You never stop learning, I guess, even when you honestly try to stop.
One of the very first things I learned involved the difference between boys and girls. The difference being, girls played with dolls and boys played with guns. Also, girls peed sitting down. This lesson has held true throughout my life, although I’m not sure it how helpful it’s been.
Around that same time, I learned that the bigger you are, the more influence you have. When you get big enough, you can eat cookies whenever you want.
Later lessons pertained to, for example, the difference between having a college degree and having a job; the difference between a “good used car” and a pile of junk; and the difference between saying “I do” and actually meaning it. Some lessons had to be learned more than once.
But the lesson I’m currently struggling with… well, who would think I’d still need to be learning lessons at my age?
The lesson being, the difference between an “essential worker” and a “non-essential worker”.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis (who I presume considers himself an “essential worker”) recently issued a list of people who will be next in line for whatever coronavirus vaccine might someday become available in useful quantities. The first round of vaccines, in “Phase 1A”, were provided to doctors and nurses and other healthcare workers. I guess if anyone could claim to be “essential” during these trying times, it would be the people who know how to stick a needle in your arm. (Although I am honestly questioning whether doctors actually know how to do that. Seems like all the photographs show nurses doing the dirty work.)
Then the Governor had a slightly more difficult decision. Which arms are next in line to get the needle? That is to say, who’s essential and who’s not?
Back in March, when the pandemic was first rearing its ugly head, the Governor felt like he had to lock down certain businesses and make millions of people struggle financially, so that it would look like he was really doing something. So he brought out the Wheel of Fortune and gave it a spin, and voila, liquor store clerks and marijuana dispensary employees were essential, but childcare workers were not. (Lesson learned: when you get big enough, you can smoke pot whenever you want.)
More importantly, however, he determined that journalists who wrote humor articles for online news magazines were… well… shall we say, non-essential?
Pardon me if I sound insulted, but I’ve always thought laughter was the best medicine. (Okay, I’m biased.)
Our Governor, meanwhile, seems to think vodka is the best medicine.
But maybe… just maybe… he’s having second thoughts about that? Bcause last week, Governor Polis changed his mind about who would be included in the “Phase 1B” rollout of the limited supply of COVID vaccine. (When you are essential, you are able to change your mind whenever you want.)
The previous version of Phase 1B workers, announced in early December, included the following essential people:
- Health care workers with less direct contact with COVID patients
- Workers in home health, hospice, and dental settings
- First responders like police officers, prison guards, and paramedics
The rest of us were relegated to Phase 2, or even Phase 3.
I think we can all agree that prison guards are more essential than school teachers and childcare workers and grocery store employees. But what about me? I’m not sure I can agree, that humor writers are less important than prison guards. Have you ever heard a prison guard tell a joke? Probably not. And I don’t think Governor Polis has either.
Which might explain why — now that the Phase 1A healthcare workers are pretty much vaccinated — the Governor suddenly changed his mind about who comes next. Here’s the list of taxpaying citizens who are now considered part of Colorado’s Phase 1B vaccination effort, as officially announced on December 30:
This phase also includes frontline essential workers and continuity of state government, which will include:
- Educators and daycare staff
- Food and agriculture workers
- Manufacturing
- US Postal Service
- Public Transit and specialized transportation personnel
- Grocery workers
- Public Health workers
- Direct care providers for Coloradans experiencing homelessness
- Essential personnel for the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government
- Frontline journalists
We note, with a certain sense of hopefulness, the last group mentioned in that list.
As far as I can tell, the Governor hasn’t yet provided a clear definition of who a “Frontline journalist” might be. But back when I was in the Army, they had a way of choosing soldiers for the “Frontline”. They asked for volunteers.
So I am taking a step forward, and volunteering for the Frontline. I hope the Governor notices me.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.