So we’ve entered another phase of pandemic life as we know it & in response covid has mutated to become more contagious – pharmaceutical companies are now pushing for booster shots – to save mankind while boosting their profits. The un-vaxxed surf their wave of ‘it’s my right to die & it’s my right to take you with me’ rational.
I’ve kept my eye on the loosening of travel restrictions & wonder who profits from the mandatory covid testing? In order to go you need a ‘fresh’ test, in order to come back you need another ‘fresh’ test but if you haven’t made appointments in advance you could be stuck. Will travel health insurance cover the cost of covid testing in the USA?
Google says average price is $150. for tests in USA but can cost up to $850.00! There can be additional fees for collecting the samples, for transporting the sample to the testing facility. On top of which not all vaccines are acceptable so one has to make sure they have two of the accepted shots!
All this is along with all the other preparations needed to travel: ie passport, hotel, airplane tickets, documentation to prove you have the above, proof of registration on some ‘return to Canada app.’ Do I have to travel with a printer to print out that proof? I’ll need an extra carry on just for all that stuff. Oh yes & a supply of masks.
Speaking of masks I won’t be taking TTC, shopping at Farmer’s markets, eating indoors or attending plays without wearing one. As for travel plans for now I’ll just stay home & take a zoom tour 🙂
Whitney Pier Museum
I visit little local museums
dedicated to the industry of the area
steel workers miners
displays about the various ethic groups
Jewish Black Ukrainian
old high school year books
pictures of teams hockey basketball
rows of mothers knitting for the war
soldiers returning or those lost
churches that have come gone
business that survived faded
as economies rose dipped
the first black owned store in the city
families in fields picnics outings
Christmas parties in church auditoriums
faces turned to cameras
or sullen in front of raging blast furnaces
smeared with cold dust at a mine exit
men in groups workers comrades
sometimes everyone named
who’s your father a tree of discovery
<>
I sift through these
wonder about the real lives of these men
where is my history
I’m to assume each of them
had a wife kids somewhere
they sweated worked for that dream
a house garden
no way to find out if any of them
sought out something in each other
no mention that
Jack and John lived happily together
in this house on Lingan Road
everyone knew but no one cared
<>
I don’t need to know the lives
of those famed homos of the past
Radcliff Hall Alan Ginsburg
the list gets longer
as we allow history to reveal
what historians thought too sordid
to bring to light
the sex lives of heteros
are fine fodder mind you
<>
I look at these photos
what truths are unrecognized
no display of the same sex inclined
as if the queers in history
were not ordinary folks like these
in little local museums of the closeted
2008
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TOpoet 