Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

F

or the record, I am not one to challenge the experts. I am wearing a mask, washing my hands frequently and practicing social distancing — but I don’t feel threatened. 

Life is still good, but not without fret and worry. Groceries are ordered on line, restaurants are off-limits and I can’t think of any reason that a tattoo parlor might do me any good. The mere mention of tattoo’s, however, makes me recall an interesting character in my hometown. He was a route man for Marietta Bread. He had spent time in the Navy and there wasn’t much room on his ink stained body where there was space for another tattoo. He had a dotted line across his neck with the verbiage, ‘Cut Here.’ 

Today, if he were still with us, we would be listening to baseball legend Satchel Paige, who warned about carrying on in society. 

“The social ramble,” Satchel said. “Ain’t restful.” 

I can confirm that my social ramble is the most inactive it has been since I left the farm.

Will we no longer be a hugging society when this thing is over? Athletes, in particular, won’t be able to hug. How did that come about anyway? Will high-fiving bite the dust? Okay here; I don’t even fist bump. What has been the most fun during these different times is to get up before daybreak, organize a cup of coffee and take to my reading nook and enjoy the solitude of early morning, book in hand. A book and a cup of Joe ranks high on my priority agenda. I am grateful that I get to do that every day.

Seems that a former secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels during President Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, abolished the officers’ wine mess on ships. “From that time on,” the story goes, “the strongest drink aboard Navy ships could only be coffee and over the years a cup of coffee became known as a ‘cup of Joe.’”

I’m not a true coffee aficionado, but that early morning setting with my cup of Joe is something that I passionately look forward to. No better way to start your day, virus or no virus. There is a gray shingled house on my walking route that has a New England look. The owners have a bent for flowers and Bulldog images. But the one that I covet the most is next door to that address. Nestled in the assorted flowers adjacent to a neatly trimmed lawn is a modest statue of a benign goat. At a distance, you might think it is paper-mache. It is quite fetching amongst the flowers, standing sentry to a bluebird’s quarters. Makes you want to yodle “The Lonely Goatherd” from “Sound of Music.”

High on a hill was a lonely goatherd

Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo

Loud was the voice of the lonely goatherd

Lay ee odl lay ee old oo

A dastardly virus has made me appreciate my neighbors more, a reminder once again that for most of us, “Life is still good.”