160,000 DEATHS

The president was in an ecstatic mood Sunday morning, August 9th, as he steamrolled toward more than 200,000 deaths by the November elections. He had eclipsed the 165,000 death mark. Despite the horrendous number, he is giving himself a "ten" for allegedly saving millions of American lives via his successful leadership. Would the 165,000 dead and their families and friends, with the stats predicted to dramatically swell, congratulate Trump on a job well-done? We think not. He doesn't see these figures from an individual perspective. The only individual perspective he possesses are his own interests.

Trump never ceases in telling the public that we are doing exceedingly well compared to the rest of the world even though we have suffered one-fourth of the deaths and cases on our insignificant orb that isn't a speck in the universe. In terms of deaths, only Brazil, whose president is just as stupid as Trump with his reluctance to admit that there is a problem though he has suffered a COVID-19 bout himself by refusing to wear a mask, social distance and avoid large crowds, has eclipsed the six-figure mark with 100,000 deaths. Mexico follows at 50,000 with a dozen other nations above the 30,000 mark.

While Trump points his fingers at everyone else and refuses to take responsibility for his failure in combating Coronavirus, we are surprised that he hasn't directly blamed Barack Obama and Joe Biden for the pandemic although he still contends that he doubts the former president's citizenship while categorically asserting the ex-vice president is a racist. He believes that there are many Uncle Toms among African-Americans who are secretly hiding their sympathies for him and will come out of the closet November 3rd. We think that this dickless prick is going to be in for a rude-awakening. He will do better with the coconuts who have no problem with machos sodomizing them. There is something about an Hispanic who loves a dictator and finds succor in the shade of Trump's sombrero which the president dons when he orders tacos.

On the home front in Brownsville, Cameron County and South Texas, we are not doing well. We are one of the nation's hot spots and it's not because of the weather. Yesterday a counselor at Claudia's elementary school lost her husband after losing her father a month ago. Our local leadership, all Democrats, have failed the community miserably. We wish that we could make Trump the convenient scapegoat for all our woes, but we can't. South Texas Democrats have used the party for their own advancement. Many are as cold-hearted as Trump except when it comes to promoting their own personal ambitions on the hustings with their hugs and kisses.

In my family and at The McHale Report we are keeping our fingers crossed, but we recognize that we will always be walking on thin ice under a pitiless sun until there is a vaccine. I have concluded from listening to the experts--not Trump's charlatans--that it could be as long as a year until I personally see a needle entering my shoulder. We do our best to abide by the mandates, but it is impossible to comply 100%. We are social animals. We need to roam. We need to breathe the fresh air. We need to visit with family members. We do our best to abide by the mandates, but it is an impossible goal except for those who have suffered the ultimate tragedy and tribulations that have irrevocably change their lifestyles. Until the virus hits home, we look for an excuse to leave home or open the doors of our own homes to its threat.

During the week Claudia, Michael and I spent three days at the beach at the Isla Grande. We rented a place on the second floor of an extension that stretches perpendicularly to the high rise. We occupied a room at the end of the extension with a balcony that overlooked the beach. We kept our distance although on one occasion we ate a late lunch at an open-air restaurant and on another occasion I sat down for breakfast at the hotel's restaurant. I was the only customer. We needed a break. We needed to see the sun rise and set. We needed to watch a full moon ascend over the gulf with the sounds of the crashing waves in the background. We needed to walk along the shore. We needed to carefully and cautiously liberate ourselves.

Friday night my oldest son Carlos and his girlfriend came to the house to drink wine and munch on prosciutto, cheese and crackers. We finished three full bottles and emptied the two half-bottles that we had returned with us from the Island. Then there are the regular visits to HEB for the necessities. If a rare outing to the Island, an occasional reunion with a few family members and the regular runs to the supermarket will condemn us to sickness and possible death, there is no escaping this pandemic. We don't patronize the bars, we don't eat at Brownsville restaurants, we don't socialize in general and we don't forget to wash our hands regularly, but if there are ignorant Americans who insist on following Trump's example and belligerently declare that they would rather die than wear masks, many of us are doomed.

I wake up every morning and take a deep breath. If I inhale and exhale effortlessly and there aren't any other alarming symptoms besides the usual aches and pains of someone who officially becomes a "ruco" with his 70th birthday at the end of the year, then I generally spend a peaceful day. Fear has reduced our lives to simplicity. I am busy with my own projects, but there is always a challenge lurking on the periphery. Michael, my 15-year-old still delusional about a football season, wants to return to the gym where we were both training before COVID-19 arrived. I have all the weights and equipment that I need at home, but like his need to see his girlfriend whose parents are diligent but take a small risk by allowing him to visit, he keeps pressing with his requests. I told him that we would go either today or tomorrow to observe firsthand the measures Gold's is taking to protect its customers' health, but there is the ever-present danger that he stubbornly refuses to accept.

I know there are parents who would say no fuckin' way and Claudia is more than concerned, but he manipulates me because he knows that I do my best to please him. Goddammit! Why can't I be stronger and why can't he be more considerate? Haven't there been enough deaths of friends and acquaintances that I would put my foot down and tell him "No!" I used to say to him before he entered his teenage years: "When Daddy says no, what does that mean, Michael?" "It means no," he would properly reply.

But he is no longer my little boy who once looked at his father as his hero. He wants out of his cage. He doesn't believe that we are in danger. He hears that Coronavirus won't sideline him although he knows he could be condemning others to being permanent benchwarmers. Since I refuse to cut Trump any slack, Trump touting his old invincibility gives many Americans a false sense of security, my youngest son at the top of the list. We are in a war against nature, but we have a general dressed in a fancy uniform but with no military experience who undermines his own army with his feckless and reckless commands, high casualties the logical consequences of a madman oblivious to the lethal repercussions to fellow humanity.