in the fine print. And when Peg shops I get blessed with packages that must be unpacked and inscrutable assembly instructions. I do not know if China deserves any blame for ’Ole 19 but it seems everything that UPS or FedEx or Amazon, etc., etc., etc., ships to us comes with the warning “made in China” and “easy” guides that are “Greek” to me. Let me ask you, did ancient Greece once fill the current China role of world-wide shipping of products accompanied by Tower of Babble type assembly manuals?

Peg’s most recent “essential” on-line purchase was a log futon; it came in three large cardboard containers. But even though it was plainly labeled with Peg’s name and our address it was dumped by some overworked FedEx driver at an address four miles from our home. Julie and Wayne Brown, the nice people who found our packages propped against their front door, contacted us and we picked them up. Actually Wayne Brown, an innocent victim, helped me load the heavy and cumbersome articles into our SUV then Peg and I had to unload them at JPeg Osage Ranch. I had just a glint of uncharitable satisfaction when Peg could barely lift her end.

Once we removed the cardboard and located the sixteen-page assembly booklet we understood why the furniture company did not offer, at any price, the option of fully put together delivery. On the face of the assembly manual was a large red STOP sign that notified us we could not return the items to the store that sold them but, we had to deal with the manufacturer. Then we were directed to a website for a “video tutorial”. My heart sank as I realized my Labor Day weekend was over and the “holiday” was aptly named.

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Peg is the daughter of an engineer and is amazingly adept at technical stuff. I am better at more sanguine pursuits such as watching football and writing newspaper columns. However, I am highly experienced in the realm of lifting heavy objects and following Peg’s orders. Therefore, together we are usually able to navigate the choppy waters of arcane mail-order living during these unusual days of social distancing; however, not so fast on this Gordian Knot puzzle dumped on the neighbors and then us. It is a testament to our pure stubbornness, the potential waste of hundreds of dollars and our total lack of options that we did not simply add these finished wood parts to our burn pile. If I were not acutely aware of “the Law’s Delay” and the almost always unhappy experience with lawsuits, we would have just thrown up our hands and sought out a lawyer. Surely the sadists who came up with both the futon and its accompanying assembly manual(s) ought to be held liable for our two (2), that’s right, days of frustration before our “Mission Accomplished” was.

One good thing that happened was Peg was so ticked off at Kodiak Furniture and FedEx she may not order anything else for a week or so.

Log Futon After Assembly

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Filed Under: COVID-19, Females/Pick on Peg, Gavel Gamut, JPeg Osage Ranch, Law Tagged With: 'Ole 19, Amazon, assembly booklet, China, FedEx, Gordian Knot, Greece, James M. Redwine, Jim Redwine, JPeg Osage Ranch, Julie and Wayne Brown, Kodiak Furniture, Labor Day, lawsuits, log futon, mail-order, Mission Accomplished, Peg, social distancing, stubbornness, the Law's delay, Tower of Babble, UPS, video tutorial, virus

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