Rosanne, my wife of forever, turned 60 a few years ago. For years prior she talked about wanting to skydive.
For her 60th. birthday present, I gave her a skydive at an airfield in Baldwin, Wisconsin.
On a beautiful early summer day, several of her children and grandchildren and I gathered at the airport. We saw her face light up as the time grew closer to climb into that crowded airplane with a handful of others. In the plane, a trainer strapped himself to her back, and another jumper with a video camera on his helmet prepared for the moment they left the cozy confines of that two-engine plane.
Very soon after taking off, we saw the plane, flying at about 13,500 feet, start to discharge its passengers. And then we saw Rosanne Mae Jung Racer’s fast-falling imagine, having jumped out of a perfectly good airplane, plunging to earth.
“Are you jumping?” countless people asked me. “No, I don’t jump out of airplanes,” I’d answer.
You see, I have this theory about life. Some risks are necessary, some risks are worth taking, and others – not so much. Besides of my fear of heights and general sense of self-preservation, the idea of free falling toward earth is not attractive to me.
But I made the decision
Whether you decide to jump out of airplanes or not, I won’t tell you how to live your life.
You see, I’m telling this story more because of Covid-19 than about jumping from planes. I’m 73 years old now. To get this far, I’ve had to say no to many things, and yes to those that I believe are beneficial and necessary. This is precisely why I want to inform myself about Covid-19, calculate my own risks and those I might inflict on others, and then be trusted to act responsibly. This is another way of saying “liberty.” It comes from rational thinking.
But today, a Governor makes a decision for me – and you. That Governor is probably acting in a way he believes is for my best interest, but truly cannot know that for sure. He listens to the medical advice of folks who are acquainted with infectious and contagious diseases. They have a point of view. Other equally qualified experts in other places, who do not have the ear of the Governor, have a different point of view.
Meanwhile, I, a citizen of Minnesota and the United States, educate myself, listening to experts with several and often competing points of view. Then, as a citizen of the United States, a free person, I prefer to make my own choice.
I guarantee you that unless I was wearing a hazmat suit I would never enter a place in which deadly radioactive materials had been exposed. Neither would I enter a medical ward where individuals are dying from a highly contagious disease. Given my risk aversion, I wouldn’t do it with a hazmat suit on.
On the other hand, I would not party with my family or friends, or stand in front a classroom full of students, if I had a temperature, cough, sore throat or other medical condition.
I am fully capable of making wise decisions. So are you. I trust you and you should trust me.
Open up the schools, bars, restaurants and athletic events. Let us worship together – in large numbers if we choose.
We are wise enough to make informed choices.
And most of us will not choose to jump out of airplanes.
Rosanne did. She loved it and wants to do it again, but next time from much higher up. When she landed on that Baldwin airfield, we cheered and cheered. Her adrenaline flowed so fast she could hardly talk – she was pumped!
By the way, although she’s a risktaker, she’s also smart and responsible enough to make her own choices about Covid-19.
