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Back to normal in America

 Normal.  Sounds innocuous enough.  What is it?

I know it is a name of a town in rural Illinois state.  In the midwest.  In America.

Not that state.

A sense of being.  Many pundits have been pontificating on this so called state and America's return to it.

First it was the Y2K frenzy.

Then a decade later it was the financial tsunami of 2008-09.  And the world was upside down.

A decade later it is the pandemic.

Who defines normal defies logic.

Life is a continuum with good days and not so good days and trying to pigeon hole a point in time is meaningless.

I read this morning's paper and saw a couple of headlines about shootings in malls in America.  Two different coasts but same MO.  Some nut going ballistic.

I thought to myself.  Could this be what these fools are rambling about a return to normal?  After all American news was always littered with someone unloading ammo on strangers at least once a week and that type of coverage took backseat to all the viral loads.  Now that story of some shooter is making headlines again.  Hey did we conquer that virus?

LOL.

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