Porchside Musings.

This year we experienced a pandemic, the first since 1918 the experts say. People were told to stay inside their homes, avoid getting too close to others, and wear masks when having to travel outside. A lot of authorities saw fit to impose measures not everyone felt comfortable with. Restaurants, pubs, bars closed. Then most businesses shut down. The economy ground to a standstill. But this plague kept marching on, new cases and sadly new deaths. People failed to understand, they had the 1918 Spanish Flu in mind. Given how COVID-19 can spread, how deadly it is in some cases, how effective the countermeasures were they should have been looking at 1665 London, the year of the Great Plague. People then tried quarantines, social isolation, sterilized money, even wore masks. All for nought. Some religions refused to comply with the emergency regulations. Members of those groups were hit hard, some even were accused of deliberately spreading the infection. Today the urban areas in the US wor

Back in my college days I  occasionally encountered someone who doubted I was just in my early 20s. To them I seemed to be much older because of all that I had experienced plus all the things I knew about from reading so much. Eventually I ran into the term "old soul" - a person wise beyond their years. Some believe than an old soul has lived many previous lives and has retained some of memories and experiences of those lives. It's an interesting premise which does explain why I'm so comfortable in certain places and enjoying certain activities.  I once took one of those online quizzes, How old is your soul? , knowing full well that the test is just for entertainment. The results were to say the least, bemusing. According to that quiz, I have lived 1,532  past lives. Even for an old soul that's a lot of trips around our sun. My gaming friends like to tease each other in a friendly way now and then. Because I'm the most senior member and much older than man