Of Festivals and Freedom

This morning, on a walk to our secret arroyo, my dear friend “Jeep Girl” mentioned how much she misses music and arts festivals. We talked about how COVID-19 has robbed us all of these wonderful social events, from the flower child vibe of the Oregon Country Fair to the redneck ramble of Country Thunder. While some events like these are considering re-opening this summer, the danger of these becoming super-spreader venues is still very real.

Angry, we are, that many Americans are resisting the vaccines and still objecting to wearing masks indoors, even, and especially, in areas with high infection rates. We railed at the fact that the majority of vaccine resisters are Republicans. The Washington Post reports that more than half of U.S. adults have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, more the 40 percent of Republicans have consistently told reporters they’re not planning to be vaccinated – a group that could threaten the effort to tamp down the virus’s spread. Their selfishness ignores the public good, the public health, and threatens my freedom to "festival!"

So there we are. We’re doing better fighting the virus here in the U.S., but, opening the festivals again is simply too dangerous right now. And that makes me sad. I miss the music, the art, the excitement, and, yes, taking my top off or just going nude with like-minded, happy, peaceful people. “Jeep Girl” does too.

So when we got to our special arroyo early this morning, we slipped off our clothes and enjoyed just being naked together in the early morning sun.