This year, certainly unusual, has given me pause to think about what I’m grateful for, for the…
By: Billie Wells
Tags: Covid, Dr Fauci, Dolly Parton, Thanksgiving, Coronavirus

How Henry V’s Band of Brothers Has Saved my 2020

This year, certainly unusual, has given me pause to think about what I’m grateful for, for the many who have stayed working for us while the virus abounds.

I am a lucky 62 year old. In the midst of this virus and a few falls, I got new knees which will last me my whole life. My goal is to walk the Camino de Santiago with my daughter, perhaps by the time I turn 65. I desperately hate PT but I found a way to do it. While I work those muscles that need recovery, I am memorizing Henry V’s Band of Brothers Speech before the battle of Agincourt. While I watch Kenneth Branagh lead his band of brothers to the challenge while outnumbered five to one, I stretch those quads. Heck, a few months ago, I didn’t even know what a quad was. When Kenneth says, We few, we happy few, I know he is speaking to me. At the call of his band of brothers, I cry and stand on one ankle to ready myself for the charge — of living life sans crutches. And when Henry says, if our minds be so, we are ready — ready to meet the road to Santiago.

I’ve done a parody of it for this Covid Thanksgiving. If we laugh, we can most assuredly meet the challenge of beating covid.

Now my fair friends,

If we are marked to dine, we are enough

To do that Turkey loss, and if to stay home,

The more for me, the greater share of mac n cheese.

God’s will I pray these, drink one more glass of Sweet Tea.

Rather proclaim it, my zoom dog Rosie

That he which hath no stomach to this zoom feast,

Let him depart and send his leftover bones to me.

And crumbs for Rosie be put into her mouth.

We would not dine in that man’s company

That hopes his fellowship to dine a-house with us.

This day is called the feast of Covid-Corona Thanksgiving

He that zooms this day and stays safe home,

Will lie a-couch aft this turkey is devoured.

And rouse him at the name of Corona Thanksgiving 2020.

He that shall live this day and see old age,

Will yearly on this vigil of 2020 remembered, thump his head,

And say Holy Smackers, tomorrow is the anniversary of covid 2020

Old Memories fade, yep all shall be forgot.

But we’ll remember with boasting what feats we did not that year,

E’er shall be the names, familiar in their mouths, forgotten heroes,

Fauci the doctor, George Floyd and Breonna, Joe and Kamala,

Doctors and nurses, janitors and grocery workers, essential all,

Be in their flowing cups, freshly filled with Spirit,

This story shall a good mom teach her child,

But Covid Corona shall ne’er go by,

From this day til the end of the vaccine trials, Thank you Dolly Parton.

But we in it shall be reunited,

We few, we happy few, we band of Grateful Souls,

For those today that shed not their virus with me

Shall be my hero, be we ne’er so close than six feet apart,

This 2020 shall we show ourselves via Zoom

And gentle people across the world lying a-bed

Shall think themselves a hero they were not here,

And hold their turkey legs a-close while Fauci Speaks

Who feast Zoom with us upon St. Covid Corona’s Thanksgiving.

Our Forks be ready if our turkeys be done.