LIVING IN EXTRAORDINARY TIMES - MY FIRST SHOT OF PFIZER VACCINE - TODAY, March 10, 2021!

Today, I was fortuate enough to receive my first vaccination against covid 19 with Pfizer's two shot vaccine. When I say fortunate, I mean it. If it hadn't been for a friend of mine, Nancy, who is particularly competent and who had found a way to schedule hers through something called MyChart, I wouldn't be vaccinated right now. I had signed up with the conty registration, the state registration, I had telephoned ShopRite, Walgreens, CVS, Urgent Care, and any place anyone or any e-mail alert said you could get innoculated. None of it panned out until Nancy sent me the MyChart link. It turns out that because I was in the hospital at Virtua in November for diverticulitis, I have a MyChart patient rgistration, so I was able to schedule my appointmet for today at what is termed "Mega Site" at the Moorestown Mall.

My forementioned friend, Nancy, also sent me a photo of what the entrance looked like an directions to the part of the Moorestown Mall where the innoculations were being given. It was the former Lord & Taylor Department Store. I left at 1:00 for m 2:15 appointment because I didn't want to be late and now my old car and I go slow. My plan was to go down Main Street to Lenola Road and cross route 38, but I got anxious about the time and took route 38 dirctly to the mall. Parking lot was full. The two friends who had previously gotten their shots had said it was remarkably empty but that was not the case when I got there. Groups of about 24 to 30 people were moving along through the maze of cordoned off corrals from station to station.

I had received and printed out and brought with me my e-mail confirmation of the appointment, a scanning symbol also e-mailed to me and designated as my identification, my driver's license with photo on it, and my medicare card. As it turned out, I was asked over and over for a 'white card' which I didn't have, but I kept handing over the stuff I had brought with me. The clumps of 20 to 30 people moved from station to station, all of which were manned by National Guard troops in camoflage uniforms, fatigues, I think they are called. They were all uniformly polite, businesslike, patient and helpful.

At each station there were several tables and soldiers, so there was basically no wait at all, and we moved along efficiently from question station to station until we got to the stations where we got the shots. It didn't hurt at all. After the shot, we were given a white sticker with a time written on it and taken to a large area, actually the whole place was monumentally large, where about a hundred folding chairs were placed about 5 feet apart. We were waiting there to make sure we had no adverse reactions to the inoculation. After 15 minutes, a guard came and told me I could leave. I had been talking to a lady 4 feet in front of me. We were talking about people not taking the coronavirus seriously, and I mentioned that my mother's mother had died in the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1919, though actually she died a couple years after it in the epidemic of pneumonia that followed. The lady told me her own mother had died last April in a nursing home of corona virus. I said what a shame that was and how sorry i was for her loss. She said in some ways it wss a blessing because her mother was in the home because she suffered for some years from dementia. We all know there is no getting better from that, only getting out

When I left, I took a wrong turn somehow, although I was sure I was going the right way, and got lost on route 73. So I had to pull over into a parking lot and use the gps to get me to route 70, so I could find my way home. For some reason I had a raging thirst, so I stopped at McDonald's in Collingswood and bought a Shamrock Shake and fries and drove across the road into the park where I sat and ate the fries and drank the shake in a little silent celebration.

The whole experience reminded me of refugee centers and immigration detention camps. Also it had a kind of sci-fi feel to it, the abandoned luxury goods department store, the empty glass counters where perfumes and jewelry once sparkled, the roped off maze of corrals and the stations with the questions asked by the soldiers. It was as if afer our inoculation wait, we would all be herded onto a space ship sent to colonize Mars.

Fortunately we had glorious spring weather today which made the whole trip so much easier. It was warm and sunny, 60 degrees! In my morning dog walk I had stopped to chat with a couple of neighbors out in their yard enjoying the weather. They were also ove 70 and had not yet been able to struggle through the underground cavern of twists and turns that is the scheduling system. I told them to try MyChart, which by the merest coincidence I had because of my emergency visit last autumn when my duaghter found Virtua while looking for closest and best hospitals to take me to. She saved me then, and inadvertently saved me again!

There is an old quote, which sadly I cannot attribute that says "May you live in interesting Times" is a kind of curse. Well I believe all the times I have lived haved been interesting, and from this side of the innoculation divide, i feel hopeful about enjoying even more interesting times.

Happy T