ANOTHER CORONA FOR THE ROAD, PERHAPS? PEOPLE NEED PEOPLE

America, and now Europe, seem to have surrendered to COVID-19. The whiny incessant mantra heard round the world is, “I’m sooooooo tired.”

Really? Of binge watching? Of not being able to dine out? Of wearing a protective mask? Of dry chapped hands from constantly washing? Your family? Of boredom? Of living?

I tend to think most people are weak, self-absorbed, spoiled brats. We don’t know what real sacrifice is. If we read our history — about rationing food and raw materials during World War II, or the Midwest turning into a giant Dust Bowl and blowing away in the 1930s, or bodies piled in the streets of Philadelphia during the Spanish Flu — we might know what it’s like to really be scared and do without. But lots of people don’t care about the past or believe in science, so we wouldn’t know a real threat until it bit us in the ass. Like right now!

Because COVID-19 is so random and not obviously a deadly threat to the vast majority of Americans, we have apparently decided that the risk is minimal and the coast is finally clear. Young people were always going to consider themselves bullet proof. That was to be expected. We were all the same when we were foot loose and fancy free. And how many young adults know anyone who has gotten the virus, much less died? Without that kind of personal touch, it’s like telling young folk to guard against Alzheimer’s disease.

But I think there’s more to it than that, some communal imperative lodged deep within our reptilian brains, reminding us of huddling together around campfires on cold winter nights and the howling of hungry wolves.

When you cut to the chase, we humans are social critters for many different reasons.

Let’s take young people. For anyone between the age of sixteen and thirty-five, the need to press the flesh is really all about sex. Young men and women are biologically hardwired to get laid, and they will do whatever it takes to fill that urgent need. If you think that’s silly or wrong, then you have forgotten what it was like to be young and horny.

For the rest of us, it’s all about the need to meet and greet. I see this dynamic play out every day in my house.

I have always gotten along well with others and I am a born storyteller. So, I enjoy the company of friends and strangers and they seem to enjoy watching me make a fool of myself — at least in small doses. But I have always been a solitary fellow. As a lad, my wealthy parents were always out gallivanting in some exotic place, leaving me in the care of the black family that took care of our household. As a young teen I boarded at the all-male military prep school McDonogh, in Baltimore. Then I was off to the Naval Academy, the Navy, and Randolph-Macon college, after which I drove a long-distance moving van east of the Mississippi. I rode my bicycle across the country all by my lonesome in 1977. And then I worked for the U.S. Forest Circus on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon for fifteen years. Needless to say, I am very comfortable in my own skin and don’t need other folks for entertainment. In fact, until I got married to the woman of my dreams in 2013, at the wise old age of 49, I preferred to be alone most of the time. I have about seven good friends (the average is 5) and as a general rule, I find most people pretty annoying. These days, all I need is my sweet little Inna. She makes me smile.

Now, Inna, who is Russian, is a completely different story, starting with the fact that she has about twenty good friends scattered all over the planet, each of whom she talks to almost every week — some every day. Most of our mutual friends tolerate me, but love Inna. And she loves them back. It’s like she feeds off the social interaction.

During the pandemic we have been in pretty much perpetual lock down — especially me. I’m retired and to be honest, I kind of like it. But it’s driving Inna nuts. On the rare occasion when we have had friends visit us — outside on our back patio at a safe distance — I have found the company fun and enjoyable, while Inna has been like a little girl with a puppy. The wine flows freely and she is in heaven, once again being able to interact with our friends up close (within six feet) and personal. She becomes incredibly animated and can’t shut the hell up. It’s extremely amusing to watch.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned from the COVID-19 shit show is that most humans crave each other’s company like an addictive drug. And when it comes to family, we simply can’t do without our kin — anymore than we can do without air — even if little six-year-old Molly will unintentionally infect and ultimately kill Grandpa Joe.