“Many public-school children seem to know only two dates — 1492 and the Fourth of July; and as a rule they don’t know what happened on either occasion.” — Mark Twain

Friday, March 13, 2020: Do you remember that date? I was substitute teaching that day. The school’s principal gave us a memo to read to the students about closing up for a two-week spring break due to this COVID thing.

Many of the nation’s schools did not reopen for a year and a half, and the effects of that closure on a generation of young Americans might never be realized.

Most folks knew it was a scam when we had to wear masks walking into restaurants, but oddly were allowed to remove our masks once we were seated at the table. It was OK to go to Home Depot to buy steer manure, but not OK to attend services at church, or even go to the local pub and hoist a cold one.

Now that there’s a new administration in Washington, Americans are being shown how it was all a humbug and that, in fact, taxpayer dollars were paid to develop this virus in a lab in Wuhan, China. And also that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading medical expert advising the president to close most of the economy down has, in the ensuing years, made millions off his “expertise.”

Dates such as July 4, Dec. 7 and March 13 should all be remembered well by school children … and their parents.

MATT JANES
Jeffers Gardens