After this week, Okotoks and Covid will always be synonymous in my mind. Here, by the lovely banks of the Sheep River, we have been hiding out while the dread virus makes us look ten years older than we already are. Wheezing and coughing and hollow eyed.
I know that, by now, you expect me to say some dumb-ass pollyanna thing, trying to whip up some faux optimism in the baking hot, Covid-infected desert. Can’t put lipstick on a pig, can you? Please suffer silently.
Well, ya. But before I go back to my corner, a couple of things, if I may.
First, in the grand scheme, we ain’t really suffering. Everyone reading this, and everyone not reading it, will have had equal or greater trials in their own lives this very week. Why are we whining? Ridiculous.
Second, even if one is a natural ingrate, it is impossible not to be grateful for some things. AC, for instance. Water. Food, and the ability to taste food, which has temporarily left us but will hopefully return soon. While we’re at it, I guess we might as well be thankful for gas, and vehicles to put it into, and..and..well, we could all go on forever. Is that pollyanna?
And third, the view out our window. The campground we are currently in has a mix of customers. Last night there was a high end Tiffin Allegro beside us (I’m guessing 800g or better), an older pickup and trailer on the other side, and across from us, about four or five tents/ old vans/ pop tops etc with a large contingent of offspring between them all. Ordinarily I would like to have visited with some of them, but we can’t right now so we just watched the action through our window.
Better than going to a movie, I’d say. Some segments featured domestic harmony, and some the lack thereof (always more entertaining). There were two or three family events, and one single lady with an old Dodge Caravan, a tarp, and a chair. There were a lot of kids running around, which caused us to reflect on the universal characteristics of all the offspring of all the beasts: they frolic, they wrestle, they gambol, their mothers head butt them to keep them in line. Well, maybe not so true with humans, but all the other stuff is. They never quit.
Or they quit when it gets dark. Then it gets quiet, or at least it got quiet here last night. Time to smell the smoke, listen to the train whistle (in a minor tone), and fade into dark. There’ll be better days, but, in the end, this one wasn’t half bad at all.
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