I’m Ready to Travel. Don’t Screw it Up!

After more than a year of being mostly confined to our property here on Maui, I’m getting ready to travel again. I’ll be going to the East Coast for a Rail Passengers Association meeting, then to England, Scotland and France, and concluding with another cross-Canada train ride. 

I will admit to feeling some concern because of the pandemic. I’ve had both my shots, but there are still a lot of people—a shocking number—who haven’t been vaccinated. That raises the possibility that a sufficient number of new cases could crop up and induce one of those afore mentioned destinations to re-impose  restrictions that will interfere with where I want to go and what I want to do there.

You think I’m being selfish? Well, that’s nothing compared to the people who are jeopardizing my trip because they refuse to be vaccinated. 

I understand that there are folks who are afraid of the vaccine. But to them I say Suck it up! The risk is so small that it’s irrational for that to be the reason for refusing to be vaccinated.

Then there are people who think the vaccination isn’t really necessary, an opinion contrary to the urging of virtually the entire international medical establishment. This point of view is much more difficult to understand, given the fact that 609,000 of our fellow Americans have died from this virus!

And finally there are those who refuse to be vaccinated because they don’t like the government telling them what to do.  Of course they accept the government requiring them to have a drivers license and, by golly, they have no problem at all with the government double-checking to be absolutely sure that everyone they consider to be “qualified” is properly registered to vote. 

But these people are not only foolishly risking their own lives, they’re risking the lives of children and young people who haven’t yet been vaccinated, and the lives of other adults who share their arrogant and—yes—stupid position.

If one of those people is somehow the reason my trip gets screwed up, I’m really going to be upset!