I’ve done two things recently I’m not so sure were all that smart during this pandemic. Let’s just say I tested the limits of my vaccination.
First, I went to the Indianapolis Colts season opener — with 68,000 of my closest friends. It was a sellout crowd. The Colts lost, of course.
My wife’s boss has season tickets in about 10 rows back on the 15 yard line. He was otherwise occupied this day, and gave his tickets to my wife. I was so excited about doing this that it didn’t hit me until we had parked and were walking toward the stadium: holy frijoles, there’s a global pandemic on! I decided not to turn back.
A week later, our youngest son and I saw Megadeth and three other heavy-metal bands at an outdoor ampitheater. It looked like a sellout crowd to me, and the place holds 25,000 people. Here’s a snippet of the band performing. I can’t believe my iPhone’s microphone picked up this extremely loud music with such clarity.
Our youngest is a major metalhead, as was I back in the day. I’ve tried to bond with him by taking him to see the Big Four thrash metal bands of my time: Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer. We had seen all but Megadeth, and what a journey it was to be able to see them. We had tickets to see the band in 2019 when founder Dave Mustaine was diagnosed with throat cancer and canceled the tour. He recovered, and the band tried again to tour only to be stymied by the coronavirus. They rescheduled our show either two or three times over more than a year trying to outrun the pandemic. They decided to press on with this date despite the Delta variant being in full swing.
Despite being so close to so many people, some of which had to be carrying the coronavirus, I came through untouched.
That I’ve done these things is not a declaration that I’m done being cautious. Let’s call them temporary pauses in my caution. I have no more pauses planned. But good God, were these pauses fun.
