Lockdown in Spain-Day 42, where to now?

Early morning Day 43, looking back at yesterday, Day 42, trying to differentiate from Day 1; what is different?  It's warmer, the sparrow chicks are noisier, construction on the new medical center has started again and can be glimpsed between the buildings in front of my window.  Children under fourteen are allowed to roam while supervised by an adult for an hour.  Adults under sixty who are healthy and don't have children under fourteen or dogs may not.  Adults over sixty who do have dogs may walk the dogs until, until...  What self-respecting police officer is going to ask someone whether his dog has crapped and if so, why is he still walking away from home?  Those of us who are bereft of dogs or minor children are a sub-class, victims of discrimination pigeon-holed without concern for our need for exercise, freedom of movement or just plain mental health. 

Most of us over sixty and healthy understand the need for social distancing, masking,  preventative practices, etc.  That the powers who are have not relaxed our sequestration even the slightest is beginning to gnaw at me.  We have another fourteen days of lockdown to look forward to unless they announce another extension.  I will spend my seventy-third birthday in virtual captivity.  I will have television, telephone, the internet, lots of food, booze, books and myriad other amusements but I won't have the freedom to take a walk.  They have taken away my birthday, something I used to joke about.  Then I think of forgetting my nineteenth birthday in 1966 and have to smile.

I was on the road, a college dropout, staying in the YMCA in Billings, North Dakota.  I had a 99-day Greyhound Bus ticket, about twenty dollars to my name and an invitation to a family reunion at the home of one of my college friends.  Steve was back at the University of Hawaii and I had been invited to represent him at the reunion.  His high school girlfriend picked me up about noon and drove me to the family home where the party was just getting started.  It was a pleasant time, friendly conversation and country western music playing constantly.  It was interesting that The Ballad Of The Green Beret was one song played repeatedly.  Toward the end of lunch and the clearing of tables, the whole family broke into song as Steve's mother exited the kitchen carrying a birthday cake with a few lit candles.  I looked around for a child of the approximate age but found none and was completely surprised when she sat the cake on the table in front of me. 

Mrs. B had spoken with my parents who had met Steve at my old rooming house after they arrived on a surprise visit.  The surprise was theirs when they found that I was not there, having left a week earlier, heading for L.A., Oregon, and wherever else the ticket would take me.  Steve informed them of my plans to roam the mainland, but that he had asked me to stop in Billings to see his parents.  So, after a tense collect phone call to my parents' hotel in Chicago, their reasoning and my imminent poverty convinced me to head to Maine.  The cake was really good.