View from the Mountain

A Loss of Innocence

Raymond's Gut behind our NC home

When an event sears your soul and strips away a layer of your innocence, you never forget. Early on I remember standing in line for polio vaccinations but somehow we knew the scientists would save us. During those early elementary years, we gathered in hallways or hid under desks in drills for the atomic age, but we had real leaders that cared about the country in those days and they kept the atomic threat under control.  Then the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King took away the last vestiges of my childhood. I had already been pulled from my home and shipped off to military school in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which seemed to be on the far side of the world though it was just on the other side of the Appalachian Mountains.

To see our president gunned down fundamentally changed my view of the world. I will never forget taking a taxi to the Chattanooga airport to see LBJ speak from the steps of an airplane. Over the years my innocence got peeled away like onion layers by war and other crises but then I fell in love with Canada's Maritimes.

I fell hard because it was so much like my childhood in rural North Carolina. Life in the fifties was built on trust. We came home from school, played football, baseball or even put shotguns on our shoulders and went hunting. We camped with our scout troop or fished on the weekends. My mother, my only parent during those years, was involved in my life but no one was always watching us. For the most part, we were on our own.  We ranged far and wide and no one seemed to care as long as we showed up for dinner and didn't break any bones. Even if we got sick, doctors still made house calls in those days.

Military school was very different.  Everything had boundaries imposed by someone else. College was the exact opposite. The only boundaries were the ones that I gave myself.  Eight years' absence from a rural life made me grow weary of cities, their strange night light, and the never-ending crowds. So when I met Nova Scotia, it was close to love at first sight just like with my wife.

I still remember my first night in a tent by myself on the shore of the Bay of Fundy. I grilled steak over driftwood and listened to the waves crash on the rocky shore not far from my tent. It was magical and it was as close to paradise as you could get unless you drove through the actual town of Paradise which was halfway between Bridgetown and Lawrencetown where we often shopped at the Beaver Fruit Cooperative. You could get a bag of grain for the cattle along with your groceries.

On those drives, through the Annapolis Valley, we would stop at produce stands operating on the honor system with just boxes for your money. Life on the North Mountain of the Annapolis Valley was not perfect but it brought you close to the land and the sea. You had to let other people in your life or you would not survive.

Nova Scotia, New Brunswick where we farmed for ten years, and Halifax where we lived for a few years after farming became anchors of my psyche.  While I might have idealized the places in my memories, my stories about the closeness of the Tay Creek community where we had our farm were all true.  People were always willing to lend a hand even to the point of digging a neighbor's grave. The keys remained in the switch of our unlocked farm pickup for seven or eight years. Halifax was as friendly a city as I could ever imagine. There was no gun violence.

I never felt unsafe anywhere in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick even walking a half a mile to the barn through the woods in the middle of the night.

Fast forward to the spring of 2020.  In the last few months, even grocery stores have become unsafe.  We wash our hands all the time.  We have stopped having our neighbor over for our weekly dinners with him.  We stand farther from friends when we meet them while walking.  It is a strange existence staying at home and rarely venturing beyond the neighborhood. It might well be our future for a long time.

While I knew that the Maritimes were also under many of the same restrictions because of the coronavirus, in my mind like a childhood friend who remains frozen at ten years old because you have not seen them for sixty years, the Maritimes was still the same safe place.  Now with the mass shooting in Nova Scotia, I am forced to admit that even the tiny villages of Nova Scotia are no longer safe from the peculiar modern disease of mass shootings. I knew that even before this the government was allowing asbestos waste to be stored on the North Mountain behind our old home but there was always the hope that they might come to their senses and stop.

With the Nova Scotia mass shooting and COVID19 crisis, I am forced to admit that as an adult there is really nowhere to run. There are no safe places left for those of us with modest means. We have to stand and join the fight against this disease and the mass shootings with the only tools left, science, political will, patience, and intelligence. There are people out there who care only for their strange ideologies that scorn truth while valuing power and wealth over human life.  We cannot let them win or we are all finished.  This might be the last great opportunity to take our government and lives back so there can still be safe places in the world for the rest of us that haven't been given over to viruses and the powerful.

I am just sorry that the children of today might never have the chance to build a fort in the woods, go to school without worrying about being shot, or wander after school without a care in the world.

Survival is Future Focused

Great Egrets seem to spend all their time focused on catching a meal, grooming, or enjoying a sunny or perhaps at least a sheltered perch. They don't seem to mind wading around in cold water. They typically avoid confrontation but they can be very territorial and I have seen one or two stand up to the much more aggressive Great Blue Herons.  I don't know that Great Egrets think about the past, but I do know that they have a good memory for places. Our Great Egret buddy, Frank 29X, from Canada has flown down from his northern marshes to the Crystal Coast for eight straight years.

