Oh Canada, On Wisconsin

From national anthem to university fight song it illustrates where I could-a-been, would-a-been, should-a-been this summer of COVID-19 … to where I am.  It's ground hog day in Middleton, waking up in the same place for months for the first time decades.  And for the first time in 14 years it appears that due to ban on non-essential travel, I won’t make it up to the kinder, gentler north!

Comparative COVID cases in British Columbia and Wisconsin (5+ million both).  I thought BC cases were poised to explode due direct China traffic and the nearby Washington outbreak.  I was wrong.  BC began at 2/3^rd the number of WI cases in March and have fallen to 1/14 – a completely flattened curve!!!   From Vancouver friends to NY Times accounts this is directly due the leadership by provincial health minister Dr. Bonnie Henry.  It’s more than her policies, it has been her daily televised communiques where she provides the numbers, educates, reassures, empathizes and stresses civic responsibility.  This approach has led to a high degree of compliance with masking, social distancing, and contact tracing.  And no surprise what competent female leader can accomplish in a crisis.

So instead of metro Vancouver which has been a combination of summer Chinese immersion and Tai Chi boot camp, I’m ensconced in a mostly medium-sized, white, midwestern town of 38,000 adjacent to scenic Madison, the home of University of Wisconsin, the State Capitol interspersed between four large lakes.  Everything is so convenient, nature conservancy in the back for hiking, groceries 200 feet, Asian food store 0.5 and Costco 1 mile distant.

It has allowed a big time climb back into road biking, in 20-40 mile stretches several times a week replete with 15+% hilly grades (Tour de France) by myself, with Steve, and neighbor Jeff.  One of the unexpected delights is the abundance of bike only paths and being able to reach country blacktop within 0.5 mile of home.  I’ve been humbled by having to walk up the last quarter of two exceedingly steep climbs – and just retooled my rear cassette to give me two extra gears to ascend to the very top!  My favorites passageways meander downhill through tree-covered S-curved arbors at 30 mph.

The landscape explored by bike provides rural views from the hilltops not scalloped by glaciers.  From atop, I can view verdant expanses in a mosaic of green (8 ft corn) in perfectly aligned rows topped with amber (corn tassels), dark green (clover or soy beans), light green (hay), brown (plowed dirt) over rolling terrain with aroma of … fresh manure.  These pastoral vistas are sprinkled with groves of trees, patches of forests, streams and ponds, and dairy farms with black and white Holsteins while reaching skyward with silos, church steeples and wind turbines.  And the bike path is lined by purple and yellow wildflowers and white Queen Anne's lace suspended above.     

Not being able to visit immediate family and Ben’s newbie Juna, I do have extended family here with Steve & Mary and three generations and the Chun Clan here.  Given the time we spent together up at Mary’s modernized ‘camp’ in northern Michigan with all-new indoor toilets and hot water (!) playing games, constructing a hunt for buried treasure, swimming and boating, Korben age 7 in a very touching request asked me if he could have a sleepover with me!  And interviewing two nonagenarians for 3-4 hours a week each has woven a rich tapestry for me that has revealed to me how multiple displacements during WWII (and air raids), women struggling in a man’s world, toggling between east (China) and west (Europe and America), and always adapting to changing circumstances led to wisdom and artistic brilliance respectively.

Am in the best physical shape in 20 years and my two remaining neurons are still firing. 

So despite the constraints, life is full.  And, I'm thankful. 

 

B.S.  (Book Script)

 One quick and relevant read is Robert Reich’s (Clinton’s Secretary of Labor) “The System:  Who rigged it.”  In a nutshell, he delineates three systemic changes wrought by Ronald Reagan in 1980 that has led to the dramatic economic inequality, hollowing of the middle class, extreme concentration of wealth and simply put oligarchy, over the past 40 years.  And, he doesn’t let complicit liberals off the hook either.

1)    The shift from corporate governance from stakeholder governance (that included employees and public interest) to pure shareholder interests (basically profits)

2)    The shift in bargaining power from large unions to giant corporations with consequent reduction in relative wages and concomitant 15-fold rise in CEO compensation

3)    The unleashing of financial power of Wall Street through deregulation leading to stagnant wages, financial crises plus what he termed “socialism for the rich (bank bailouts) and harsh capitalism for the rest”