Mackin will tell Marion County stories for The Dominion Post
Jana MacKin will be a freelance reporter for The Dominion Post, focusing on stories in and around Marion County. To suggest a story for Jana, email newsroom@dominionpost.com.
by Jana Mackin
Newsroom@DominionPost.com
Many an Irish curse rained down upon Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee when he COVID-19 shuttered restaurants and bars on St. Patrick’s Day at 12:01 a.m.
Mine included, as I drank my last whiskey a couple hours prior at the High Tide Bar & Grill in Port Orchard on Puget Sound, west of Seattle. What should have been a sláinte’ celebration of all things Irish was about as merry as a morgue during Prohibition. What we then faced was a Draconian, medical tyranny that shut down everything deemed non-essential for months, throwing the citizenry into domestic gulags of never-ending isolation and despair.
For seven weeks, I lived the COVID lock down under Inslee’s iron heel along with his proliferation of petty tyrants and Carrie Nation COVID Karens intent on strangling anything that reeked of humanity. Yes, the virus is real but politicians can’t let a crisis go to waste when the payoff is power grab. When officials closed down everything except essential business, they must have classified rioting within that essential purview. Remember how Seattle was held hostage to the guerrilla theater of destruction and chaos known as Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), or the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) in June. Seattle’s starry-eyed mayor said it might become “the summer of love.” Au contraire. The rioters seemed to have been issued lock down waivers and social distancing was almost nil.
The unrest has continued. Reportedly, protesters tried to burn Seattle police alive by attempting to seal a door at the East Precinct during a fire.
Anyway, I got more and more depressed. Solitary confinement was tough on this 66-year-old widow and Zoom was no substitute for human contact. The height of coronavirus absurdity was when they (the infamous they) used yellow police tape to cordon off city parks as though the great outdoors were a crime scene. How easily, I might have joined those projected 75,000 deaths of despair. I felt like I was living inside Edvard Munch’s The Scream.
However, this old hippie refused to let the slings and arrows of pandemic porn and hyperbolic fear-mongering send her to the great horizontal. As a cussed free-thinker, I had learned to question authority. As a journalist, I had learned, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”
I realized I needed to get the heck out of Dodge and fast.
On May 5, I packed my two cats into my Subaru, loaded a 5’x8’ U-Haul trailer with my earthly possessions and began an eight-day, 3,500-mile cross-country sojourn to South West Florida, where beaches, restaurants and other businesses were cautiously reopening under Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ COVID-19 guidelines.
When I arrived, I felt like Alice in Endless Summerland greeted by a subtropical dreamscape of palm trees, cabana clubs, beach resorts, Corvette convertibles, golf carts, spring breakers, surfers, beach bums and snow birds: all cruising Gulf of Mexico beachfronts awash with warm, turquoise waters and sugar white sand. My first swim, at Lovers Key State Park, baptized me in the salt life, washing away memories of house arrest.
For four months, I lived the beach life in the Ft. Myers area. I became a silver mane, beach babe swimming, sun bathing, shelling and partying in the sun-drenched Florida vibe. At tiki bars, I ate copious amounts of conch fritters washed down with cold white wine. I fraternized with the locals and played tourist. Joie de vivre was contagious, despite social distancing. Smiles replaced fearful winced faces. Bikinis and flip flops replaced makeshift hazmat suits. The 90-degree heat melted away worry. My summer of Gulf Coast sunsets should have been captioned “Wish you were here.”
Yet, something was missing. I hadn’t written for months. Florida had restored my soul, but my muse was AWOL in the Empty Quarter of writer’s block. This is where West Virginia and The Dominion Post come in. After so many months of pain-in-the-arse pandemic, I knew I wanted to celebrate fall and the holidays amidst West Virginia’s stunning beauty. I wanted to witness the trees flame into reds and golds. I wanted to feel the cold frost of Thanksgiving. I wanted to taste the snows of Christmas.
And, now, most of all, I want to thank The Dominion Post for this opportunity to write.
As you read this, I have arrived in West Virginia. I packed my three cats into my Subaru, loaded up the U-Haul 5’x8’ cargo trailer, and drove another 1,000 miles to Fairmont, following the siren song of my muse inspired by Gov. DeSantis’ promise:
“We will NEVER do any of these lock downs again.”
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