I attended the basketball games as Allen played Stonewall this past Friday night. I think it was the first time I had ever seen our new gym sold out. And boy, was it ever. Both teams had their fans up and ready for wins. The Stonewall girls’ team was more than ready and played a great game, but the Allen Lady Mustang team, beaten twice recently, were ready for them. And won! These Allen girls are super-good and until recently played with only seven girls. Their perseverance has been admired and it paid off in a good season for them. After we finish the season, I look forward to seeing what they can do at the State level.

The boys’ team too has had its problems with injuries but Coach Mills has done a great job bringing them through the season with a great record. The “Nix” boy (Nix being a household word in Allen sports) had a football injury slowing him down and early in the Stonewall game, injured that leg again. But he managed to come back in the next quarter and make a difference as the Mustangs beat a great Stonewall boys’ team. It was Stonewall’s first loss of the season and I had to admire their talent and the way they fought in the last ticks of the clock.

As an old 1952 graduate of that fine school my heart was in my throat as a determined Longhorn shot a desperation shot as the clock ticked away its last ticks. I was surprised how close he came as it narrowly missed its mark. If it had gone in, Stonewall would have tied the game. Congratulations, Mustangs, on a great game and season.

I saw a few people wearing masks at the big game and I would like to say, I appreciate people who don their mask in these big crowd situations. I think our population in general has failed to have the fear and appreciation we should have had for this Covid-19 Flu. This flu is still with us. And it has left a trail of death and sorrow behind. One can best see the damage it has done if you just go to any local church and look around. Churches have been cut down in attendance by this plague. And a plague it was.

It is now politically popular to scoff at the vaccinations for this flu. I don’t really know the figures right now on the percentages of people who not only won’t take the shots but are proud of themselves and are likely to ridicule those who do comply. It’s a political thing, I guess. But I decided to look at the figures and do a little comparing them with other killers of the century. Just a few.

World War I cost us 116,516 while WWII ran up a tally in lives of 405,399. Not too many weeks ago I stood in the Maxie Cemetery near Wister and saw a row of about nine of my kin and all of them died of that flu in 1918. That epidemic took 675,000 lives. But wait! This round of pestilence has run up a tally of 1,108.382* men, women and children. Dead. All this with a heroic task by American Drug Companies, such as Pfizer finding, developing and making available an effective vaccine in less than a year’s time.

The story might have finish here but over half of us refused to take the free vaccine and for various invalid reasons. Many wouldn’t (and won’t) wear a mask. The dumber reason being it was ineffective. They had been told by various ones the virus, being so tiny, would pass right through the mask and that the mask (called a face diaper) would only collect germs and make things worse. The problem is, the virus doesn’t travel alone, it rides on water particles which the mask certainly can filter out.

Some politicians denounced a national health care official (Dr. Andrew Fauci) and one even pronounced the covid as mostly harmless and advised people to use antiseptics internally to fight the disease. He said the shots were there just to make Pfizer money and were worthless. Meanwhile, the death toll from Covid climbed higher. So sad. So many uncalled-for deaths.

Have a good week and be sure you have your covid and your flu shots. It’s never too late if you are still alive. And be sure and go to church on Sunday.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

cwaynebullard@gmail.com *figures from 2022