Out of Water

The other night as I was heading to the bedroom when it was almost 12, I encountered my grandson, also almost 12, fishing in the hallway.

"Good luck," I whispered.

Given our lack of success fishing at more conventional locations this year, he might as well try it close to home, I reasoned.

Maybe he'll catch a fish out of water.

That reminds me of one of my favorite New Yorker cartoons about leadership. It depicts a school of fish following their leader through the atmosphere high above the ocean. Back in the pack one fish says to another, "I knew we were in trouble the minute we left the water."

A new rabbi joke I heard recently was about a priest, a minister and a rabbit that go into a bar. When the bartender comes over, he takes the orders from the first two but hesitates at the third member of the group. "Aren't you a rabbit -- what are you doing here?"

"I'm here because of auto-correct."

That, in turn, reminds me of an old story told by folk singer Woody Guthrie during the Depression. Two rabbits, a papa rabbit and a mama rabbit were munching in a field when they heard the distant barking of dogs.

They just kept munching as the sound grew closer until they saw a pack of dogs on a nearby ridge. Knowing they were now in grave danger they started trying to run away.

They ran and ran but the dogs kept getting closer until they were almost on them. Exhausted, the rabbits ran into a hollow log while the dogs gathered outside its entrance barking loudly.

Mama Rabbit says, "I don't think we're going to get out of here alive, Papa."

"That's alright," answers Papa, "Let's just hunker down until we outnumber 'em."

***

We definitely need all the jokes we can get. The daily infection total in the U.S. has now exceeded 71,000. With our elected leaders either MIA or battling with each other, I'm afraid we're left to fend for ourselves.

That said, there is so little we can do. Wear masks, stay apart, wash hands frequently. Do all that and we're still at risk from an insidious enemy that floats in on the wind.

Bad luck wind been blowin' at my back

I was born to bring trouble to wherever I'm at 

-- Johnny Cash

But before we can label this as bad luck, we need to get out of shock. Everyone I talk with is still in shock and that includes me, (I talk with myself a lot.)

Just the other day, I was talking to someone, it may have been myself, who said, "I can't believe this is happening." Shock.

Many people are mad at that photo released by the White House of Trump grinning mindlessly as he endorses a can of Goya beans. But that's a man in shock. The beans are in shock too. ("Did you ever think we'd be invited to the Oval Office for a photo op?")

BTW, the meaning of Goya in Spanish is Goya, which scholars believe is an ancient utterance beans make when they go into shock.

Someone was asking me, it might have been myself, why I write in such a disjointed manner, where one topic leads to another and on and on to the point where one can wonder, "Are we ever going to get to anywhere here?"

As for the disjointed style, try writing in a mask, maintaining distance and frequently washing with hand sanitizer, and you'll become disjointed as well. Just don't get too used to smelling that hand sanitizer!

As for where we are going, I knew we were lost the minute he left the water. (I often refer to myself as he. It's a gender issue.)

Okay, I can see where this is headed. I think I'll track down my grandson and go fishing in the hallway.

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