The Catholic girls' high school I went to is now some sort of athletic powerhouse, but it wasn't quite there yet during my four years as an Academy Girl.
The only sport we had was basketball - school team and intramural. Our school team mostly played other Catholic schools, and the big thrill was coming into South Boston to get clobbered by Cardinal Cushing High School, which had about five times as many students as my school. We always got trounced. (One of my friends played on those Cardinal Cushing teams that crushed us. But, hey, Cardinal Cushing high is defunct and my alma mater's still going strong.)
We also played an annual game with the Lancaster School for Girls, a detention center for juvenile delinquents. It goes without saying that, if we couldn't beat Cardinal Cushing, we didn't have a prayer of a chance with these girls.
I wasn't on the school team, but I went to most games. Something to do. School spirit. (I was big on that.) I did play intramural basketball for a couple of years but was never much good. The school had had a softball team. That was a game I might have been better at - the majority of the kids in my neighborhood were boys, and I often played baseball with them when I had nothing better to do (or my girlfriends weren't around) - but softball had been canceled the year prior to my freshman year because Mary S had gotten her head cracked open by a too close swing-batter-batter at the hands of Cindy C. So...
Overall, what passed for physical education at my school was pathetic.
Our physical education teacher, Miss Foley, was an old lady. (Probably in her 60's.) She wore mid-calf jumpers that were identical to the clunky jumpers we wore. Only longer. And while our school uniforms were hunter green, hers were in a variety of colors: maroon, navy, brown. She paired her jumper, as we did with ours, with a long-sleeved white shirt. To complete her ensemble, she wore seamed nylons, white bobby sox, and white sneakers. And a whistle around her neck.
She never broke into a sweat, and neither did we. There was never any need to take a shower after gym, that's for sure.
Our gym outfits resembled a waitress uniform of the Flo variety. Each class had its own color, generally some variation on blue or green. But for whatever reason, our class color was Sunshine Yellow This is pretty much a dead-ringer for ours gym uniform.
In gym, we mostly played children's playground games. Squirrel in a Basket was one of Miss Foley's favorites. Sometimes we walked around the gym. Other times we slow-trotted.
Then one day she introduced us to something new. "You're going to like this, girls," she assured us as she handed us our wands.
Ah, wand drill.
This photo was taken a few years before my time at the Worcester YWCA, and for all I know, Miss Foley may be one of the wand-drillers pictured here. Although probably not, as Catholics were discouraged from joining the Y. (It was considered moderately scandalous when my sister Kath and I took swimming lessons there one year.)
I haven't thought of the song Fascination in years, but hearing the word vaccination used so frequently, somehow a little earworm got planted in my little brain:
It was vaccination, I know
And it might have ended, right then, at the start...
And now, every time I hear vaccination, I also hear Fascination.
I am actually pretty fascinated with how this is going to work out in Massachusetts.
I've been pretty happy with how well they've been handling the pandemic here. Yes, we have a relatively high death rate, but that's mostly attributable to our being one of the early states hit. (If you recall, Boston hosted the Genzyme meeting that turned out to be a super-spreader event last winter.) But I think the powers that be have been competent in managing things, and we're not out of ICU beds, etc.
But the vaccination story has not been great.
I'm fine with the phased approach. I'm fine with medical staff, first responders, folks in nursing homes, those in homeless shelters, et al. getting first dibs.
I'm fine that Massachusetts, in its second phase, prioritized those over 75. I was fine that originally my cohort - 65+ - was at the back end of the second phase. (It's just been rejiggered - I'm sure in response to people 65+ screaming for it - and we're no longer behind grocery store workers and prisoners.)
But something hasn't been going right, as Massachusetts ranks 31st among the states in terms of per capita vaccinations.
I'm pretty smug about the fact that my state always ranks high by pretty much every measure that matters. We're always at or near the top in health, wealth, and education. And we're low on the bad measures. As in tied for last (with NJ) in terms of guns in the house.
So how did a state with all those educated people, all these top-of-the-line medical institutions, all this relative wealth, end up this far down in the pack? I know that someone has to be below average. It's just that it's not usually us.
The information flow has picked up a bit in the last couple of days. Looks like there's going to be an integrated portal for sign ups. (Yay!) And looks like they've got the process squared away. The big "if" now is whether there'll be enough doses to deliver into all these waiting arms. But there's some guarded optimism that my cohort may be able to get vaccinated by late February - early March. We'll see.
Truly, what's driving everyone crazy that I talk with is the uncertainty about how it's all going to work. I think most people would rather know for certain that they were going to get their shot on May 1st or whenever rather than fret about the upcoming process, and how big a cluster it's going to end up being, even if it meant getting the shot earlier.
Meanwhile, COVID is getting a bit closer to home. A very close friend of mine and his husband have been down for the count. Neither has been hospitalized, and T had things relatively easy (sick for 3-4 day. But P's still coughing after 3 weeks. He hopes he's rounded the corner, but...
I'm happy the vaccination is coming. I'll be happy when Fascination scoots out of my skull. But sometimes I just want to stay in bed with a sign taped to my PJ's: "Wake me when it's over." I'll be happy to wake up with a sore arm. Just tap me with a wand and let me know it's over and done with, and we can get back to the new normal.
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