No sooner had we convinced the Trump administration to implement our version of a two‐week shutdown than I was trying to figure out how to extend it. Fifteen Days to Slow the Spread was a start, but I knew it would be just that. I didn’t have the numbers in front of me yet to make the case for extending it longer, but I had two weeks to get them.
– Dr. Deborah Birx, Silent Invasion
On June 30, 2020,
and I were on the way to Las Vegas where she would become my Trophy Wife. As if we needed a reminder of why the event wasn’t going to happen in Michigan, a local newspaper shoved us off with this headline:“A reminder of what’s allowed in Michigan” Ugly. Nothing like regime stenographers pretending to be journalists.
The wedding was but one of our many escapes to do what wasn’t allowed. From the beginning of May 2020 through the end of May 2021, we spent nearly two of the thirteen months–56 days–somewhere other than Michigan.
We weren’t alone. Out on the road that year were a lot of fellow travelers. The circumstances brought out a special breed, people we’d never heard of before yet somehow known forever. There was often a celebrity street cred to being from the state that must be obeyed.
Throughout the year, a former health policy reporter from the “reminder of what’s allowed” newspaper had been portraying Michigan’s lockdown policy as superior to Florida’s individual liberty attitude.
“Remember how in May people were wondering why Michigan couldn't be more like Florida in its coronavirus strategy?” she asked on social media, a few days after the “what’s allowed” headline appeared.
It is now almost May 2024. Michigan, despite a younger population, still has more pandemic fatalities per capita than Florida.
Yes, we remember. Here’s what else we remember . . .
Florida
My mom lives in one of those upscale gated communities on the west side of Florida, where nearly all the neighbors are somewhere between 70 and 200 years old. The homes have those screened cages in the backyard that allow for outdoor enjoyment without harassment from bugs. Florida is a state where all the people are in cages and the wildlife roams free.
My mom broke her shoulder in April 2020, tripping over a hyperactive puppy with a case of the zoomies. Kathy and I can work from anywhere with WiFi, so we moved our base of operations for a few weeks to help my mom through the recovery.
On the flight down, Kathy made a friend with a young member of one family. She wasn’t sure about this airplane nonsense:
I’m right there with her. Since 9/11, air travel is what we do to remind ourselves what all of life would be like had the Commies won the Cold War.
After we got to my mom’s house I went for a run in the neighborhood and made a pleasant discovery.
Several homes were hosting parties of half a dozen people or more in the driveways out front, rather than the private cages in back. The implication was an open invitation for strangers passing by to join in. At each home they were drinking, laughing, seated close together in lawn chairs, and throwing friendly waves to anyone passing by.
No masks. These people were totally ungovernable.
Some had surely fought and survived wars Vietnam or even Korea and had friends who didn’t make it home. Some of them had lost spouses or high school boyfriends in those conflicts. Many had survived cancers and other killer conditions. Some (such as my mom) had surely lost spouses who didn’t survive such diseases. Some might have been slowly dying of such things, but ignoring their comorbidities so they could socialize on a pretty evening.
None moved to Florida to hide. They had earned this time and were living as if it was two months earlier, which is to say they were quite deliberately … living.
A couple of days later we went to Venice Beach. Yellow police tape had been stretched across the overflow parking lot across the street from the beach. It was a pandemic social distancing policy meant to prevent the extra hundred or so beachgoers who would otherwise visit on such a pretty day.
The overflow lot was full. The police tape was ground into the mud, having been repeatedly run over by the cars that filled the lot. There was no effort to police this disobedience, by the actual police or anyone else.
“A reminder of what’s allowed . . . ”
Some souls are trained to easily ingest such commands. Others just run over the police tape.
Passing through the restaurant to get us some drinks, Kathy ran into the family from the airplane.
The beach was packed.
Florida’s pandemic-defiant reputation was well earned.
We came back to work from there again in November.
Vegas, the Rockies and the Smokies
Before Florida, we had already begun hatching a July wedding plot. We decided on Las Vegas, in honor of Mayor Carolyn Goodman, who was behaving as if she’d keep the city open even if the rest of America became a prison colony.
She delivered, during our visit encompassing Independence Day weekend. On our wedding night we danced in the streets with lots of other revelers. The mayor proclaimed it “Mr. and Mrs. Ken Braun Day.” We even have the certificate to prove it.
Over Pandemic Labor Day weekend, we took five days to visit Rocky Mountain National Park. The National Park Service had imposed a timed entry system to limit the crowds for social distancing. So, what would normally be a packed and difficult holiday peak to visit the park became a special reservation just for people like us. And the panicked people staying home meant the airfare and lodging were modestly priced as well.
It was a once in a lifetime travel opportunity. Then a forest fire took over, leading to almost surreal moments . . .
And then on Labor Day it snowed, and we found ourselves in a Christmas Card . . .
Over Easter Weekend 2021 we went to Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and stayed in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
Moonshine is another thing that isn’t allowed in Michigan. But it IS legal in Tennessee. Buying some in Gatlinburg, the friendly clerk with the friendlier Southern drawl asked for our driver licenses.
“MEEchigan,” he laughed. “Does your governor know y’all got away from her?”
We got this everywhere.
A couple of months later we were at Yellowstone during Memorial Day 2021 weekend. One night in West Yellowstone we struck up a conversation with a few other patrons having a late dinner while seated around a horseshoe-shaped bar. When we mentioned where we were from, the subject of our governor was raised by our new friends. Out of a dozen customers, the bar owner, and the guy fixing the faulty CO2 canister, she didn’t have any fans.
Speaking of Yellowstone:
Sometimes the home scolds would follow us. In Las Vegas, my bride-to-be snapped a photo of a couple who was zipping down the strip in a Ferrari convertible.
It was 102 degrees, blazing sunlight, and the passenger was wearing a mask. She put the photo on Facebook and made fun of the obsession.
“They're in Vegas surrounded by maskless people who by virtue of their presence in Vegas clearly don't understand statistics or risk management,” replied a troll in the comments. “What could possibly go wrong?”
Confirmation bias is a sad disease. The lockdowns were bad policy with horrible consequences for mental and physical health not connected to the pandemic. Substance abuse, suicides and more were the price paid.
It’s not hard to imagine those who reluctantly followed the commands now angry at themselves for doing so. But it is impossible to imagine those who deputized themselves as the regime’s enforcers now admitting “yes, I pretty much wasted a year of my life hiding from so much of life itself . . . and bullying everyone else into doing so.”
We ran over the police tape at the beach. We have no regrets.
I love stats... so the #s showing Michigan showing more CV 19 fatalities than FLA? LOL
Tremendous job... mocking this stupidity and laughing at it is the best route. Whitmer? Trophy Wife exposed her with the Detroit News article regarding her threatening Michigan Doctors over Covid 19 treatments. This adds to it... Let me give u my own personal favorite Big Gretch rule: She closed barbers and opened dental offices.............. pretty similar exposures to the customer, correct? Standing over but the dentist is actually working on your teeth with an open mouth. Probably more contagious than cutting hair. Guess what Mr. Big Gretch does for a living........