by Philip Caputo | Jun 2, 2021 | Journal of a Plague Year
We had never seen anything quite like it. At sunset on the day before Memorial Day a band of pinkish light shimmered all along the western horizon except for one broad segment, where a rough triangle, gray-blue in color, rose into the sky. We were at the summit of...
by Philip Caputo | May 31, 2021 | News
Below are 17 reasons why it’s called Memorial Day and not Picnic and Barbecue Day. LCPL CARROLL FANKHAUSER, 1st Battalion, 3d Marines. 8/24/65 PFC ROBERT FERNANDEZ, 1st Battalion, 3d Marines. 6/20/65 CPL BRIAN GAUTHIER, 1st Battalion, 3d Marines. 7/11/65 LCPL REYNALDO...
by Philip Caputo | May 7, 2021 | Journal of a Plague Year, News
The other day, while walking home from lunch at the Pancho Villa cafe, I ran into my favorite anti-vaxxer, who remarked that I wasn’t wearing a mask. Her tone was anything but censorious — she was maskless as well — leading me to believe she was...
by Philip Caputo | Apr 26, 2021 | Journal of a Plague Year, News
The drive we made from Norwalk, Connecticut to Patagonia, Arizona, a month ago was very different from the one last June in the opposite direction. The people we met along those 2500 miles were taking the pandemic more seriously, obeying mask requirements posted on...
by Philip Caputo | Mar 14, 2021 | Journal of a Plague Year
The malicious little bug called COVID19 is to social interaction, not to mention marital intimacy, as the Volstead Act was to drinking. Leslie spent a week self-quarantined, after being exposed to virus at her hairdresser’s (See #27). She was tested at a clinic...
by Philip Caputo | Mar 5, 2021 | Journal of a Plague Year
Yesterday, March 4, Leslie went to see her hairdresser for the first time in months. She has received her first shot of the Moderna vaccine and is scheduled for the second on March 14. The hairdresser, whom I’ll call Jane, had gotten both. She is fully...
by Philip Caputo | Feb 19, 2021 | Journal of a Plague Year
A low, lead-colored sky, snow falling (again) as I drive to Norwalk Hospital for my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. It all goes smoothly, in and out in less than half an hour. A security guard checks my temperature, a nurse hands me a form to fill out, attesting...
by Philip Caputo | Jan 27, 2021 | News
I had my inaugural dose of the Pfizer vaccine on Inauguration Day, a week ago today. This came about as a result of a notification from the Centers for Disease Control that I, as a 75+geezer, was eligible for the vaccine; all I had to do was fill out an online form,...
by Philip Caputo | Jan 11, 2021 | News
I had a long conversation the other day with “G” (the person addressed in #23). The main point of discussion was the possibility of a second American civil war breaking out in the near future, and what could be done to avert it. G., by the way, is a former...
by Philip Caputo | Jan 7, 2021 | News
Text of an email i sent to a friend. His name has been deleted. G: I would describe myself as “cautiously pessimistic” about the country’s future, short-term and long-term. Pessimism comes almost naturally to me, mostly because I’ve seen too...
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