Earlier today to get away from the constant thought of my fallen friends, my wife and I decided to go to the mall and see how society was doing amidst the COVID crisis and recovery – what a mistake that was…
Downtown Anchorage is a ghost town – normally a bustle of activity with the tourist season in full swing by now, but today there was little bustle and even less activity. Sure there were locals out trying to take a break from their same four walls they have been locked down in for the past month or so, but the foot traffic of visitors was no where to be found.
The mall itself, normally a center of organized chaos and commerce, barely had a pulse with only about a third of the vendors and shops open for business.
And how quickly we forgot to interact with one another – passing a stranger in an aisle of a store now seemed like a first slow song at a junior high school Sadi Hawkins dance – an awkward display of space sharing afraid to get too close to one another…
And, the Apple Store, the irony here as I am typing this post from my iPad, but the Apple store brought it all to perspective for me… we could not even get within 50 feet of the entrance of the store before being stopped and questioned by a private security guard, who quickly wanted to know our business and reason for approaching their store. It was then explained that we would have to have our temperature checked, after our detailed interrogation prior to waiting in line as it was a “State requirement” WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK! When I explained that this was not actually a state requirement, I was told it was still required of them… but by who?
As I sit and mourn the loss of Brothers in Arms, good men who died to protect the ideals and principles of our country, I now started to mourn the apparent loss of our country – as it is obvious it will never again be the same. It took a mere 45 days for the fabric of our country to be shredded into a “new normal” that has yet to be settled…
Makes me wonder what we fought for all of those years….?
-Stay Frosty
Doc Joslin
Bullets 2 Beans with Doc Joslin 