We, humans, live a much different life than Great Egrets but the ones of us who maintain relative mental balance have a streak of hopefulness in us.  It is easy to get weighed down by the news.  Climate change could bring the end of the world and a massive sea-level rise.  Our spineless GOP senate has just given the menace that is our leader a green light for whatever behavior he feels like between now and the next election. Far too many people are killed by far too many guns. The suicide rate among veterans and farmers is appalling.  Many people are just one medical incident away from bankruptcy. Corporations seemed to have rigged the tax system in their favor.  Birds are dying and our corporate-friendly government seems bent on doing away with all environmental regulations while attempting to dismantle protections for federal lands.

It would be easy to have a vision of the future that is flaming rivers, toxic drinking water, firestorms like Australia and an authoritarian government with miles of wall attempting to stave off the future.

The reality will likely be different. The demographics of our country are changing. The demographics are not changing in favor of the white nationalists and the party that sees them as "some very good people."  We know what a nearly scandal-free government looks like. We had eight years of it under our first black president.  The children growing up today are growing up in a much more diverse world much like Halifax, Nova Scotia where we lived for a few years.

I have told the story many times about moving to Columbia, Maryland where our young son heard someone refer to a lady as black and turned to ask us what did "black" mean?  We might not get there in America in my lifetime but I wouldn't write off the possibility.  I have grandchildren that will need guidance and help to succeed. I plan to be around for them.  I fully expect to help them develop their critical thinking skills.

I also hope to teach them to be unafraid to take the heat for their beliefs. We have far too many people who are unwilling to admit their mistakes much less shoulder the responsibility of what they did. Certainly, we should hold responsible those senators who refused to honor their oath of office and stuck their heads in the sand during the sham impeachment trial of our foul-mouthed leader.

I grew up during a time when we could debate opinions without getting personal. I sent a list of questions to a no-one-could-be-right-but-me opinion writer. I hoped to understand why he believed things that do not pass the test as facts. His comment was that I lived in a different reality. Certainly, I do not live in the fever-induced-conspiracy swamp of Fox News. I think this quote from Forbes about covers it.

There's a lot that goes on in the world that doesn't easily fit the Fox template. There are important stories that don't make anyone angry, prove liberals are evil or otherwise carry an emotional punch. Fox viewers get less of them. Fox News is like an all-you-can-eat buffet, serving up red meat. A more balanced diet might be healthier in the long run.

I try to eat a balanced diet of healthy food but I do fall off the wagon especially for bacon and potato chips.  Enjoying a balanced news diet is much easier and I never fall off that wagon and listen to the junk news that comes out of Fox.

Not all government is bad. That pretty much disqualifies me as a Fox viewer.  Not all taxes are bad and the government helping people who are less fortunate is a good thing that will benefit us all.  Those are the second and third strikes that make me an unlikely Fox News viewer.

The government is a giant pendulum. Likely our current difficulties are a result of the great progress we made under Barack Obama. There are people to whom the thought of a black president or a woman as president are as threatening as flaming rivers are to me. 

We have to hope that our current mess will energize people to vote.  Those of us who believe our future depends on a fair country that continues to build on the strength and intelligence of current and past immigrants instead of walling ourselves off from the world and the future cannot let fear, hatred, and xenophobia driven by the policies of the current administration define our future.

We have to build a world where everyone counts no matter how humble their backgrounds are. Each person, not just the rich and well-connected, deserves a chance to succeed and thrive. That has been the imperfect promise of America for hundreds of years.  We will continue to strive to get closer to that promise and we will never let it die.

We can still have a country that respects borders and the law without making life miserable for so many. We just need better people running our country.

 

Our Modern Dark Age

I was driving to the grocery store the other evening.  Like many evenings in March along the North Carolina coast the temperature had dropped rapidly once the sun had disappeared.  The warmth of the day, the dampness of the ground, and the cool night air conspired to create stretches of ground fog.  Ground fog can be almost as ephemeral as northern lights.  Sometimes you go through it so quickly that when it disappears you are not even certain that it really existed.  That happens regularly with northern lights. You can blink and they are gone and you are never sure that they were actually there.

Once in a while you run into ground fog that is so intense and deep that it is undeniable.  I think that I have reached that point on the attacks on knowledge that I am seeing in our country.  For a while they were fleeting but now they are impossible to ignore.  It is as if a portion of our population has decided that scientific facts and the truth no longer mean anything.  Actually it is worse than that.  There are many people who will believe something just because they have heard it several times.  It does not matter that their sources have no credibility. A fever has overtaken our land and it removes the powers of reasoning from people.  Years of science, knowledge, and verifiable information are thrown out the window just because they do not fit a political view point.

I have spent my whole life sucking up knowledge like a sponge. I long ago learned how to think for myself.  I do not need talk radio of any stripe to tell me what to believe. In fact I have never listened to talk radio. I can weigh the facts and make my own decisions.  I can also tell the difference between facts and pure bull.  The only reason that I watch some late night television is for therapy to help me cope with the dissonance coming out of Washington, DC.

