Decreasing frequency of diary entries – The two nations of the healthy and the unhealthy – The Capitol fencing torn down – Hiking at Manassas Gap – The Wanderbirds picnic – Evening statistics
My entries have become less frequent of late as the pandemic wanes. It is inevitable: during the earlier phases there were new restrictions, new conditions in daily living that required adjustment on a personal level, new guidelines governing public behavior in general. And then, by degrees, the majority of these have been gradually reverting to conditions as they were before. At this stage, changes imposed either by the virus or by its recession are no longer occurring on a daily or even a weekly basis. There is, to be sure, no dearth of other news – a calamitous collapse of a multi-floored building on a Florida beach, the withdrawal of national troops from Afghanistan, the assassination of the President of Haiti, the flight of Richard Bronson to 50 miles above the earth’s surface that constitutes (symbolically at least) the first manned commercial vehicle flight to space – but events fueled by the pandemic directly are becoming less and less common.
We are increasingly becoming two countries contained in a single national boundary. Vaccinations are now progressing at a snail’s pace, despite an ample supply of vaccines. The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) broke out into cheering following an announcement that the government has not achieved 90% vaccinations. That is to say, they are exulting in the prospect of numerous hospitalizations and deaths that could easily be prevented. Donald Trump, as has already been noted, has been attempting to claim the credit of introducing the vaccines for himself. So in this case the Republicans are not even in alignment with the man whom they claim to be his greatest devotees. We appear to be on the road to the partitioning of our citizens into two groups, one with a high rate of inoculation and thus with a high degree of resistance against the virus, and the other with a much lower rate of inoculation and a correspondingly higher rate of hospitalizations. The difference can be seen in discrepancies among various states. In Maryland, for instance, 75.5% of all adults have received at least one dose. In Tennessee, less than 45% of its adults have received one dose.
In connection with the CPAC, it may be mentioned that the metal fencing around the Capitol is going down. It seems that it has at last been deemed safe enough to restore the Capitol to its original state, allowing visitors to enter after going through a security check, and that the building is no longer in danger of being besieged and plundered by zealots rallied by a defeated and sullen Presidential candidate. Up to now, there has not been a need since 1812 to worry especially about the Capitol being targeted by foreign invaders; but the events of January have shown that we cannot be too optimistic about forestalling attacks from our own compatriots.
As so often happens, life on a personal level offers a great contrast to the turmoil of the national one.
Yesterday I went with AD and several others from Manassas Gap to the turnoff to Thompson Lake and back along the Appalachian Trail, with a slight detour via the Trico Tower Trail and the tower fire road, about 12 miles in all. The weather was in the 80s by the mid-afternoon, but not humid; we started relatively early, when the temperatures were cooler, and the trail was well-shaded, so that the hike was quite comfortable. I discovered that the lilies I had seen on this section of the trail earlier are not tiger lilies, as I had originally supposed, but Canada lilies or (as they are sometimes called) meadow lilies. The flowers are similar in color and in their speckled appearance to tiger lilies but their leaves are whorled (radiating from a single point) instead of alternate (one node for each single leaf). Towards the end of the hike we passed by several wineberry bushes bearing fruit and a number of us ate them by the handfuls during our descent back to the parking area.
We ended, as most of these hikes have ended, with feasting and chatting and general relaxation. But today saw what was, for me, a more significant event, the first group social event I have attended since the pandemic began. The Wanderbirds picnic was held at one of the numerous pavilions in Seneca Creek Park. During the morning I led a group of eight or nine hikers along the route I had scouted the previous Wednesday. We went at a fairly brisk pace, which I was prepared to slacken if anyone so requested, not being overly worried about arriving back at the pavilion after the food was laid out. But as they all were striding vigorously whenever I looked back to check on them, I saw no reason to slow them down. The weather was unexpectedly cooperative. The forecast had been for a high degree of humidity and possible rainstorms. It was indeed very sultry when we began the hike, but at one point that sun emerged from the clouds and the sunlight appeared to lighten the humidity. The paths were well-shaded and there were hints of a breeze now and then. It was not as comfortable as it had been yesterday but it was quite pleasant, and we had lovely views of the lake within the park and of the creek running along the park’s side. There was an abundance of ripe wineberries and blackberries along the trails and I sampled a few as I passed by them – not as many as I would have ordinarily done, since I knew that a feast was being prepared against our return.
