Accidental Journey - Page 5

Accidental Leap Year

STARSHIP LOG – 1st entry

PLANET EARTH (Blue Marble, 3rd Rock from the Sun)
Century-Year – 21st, 2020
Everybody (I mean everybody) is BUMMED OUT
COVID-19 Pandemic Alert. Code Red
COVID-19 Pandemic Alert. Code Red

Do you copy? I repeat – do you copy?

Mayday, Mayday. We are having a Leap Year this year.

There's an extra day on the calendar (February 29th) throwing our world off its 22-degree axis. Babies born this day will only celebrate birthdays every four years. They shall age so much slower than all of us. Slower, but wiser. For God's sake, it's an Election Year. Planetary, pandemic pandemonium prevails in populations around the world. We are seized with CoronaVirus Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD). This a Leap Year alert (can’t we skip this one and go to the next?). Unfortunately, that will take an act of God or Congress, neither of whom have the will to act. Profound indifference casts a pall over Life as we know it.

Knock, knock.

Hello.

A voice calls to me through Time and the decades of my life. I was born in a Leap Year (1952). Post-World War II prime vintage Baby Boomer stock. Bluesman John Lee Hooker wrote a song in the '60s about my arrival here – blue-eyed, blond-haired, cute as a button second baby boy to Bob the Father (BtF) and Carol the Mother (CtM):

BOOM BOOM by John Lee Hooker
(performed by Eric Burden and the Animals)
Boom boom boom boom
Gonna shoot you right down
Take you in my arms
I'm in love with you
Love that is true

Boom boom boom boom
I like the way you walk
I like the way you talk
When you walk that walk
And you talk that talk
You knock me out