Good news/bad news

a Planes, Trains, and Automobiles type story (in the time of Covid)

Good morning from North Carolina, Frog Troublers! We still have lots to tell about our trip, but right now I’m going to tell you just one part of the story, which is about our trip home.

I’m going to start with the bad news. Bea and I had plane tickets home on Friday night. We were so sad to miss the last day and a trip to the Tuskeegee Airmen National Historic Site, but I had a class to teach, scheduled before the trip was rescheduled, at the North Carolina Writers’ Network.

I bought those tickets just days before a Trump-appointed Florida judge (rated “not qualified” for her post by the American Bar Association for lack of experience) lifted the mask mandate for everyone taking public transportation. I’d waffled between booking a flight and renting a car—which was safer? In the end I worried I’d be too tired to drive the eight hours back by myself.

When I heard about the new lack-of-rules, I thought, well, we’ll just wear our good masks and be very careful. We left our tour group around 4:30 on Friday afternoon after a trip to the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Church in Montgomery—the bus was having some trouble, and Robert, our driver, was going to take people back to the hotel and see if he could get it fixed. The Lyft to the airport was quick, and we were headed through a surprisingly empty (tumbleweeds rolling through) TSA line by 5:00.

The gate was also empty, and I soon started getting texts from Delta about our flights (we had a connection in Atlanta). Delayed, and delayed again. We’d never make it home in time for the conference, I realized. Maybe we’d like to stay in a hotel, the airline suggested. Well, we had a hotel already—a comfortable one, the Staybridge Suites in downtown Montgomery—so we got another Lyft, and headed back to join our group.

Once we were back in our room (watching Bob’s Burgers and putting on swimsuits for the pool) a new friend from our trip, who sat behind us on the bus, texted that she had just taken a Covid test, and tested positive, after having a slightly scratchy throat. We’d all prepared for this possibility after someone on the tour group tested positive Tuesday night. He’d been isolating with his wife for the remainder of the trip, and had happened to sit far from us on the bus ride down.

The other precautions we took:

-We were all fully vaccinated (with double doses, and every booster we were each eligible to take)

-We took rapid Covid tests the night and morning before leaving on the trip. Another couple was unable to join us after testing positive on Monday—disappointing, but reassuring that our plans were working.

-We all brought quality KN95 and N95 masks—no cloth masks, which are less effective.

Let me tell you something about these twenty-eight people on our trip: you won’t find a better, kinder, more loving group of humans anywhere. I tear up thinking about them—their patience and concern for one another (all of us with different mobility levels, from walker/wheelchair use to needs-to-climb-a-tree-at-every-rest-stop-Beatrice), their thoughtfulness and gentleness at every moment of what must have been, for some, a logistically, physically, or emotionally challenging journey.

Just to give an example: our wonderful bus driver, Robert, dined with a few of us (outdoors) on Tuesday night, and kept his phone out while we waited for our orders. He told us he was missing an important night at his own church, and he watched it online and told us a little bit about where he was from in South Carolina. He’d chosen to go on this tour with us because he hadn’t been to some of these sacred sites—but it didn’t mean he wasn’t leaving people at home who missed him. Like all of us, I suppose.

So, back to Friday night, and our friend’s positive test. I felt a little achey and tired, and so I took a test too (one of our organizers brought many along—I’d used all the ones I could get before the trip). After swabbing and mixing and timing, there it was: a faint pink (positive) line.

I let Loy, our wonderful volunteer organizer know, and she texted back that she assumed, at this point, that we were all positive. Why? Eating together, and lax masking on the bus. She had worn an N95 the whole time, taking it off only when outside, because she works in a hospital and has seen, as she told us, the worst of what Covid can do. Most of the rest of us, before we knew that one of our group tested positive, were not as careful on that first bus ride.

But wait, you might be thinking, I thought you said these were the best people anywhere! I did say that—that they are the best humans. Human nature being what it is, we mirrored each other. We thought, this nice person who is vaccinated and tested, she won’t give me Covid. And she’s not wearing a mask, so let me take mine down too.

The new variant, which is about as contagious as measles, spread—from the back of the bus to the front, where we sat. As soon as we knew, we masked diligently (and of course we wore masks inside of every tour space), but by then it was too late. Had there been a rule in place, I am sure that we would have all been diligent from the beginning. Not because we’re not smart and can’t make our own decisions. But because we’re human, and rules and clarity can be comforting and protective.

A plane, train, or automobile where you don’t know people is much more dangerous than the bus we took to Alabama. Are these people vaccinated? Tested? Responsible about symptoms? Who knows! Yet people who want to use public conveyances will have to make that calculation and protect themselves as best they can. Because a Trump-appointed 35-year-old federal judge from Florida, who I am just assuming has no underlying medical conditions, says so.

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Our bus, it turned out, could not be fixed—at least not quickly. I’m not talking metaphors—the literal bus where we’d given each other Covid was broken. Our amazing and generous Montgomery tour guide, Wanda Battle, put Robert in touch with a group of four people who ran a small transportation company in Montgomery. They gathered up four vehicles and we split into four groups, including the group of Covid-positive people (by Saturday there were still only three of us, but not everyone had tested). At 2:00 Central, we boarded an old limousine, a non-emergency medical vehicle, a minivan, and an Escalade (Bea and I were in the minivan). We all masked, of course, those of us with Covid in N95s.

checking out the limo

We made it to Burlington a little before 1:00 AM, everyone in amazingly good spirits for people who’d been cooped up and masked for ten hours. Richard and Harriet picked me and Beatrice up, we wore masks in the car, and now I am at home again, writing this from my bedroom with the door closed, feeling okay but sad I can’t hug my husband or my almost-four-year-old, who keeps leaving food cooked in her play kitchen at my door (so far, a popsicle, a cookie, a carrot, and penne). I suppose in writing this post I have mixed the good news with the bad news. Life does that. As Loy said, “we’ll meet with our gracious and flexible selves.”

But here is the really good news: vaccines work. For most people, they will protect you from serious illness if not infection.

Beatrice, who is fully vaccinated and who could not really distance from me, has tested negative repeatedly, and is symptom-free and able to be with Harriet, who missed her so much. The older couple who first had to quarantine are doing better. They were quardruple-vaccinated, and only one of them ever tested positive or showed any symptoms. They will be okay, and with luck or something more, everyone else will be okay too. As Clara (whose birthday it was yesterday—she rode in the limo, naturally) said, “I like traveling with this church, because I know everybody’s prayed up.”

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We are still losing an average of 311 people a day, nationwide. The majority of these people are unvaccinated, but some will be vaccinated and immune-compromised people, or very old people. It’s not okay that any of these people are dying. Not when we have measures that can protect them, including good masks.

Beatrice was a little tearful on Saturday morning after realizing I’d need to wear a mask around her, and would need to isolate once we got home. I told her that the primary message of this trip as communicated to us by Wanda Battle, was love. Love the people around you, love your neighbors, and love people who are different from you. That includes people who are not vaccinated for any reason, including reasons we disagree with—we love them by wearing our masks and being careful and taking the precautions we can.

Love to you from the bedroom offices of the Frog Trouble Times! Thank you for your messages to Bea’s Birmingham post—Richard will help her respond to them as soon as she can. And I will post our finished tapestry on Tuesday!

P.S. Big thanks to Duncan Murrell and Jill McCorkle, who held down the Writers for Democratic Action table at the NCWN! Please sign up to help protect voting rights and democracy—the other urgent message from this trip.

How has your week been, Frog Troublers? I hope you are as well cared-for as I have been.