And so indeed it proved. This being a Wanderbirds event, food and drink was supplied in abundance: roasted chicken, salads of every description imaginable, homemade breads, fresh fruits such as strawberries and blackberries and grapes and chunks of melon and pineapple, and numerous desserts (I contributed a home-made almond tart) and at least half-a-dozen varieties of ice cream. We had containers of lemonade and ice tea to quench our thirst, and alcoholic beverages were not neglected, with numerous varieties of beer and a few bottles of wine. We gathered plates of food and sat at the tables underneath the spacious pavilion and conversed at leisure and gradually approached that state of mind described by Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own about the experience of lunching at “Oxbridge”:
“And thus by degrees was lit, half–way down the spine, which is the seat of the soul, not that hard little electric light which we call brilliance, as it pops in and out upon our lips, but the more profound, subtle and subterranean glow which is the rich yellow flame of rational intercourse. No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself. We are all going to heaven and Vandyck is of the company – in other words, how good life seemed, how sweet its rewards, how trivial this grudge or that grievance, how admirable friendship and the society of one’s kind . . .”
How admirable friendship and the society of one’s kind received special emphasis from the fact that several of the attendees were people whom I had not seen since the beginning of the pandemic or even longer. There was GM, who moved to Delaware some years ago following his retirement but who used to attend Wanderbirds hikes now and then when they took place in Maryland before the pandemic put them to a halt, and with whom I had participated in the Hike Across Maryland in 2009. There was CM, who had been a fairly constant club hiker until she developed foot trouble and had to refrain from long hikes for a time; she has recovered now and indeed was one of the stalwarts who went with me on the 9-mile hike during the morning. There was BP, a long-time associate with whom I had co-led many hikes, including one that was particularly memorable for being the first our club had been physically able to perform after a series of snowfalls during “Snowmaggedon” (the winter of 2010/11, which deposited a record 56 inches of snow upon the DC area and made hiking trails impassable for weeks on end) and that took place among my old haunts at the Northwest Branch. There was . . . but it would be tedious to list all of the old friends whom I was seeing anew, chatting with them as if the pandemic had never intervened and broken off our intercourse.
We spoke of past memories and of plans for the future. SM, the club president, outlined the manner in which the club will eventually be restored to its former condition. It will proceed at a somewhat more cautious pace than the Capital Hiking Club, which will resume bus hikes in early August. The Wanderbirds will organize hikes in which people will meet at the trailhead, and hike leaders will not be expected to supply food or maps. Attendance will be restricted to current members. The date for the resumption of bus hikes is still uncertain, but some time in early 2022 appears likely.
We were not the only party within the park by any means. The pavilions, as I mentioned, are numerous and several of them were occupied that day, for the most part by large groups devoting themselves, like our own group, to eating and drinking and socializing. Other hikers besides ourselves were enjoying the trails, some visitors were carrying fishing poles as they went down to the lake, at the Boat Center several were renting rowboats and canoes. It was quite easy to imagine, from the overall effect, that the pandemic was only a distant memory. AN, one of the club members with whom I reconnected, is a medical professional, and she commented on how illusory such an impression is – the relatively large number of the unvaccinated and the virulence of the Delta variant are virtual guarantees of a substantial increase in cases this coming autumn – but for today, at least, all seemed peaceful, serene, and festive.
Yesterday’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 187,237,902; # of deaths worldwide: 4,042,192; # of cases U.S.: 34,725,797; # of deaths; U.S.: 622,819.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 187,615,494; # of deaths worldwide: 4,048,856; # of cases U.S.: 34,732,753; # of deaths; U.S.: 622,845.