For Random Learning Comes: Essays Fiction and Poetry by Andrea LeDew
For Random Learning Comes
For Random Learning Comes: Essays Fiction and Poetry by Andrea LeDew
This past Friday, our mayor lifted the mask mandate in our town. Not that any of the mask mandates in Florida are particularly enforceable. The governor long ago eviscerated the power of local communities to enforce them. Still, with just 14.3% of Florida fully vaccinated, and only 26% having had at least one dose, …
Fair Warning: This tongue -in-cheek poem is written in a made-up backwoods Southern dialect that breaks all grammar conventions. And my intro is much longer than the poem itself, so feel free to skip the sermon and go right to the rather silly poem in bold print. A Word on Cancel Culture I know …
I was checking the latest statistics on coronavirus for my county, and discovered that, as of today, the number dead was 1,234. While this number may seem small to those in more heavily populated or more severely affected communities, these are people in my community, who were here a year ago, and now, are …
March 11, 2021 was the one-year anniversary of the date when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. I woke up, bleary-eyed, to the news. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the US Senate, had made the following statement. For weeks, every indicator has suggested our economy poised to come roaring back, with …
This rather sad lyric fits pretty neatly into the old barbershop quartet tune “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.” It talks about all the things we miss most during the pandemic, or during any chaotic time when we can’t enjoy our lives fully and in the company of those we love. Thanks for coming by …
Hope the holiday season is treating you well this year. Or at least as well as can be expected, in a year where everything else seems to be going wrong. I was touched by an item in the news this week, meant for the tenderest ears, and I could not resist making a …
On this day, when the electoral college voted at last, and gave us an official President Elect, we had other news as well. A new vaccine punctured the arms of health workers across the country, even while the death toll from COVID-19 hit the 300,000 mark. Our attorney general resigned. And still the lawsuits continue …
This is one of those poems where the last line comes to you first. I was thinking of my father’s anguish, as he went through his hospitalization in the summer and early fall of last year. And how no person should ever have to suffer like that. And I realized, that right now, the …
This poem came to me, after hearing Jon Lemire on Morning Joe (MSNBC) list the statistics for December 2, 2020, for coronavirus in the United States. He used the exact phrase “the deadliest day for Americans.” I have included the stats in the poem below and hope against hope, that they will go down …
As you may already know, I lost my father last year after a lengthy hospital stay, and I spent far too much time in hospital rooms, including this ICU room,last summer and fall. He passed from other causes, before COVID was on anyone’s radar. But two weeks ago I found myself once again, fearfully sitting …
I came up with this poem after spending the afternoon yesterday in the Emergency Room, seeking to admit my husband who had COVID symptoms. As a family member of someone who has tested positive, I have to quarantine as well and remain vigilant to symptoms. Fingers crossed, all will be well. We have all …
Now is not a time for satire, with our president in the hospital and infected with coronavirus. I’m sure I am not alone in wishing the President a speedy recovery. Him, and the other 7 million or so in our country who have contracted this illness. But I am probably also not alone in …
The pandemic has been a ubiquitous force for the past nine months, coloring our lives and swaying our political leanings. In my series Sixty Days, this time I turn to the powerful reporting of a New York Times article about the produce market in downtown Mexico City. In the midst of the pandemic, articles …
{This is a short-short story of 100 words, in response to the weekly photo challenge called Friday Fictioneers. Rochelle Wisoff-Fields is the den mother of this operation. I have participated in this challenge since May 2018, but have been absent for a while, busy with other things. Still, I always enjoy coming back, for the …
Lately, in Florida, where I live, there have been two trains of thought on school-re-openings. The first is: “Yes! Please open up the schools already! Our kids are driving us crazy and we can’t get any work done. Besides, kids don’t get sick from the Coronavirus, anyway, do they?” The other train of thought says: …
{You may have heard the phrase, “Pretty please, with sugar on top!” Children use it most. When begging for sweets, or asking to have something that is forbidden. Sometimes I feel that the public officials, who are in charge of getting citizens to comply with Coronavirus best practices (such as wearing masks, social distancing, …
{Last weekend, in Missouri, lots of people gathered at a hotel pool, and someone captured the scene on video. Most seemed to be ignoring social-distancing and mask-wearing protocols, and acted normally, as if the virus didn’t exist. As if we had somehow achieved its total and complete surrender. As if now, we deserve a …
Distant mountaintop, against the lowering sun, seen from a neighboring peak. Copyright Andrea LeDew. I wrote this poem while watching a news conference with Andrew Cuomo, the Governor of the State of New York during the height of the first surge of the virus in April 2020. I noticed, that the state flag behind …
This poem describes the reeling spasms of a great nation hit by an infectious disease it was completely unprepared to take on. The very symptoms of the coronavirus, seem to accurately describe the virus’s effect on our country in April 2020. The lack of a plan, or any ready antidote to our predicament, suddenly …
Nature doesn’t Mind The sky has opened up, and buckets of rain come pouring down—the first real super-soaker of the summer. And yes, April is summer here in Florida. It is a relief, to see the elements acting as they should, even though the rest of the world seems off-kilter. Birds still sing, rain still …
{Happy Easter to those who celebrate it, and a wonderful Sunday to those who do not. The picture above has a variety of yummy gummy bears and jelly beans and chocolate peanuts courtesy of a local candy shop in Jacksonville, Sweet Pete’s I siphoned them off the usual Easter haul of my now …
As we all make our way through this awful, dreary, lonely, scary time, it is nice to feel some semblance of normalcy. We do just that, when we join our family, friends and colleagues, in virtual communities, such as Friday Fictioneers. Stay safe and stay well, and do your best, to see beyond this …
This poem came from watching way too much dire Coronavirus news. And, simultaneously, watching the nation’s appalled reaction, to a picture of a Florida beach on the Duval/St. Johns county line. Supposedly taken just a few days ago, it showed the Duval side, to the North, empty. This was because the Jacksonville mayor had …
{The phrase that begins this tongue-in-cheek poem, I imagine as being spoken in over-politeness, as in the scene at an open door: “You first!” “Oh no, after you!” “After you!” “I insist…” etc. Forgive me for venting my disgust in such a blatantly political way. And meanwhile, be safe and sane during this highly …