I could list a number of things troubling me, the ban on immigrants, the rollback of environmental rules, people not believing in vaccines or a healthcare plan designed to remove insurance from those who could least afford to lose it.  One item stands out as an example of complete stupidity. Cutting over a billion dollars from the Coast Guard budget to help build a wall between Mexico and the United States is stupidity on a scale that I have never seen.  Aside from not needing a wall to protect us from our neighbors and trading partners, the Coast Guard is an essential organization that provides a myriad of services including interception of threats to our nation while protecting over 12,000 miles of coastline and the people who use those waters surrounding our country. The emergency services they provide along our coastlines are much appreciated by those of us who live close enough to see their work firsthand. They are already overworked. They do not need a budget cut.

If our country continues on this anti-knowledge, anti-reason path, the consequences will be dire. I do not plan to go quietly into the night as the country that science, reason, and technology built is torn apart to appease those who want to live in the past.  I have grandchildren and I want them to grow up in a world where truth and reason are revered not hated.  Those of us who have traveled and even lived in other countries know that this is the greatest country ever. It is not perfect but it does not need to be torn apart in an effort to please people who have a hard time caring for anyone besides themselves.

Our country is what it is today because it was built on knowledge and reason. The hard work of Americans, new and old, who respected truth and wisdom while caring for their fellow countrymen created the world's greatest republic.  To destroy our foundations of truth and justice or to try to remake our country on anything less than the truth is dangerous.

The Fog & Lies Bedeviling Our Health Care

It is hard to believe that something as simple and as important as a flu shot can be so difficult for the world's most advanced medical system.  Either authorizing a flu shot is something more complex than I think or just maybe our medical system or at least the delivery of preventive care is not all that it is cracked up to be.

I have seen it all in this year.  I went from a standard Blue Cross package to an Affordable Health Care plan with Blue Cross to Medicare to a Medicare Advantage Plan with Blue Cross.  All that happened in the space of four months.

With that background, my wife and I planned to get our 2014 flu shots from Walgreen's where we have gotten them the last couple of years.

We have not missed a flu shot in fourteen years.  My very efficient wife had already gotten the forms and we filled them out at home.  Because we are both over 65 and our younger daughter is about to have our second grandchild, we were told to get an extra strength flu shot and a TDAP shot.

The following is from the government's Medicare site.

Medicare Part B covers 100 percent of the cost of a flu shot once every flu season with no Part B deductible required. This is true for both Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans.
Original Medicare will pay for the flu shot no matter where you get it, as long as the health care provider is enrolled in Medicare.

You will pay no copay or deductible if you see a doctor or other health care provider who takes assignment. If you receive your Medicare benefits from a Medicare Advantage plan, the plan cannot require that you get a referral for the vaccine, but it can require that you use providers in the plan’s network.

We called ahead to make sure Walgreen's had the flu vaccine we need and headed off to get our shot.  My wife, who has not transitioned to Medicare from Blue Cross Affordable Care quite yet, had no trouble getting her shot.

It took an hour and fifteen minutes before I got my shots and I had to agree to pay for it myself.  The extra strength flu shot and other shot that I got cost $118.  I was assured by the Walgreen's technician that Blue Cross promised to reimburse me for my shots.

We got a pretty good song and dance from Walgreens.  The net of it was that the only policy of mine that Blue Cross could see was the one that was terminated in February.  I have a hard time buying that since I have been paying Blue Cross and their specified deductible for appointments with a doctor over the last few months.

Since we were only a quarter of a mile from our insurance agent, we thought we should stop by and see if they could explan why I could not get a flu shot without paying for it.   An agent called Blue Cross for us and confirmed that Walgreen is listed as a provider.  His only guess was the federal government is requiring all Medicare folks to use one flu shot provider. 

That did not make much sense to me given what I had seen on the Medicare site but after nearly two hours I was tired of fighting and the agent was offering to mail in our claim for us so we took him up on that and went home with our heads shaking.

We wondered if the federal government is only paying for certain providers, why isn't there a giant billboard telling us whom that might be?

Obviously we are not getting the correct story.  All I know for sure is that health care was a whole lot easier in Canada. 

All I had to do was give them my number and we got whatever care we needed. As to lessons learned from this.  One is that I will not be going back to Walgreen's for any shots.  I probably would have walked out this time if we were not fighting a deadline so we could visit our next grandchild.  Two is that we might be the most advanced country in the world capable of some medical miracles, but getting access to even basic services like a flu shot is not exactly simple.  We have some great doctors and medical professionals, but I think they too deserve a better system.

As to my reimbursement, I am not holding my breath.  We had an even more complex experience getting shingle shots.  At the time we were getting ready to visit Canada and one health care professional told us it would be easier to find a clinic in Canada for the shingles shot.  We persevered and got it in the United States, but it took untold hours and over two years to get that claim resolved.

If most advanced means most complex, I think we win by a mile.  Good thing the fall weather is great on the Crystal Coast.  It will take my mind off of this.