Notice: Next Thursday  April 1, on the first day of National Poetry Month, I will be interviewed, along with Ashland poet Kim Hamilton and Rebel Heart Books owner, Eileen Bobeck, on Jefferson Public Radio, 9:00-10:00am (rebroadcast 9:00-10:00 in the evening).

    You can listen live on a JPR station or on the website (jeffexchange.org) and can participate by calling 800-838-3670 or emailing JX@jeffnet.org. The interview will be posted on the website within a day. But I hope you'll listen live. It's more fun.

    When I received my first vaccination, last week, I was so excited I wanted to shout the news from the rooftops. We're going to end this thing! I've taken one of the millions of steps, two from each of us, it's going to take to end the pandemic, but we'll get there. As with so many things, with all of us working together, we'll beat this virus.

    However, I quickly discovered that not everyone is excited about vaccinations. Some people are foregoing the opportunity, a decision that baffles me because do they like wearing masks? Do they like our social isolation and a stalled economy? Of course not, but that's what a choice not to vaccinate comes down to. The person not getting vaccinated either doesn't care if the pandemic continues or is saying, "I think the vaccines were developed too fast [or gives another reason] and in spite of what Fauci and the CDC say, I think they're too risky. I'm not going to get vaccinated. But you do it because if you do, we'll get over the pandemic." 

    In other words that person is saying, "You take the risk [if there is any] so I don't have to" because he, like all of us, would like the pandemic to end. Maybe his life is more important than mine or other people's who have taken or will take the vaccine, and certainly to him it is, but in the big picture, I think we're pretty much equal, all of us. 

    Of course, no one is going to force anyone to get the shot. It's your choice. But America's strong concept of individual freedom has preempted a sense of the common good. If we are going to pull ourselves out of the pandemic, it'll take a sense of responsibility from all of us to do what we can. And the most important thing we can do, in addition to wearing masks, avoiding crowds, and keeping six feet apart, is get vaccinated, not just to protect our individual selves but to keep the coronavirus from finding a foothold among us. The vaccination of me alone will do no good at all in stopping the pandemic. It takes a combined effort. 

    Some time last spring or summer (the pandemic months run together) I heard an interview on the radio with a young woman, in her forties, I think, who had volunteered for COVID trials and experiments. Of course, she was taking an enormous risk, but she had taken a look at her life (single, no kids or grandkids, ordinary job) and decided that it wasn't so important that she couldn't give it, if necessary, to help us understand and overcome the coronavirus. Even though I am much older than she, with much more of my life behind me, I couldn't have done what she did. But I can get vaccinated. Being vaccinated inoculates me against getting sick, for which I am profoundly grateful, but I'm also grateful to the millions of other people who, like me, got vaccinated as much for the common good as for our individual protection.