[ExI] dead bikers

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 
Subject: RE: [ExI] dead bikers

 

 

>>…Why are so few bikers perishing of covid?  Do offer something to suggest why we are seeing as much as an order of magnitude fewer than we would expect … spike

>…Possibility: masks don’t really help as much as we think, but… perhaps… direct sunlight on skin does… if getting out in the sun helps protect from covid, nearly everything we have done to combat covid was … pi radians wrong…spike

 

 

This whole thing really has my wheels spinning (or since we are talking about bikes, my wheel.)

 

A biker friend of mine who died about 3 years ago was a veteran of Korea and Vietnam.  He liked to go to Sturgis nearly every year.  I recall a comment he made about two special event he attended there: the veterans reunions.  He said the Korean vets were dwindling to nothing, but the Vietnam vets were going strong at Sturgis.  He wasn’t surprised if a lot of the Sturgisers were there more for that Vietnam vets reunion than they were for the bikes and old ladies letting it all hang down.  OUT rather, letting it hang out.

 

So… He is gone now, perished of emphysema.  Last time I saw him he was simultaneously using an oxygen tank and… smoking.  I gently inquired, “whaaaaaat in the heeeeeellllll…”  He made a good point: he had been smoking for nearly 70 years.  No point in trying to stop now just to get an extra coupla weeks life.  He assured me he was being most careful.  I stood ready, should it be necessary, to stomp him out.  Had that oxygen tank misbehaved with that cigarette, he risked giving a whole new meaning to the term “flaming-ass liberal.”

 

The reason I mention it: the most striking feature of my biker friend was his leathery skin on his face and hands.  If his sleeves rode up, one could see his skin looked normal elsewhere.  But that face and those hands had seen a lot of sun in 83 years.

 

Feedback please?

 

I have another disturbing observation.  In California the governor issued “Shelter in place” orders.  Shelter in place.  What is shelter in place?  Surprising how many of my own neighbors thought that meant there was a law passed which meant one was not to come out of one’s house.  Plenty of people around here already had grocery delivery, so that actually was an option.  One of my own scouts (from Ukraine) didn’t poke his nose out the door for over two full months this past summer.  He already had a pasty complexion before.  His mother asked me to demand of him to get his ghostly pale ass outdoors and let’s see some physically strong to go with the mentally awake and morally straight.

 

He went out for about 3 minutes.  One day.  Over three weeks ago.  Hasn’t been out since.

 

Sigh.

 

If sunlight offers some protection from death by covid, that would explain why the southern hemisphere was delayed, and why New York was hit so hard: their governors demanded shelter in place as well, and they did make it sound like there was a law requiring New Yorkers to stay indoors and die inside their own homes.

 

Ideas please?

 

spike

 

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