{"id":19350,"date":"2020-03-08T15:57:41","date_gmt":"2020-03-08T15:57:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/?p=19350"},"modified":"2020-03-10T16:02:11","modified_gmt":"2020-03-10T16:02:11","slug":"life-island-times-season-of-the-sick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/life-island-times-season-of-the-sick\/","title":{"rendered":"Life & Island Times: Season of the Sick"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the calendar turned to 2020, the world\u2019s inhabitants were for the most part playful and joyfully hopping around. Then bit by bit over two months, they turned grumpy and then scared. This current contagion started off confined to a far-off, unknown place called Wuhan. Most, if not all, of the rest of us, were sleepy and settled down. In such times, this understandable and normal human mood contagion served as an anesthetic.<\/p>\n

The fact that we were fortunate enough to escape these early contagions of body and spirit, despite our frequent, accelerating, global, daily contacts with the disease, I later guessed was what led to how it silently spread across the planet and today\u2019s wildly escalating contagion of fear, hoarding and panic. The disease figured us humans out faster than we figured it out.<\/p>\n

During my Navy and island-living hurricane decades, we always had a loosely prepared Plan B that tried to foresee and counteract the worst case outcomes of an unfolding catastrophe. That meant making provisions so that we weren\u2019t pulled into the maelstrom through contagion of destruction, disease or mood.<\/p>\n

With my heart and soul addled by the clock\u2019s annual pre-spring leap forward, the slow rolling Wuhan plague and the evolving global, economic and health, contagion panics, I penned this brief, Plan B, survival fantasy in verse. Or nightmare, if one is of such a mind. In this fantasy world, no big city, snowflake, Ugg shit-kicker boot wearing poseurs need apply for entry into a Novel Canaan quarantine during this Season of the Sick.<\/p>\n

-Marlow<\/p>\n

PS Life has shown me repeatedly that virtue, like viruses, has its seasons of contagion. When catastrophe has struck, I have seen generosity of spirit spike like a fever. Courage as well has spread in the face of looming calamity. It is during these times, I have discovered anew what love is.<\/p>\n

\"030820-LIT\"
\nStrapped the loved ones in the car
\nTook us a lil slug of courage vodka in a Cherry Coke
\nHeaded out beyond Carolina Cherokee country, gotta escape season of the sick fears
\nIt’s just beyond Uncle Peyton’s, it’s safe cause his mind’s been gone for years
\nYou know he stopped his travels, ain\u2019t no longer really spry
\nHe don’t do anymore visitin\u2019 cause he’s fearful he’s gonna get sick and die
\nHe’s afraid they’ll be comin’ down from New York
\nAnd east from Arkansas
\nHe said it’ll be one great big old panicked rush like you never saw
\nWe, like Uncle P, got more than just mountain pride
\nBack up in them thickets it’s safe to live and hide
\nGot us an old Airstream trailer, bags of beans, and a Holstein cow
\nGonna make us some whiskey ’cause we got still know-how
\nMaybe we’ll play us some mountain bingo every Friday night
\nWe up and left the coast, didn’t say goodbye
\nWe own a quarter section by a tree-hidden mountain lake
\nLots of big ole blue cat, on driftin’ lines free for the take
\nLots of hardwood timber there since the mill closed in 79
\nLotsa things to eat, make us safe and have a good time
\nMight cook us some shine since crystal meth won’t sell
\nCause we likes the whiskey, plus the meth smells like hell<\/p>\n

Some friends gonna join us, coming up from that southernmost town
\nGoing by way of Lake O, droppin by his Pop’s quiet “Knife and Gun Pawn\u201d
\nBuy us from the backroom SKS rifles, and cases of steel core ammo
\nWith righteous primers, from some East bloc nation, that needed the dough
\nAnd several Desert Eagles, they\u2019re great big ole pistols
\nI mean .50 caliber ones, made by bad ass Hebrews
\nAnd some surplus tracers, for our dads’ old BARs
\nSoon as they and the darkness gets here, we’re gonna have us a time, under the stars<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2020 From My Isle Seat<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the calendar turned to 2020, the world\u2019s inhabitants were for the most part playful and joyfully hopping around. Then bit by bit over two months, they turned grumpy and then scared. This current contagion started off confined to a far-off, unknown place called Wuhan. Most, if not all, of the rest of us, were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-island-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19350"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19354,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19350\/revisions\/19354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}