CALF_News_December_2020_January_2021

34 CALF News • December 2020 | January 2021 • www.calfnews.net Continued on page 37  Beyond the Ranch Gate Last Rites for By Blaine Davis Contributing Editor A s the year 2020 unfolded, it appeared all would be well and “normal” beyond the “ranch gate.” First there was the Kansas City Chiefs making head- lines as the Super Bowl champs. It had been since my teenage years since I had witnessed this much franchise success. The economy was humming along, with many enter- tainment activities from sporting events to major concert tours taking place. In early March, I had rewarded my wife, Tammy with tickets to see one of her favorite crooners, Blake Shelton along with several guests on his new tour. A great show was performed by Blake and a few of my favorites from an earlier era, Trace Adkins and the Bellamy Brothers on a midweek night. But by Friday, the tour was cancelled as a previously unheard of virus, COVID-19, had reared its ugly head. Worldwide panic had set in with total national economies being shut down as orders to stay home were issued to all. As the virus persisted through the next several months, total sectors of our U.S economy – along with the world’s – were stricken as only essential workers were allowed at their jobs. I questioned the definition of “essential,” with the heads of households needing to support their families with food on the table and clothes on their backs; what isn’t essential about that? Again, I questioned the numbers of cases and deaths making headlines as being politicized, but real numbers were surfacing, as reported by the Colorado Business Journal as over $1 billion was lost in the restaurant industry in just April across their state. Stay at home orders were likened to the “kiss of death” to the travel and hospitality industry with hotels being shut- tered and commercial airliners being parked. Las Vegas, Nev., a convention mecca, was but a ghost town. Nationally, the Trump administration was implementing new methods of re- 2020 opening the economy with safety measures, but the other side of the aisle and their accomplices, the left-leaning news media, second-guessed every move. Independently, major league sports were re-inventing themselves with events conducted in safe “bubbles” and limited or no fan attendance, culminating in crowning World Series, Stanley Cup and National Basketball Association champs. This panic caused shortages and binge purchasing of things such as toilet paper and ground beef. With the virus and its transmission tied to the close proximity of workers on the fab- rication floor, the business model of the nation’s beef-process- ing plants was crippled to the point of complete shutdowns. Prices for beef, when available, were skyrocketing. The “cower- ing in place” created spikes in the sales of home barbeque grills and freezers to the point of no inventories. Just this past week a national big box retailer’s weekly promotion touted freezers are now back in stock. With shortages and purchasing limits on certain brands of adult beverages, coping with 2020 made us question what was next. This past Saturday, my question was answered at my local purveyor of fine cigars; maduro tobacco used as the wrap- per would be in short supply, mainly due to the extraordinary number of tropical storms and hurricanes. Not wanting to be associated with panic buying like that of toilet paper, which is forecast for yet another round of shortages, I will stock up on these dark, full-bodied “sticks.” As a new owner of a second home on the Texas Gulf Coast, I have kept a keener eye on the path and intensity of each of 2020’s tropical storms. This year, I have been preoccupied with the most named storms since 2005 to the extent the 21 pre- determined male and female names had been exhausted and the use of the Greek alphabet now is making the headlines. Fortunately, 2020 has been benevolent to my location, but not so for many of the Caribbean Islands and Florida and its Keys, home for much of this hemisphere’s cigar industry. Throughout much of the past 11 months, the left-leaning liberal media has cast many disparaging headlines at every- thing from the handling of the pandemic to securing our borders. But most recently, the significant headline should have