A Road Trip in the Time of Covid

It had been stifling. From early afternoon atomic bursts of grey-white cumulonimbus towered above an ominous pall of blue-back just above the horizon; signalling the imminent invasion of a massive storm front. The humidity climbed steadily, stabilised and hovered alarmingly close to the ton. Throughout the day, movement of any kind had been carefully calculated, slow and exhausting; just thinking was enough to make you sweat. It was definitely time to get away for a very rare road trip in the time of Covid.

 As the glaring sun made podous progress towards the horizon, the storm front grew darker and angrier. Thunder rumbled menacingly in the distance and reverberated in the unnaturally still air; palm fronds hung flaccid in exhausted anticipation; birds, sensing the onset of a tempest, vacated branches of a myriad trees along the Esplanade outside our apartment. The giant raintree, its foliage devoid of all avian activity, reached its massive arms over a sea of verdant green; a quintessential study in still life.

Rough Weather

The intensity continued to build throughout the sweltering afternoon. Then, just after the sun had quit for the day, you could hear the sound of torrential rain; clear, intimidating, and moving closer across the city. In the half-darkness I’d heard, rather than seen, palms begin to flail and thrash in gusting squalls; those harbingers of an imminent downpour. Finally and suddenly, naphtha-flashes transformed the gloom into split-second exposures of dazzling brilliance; an appallingly loud crash of thunder, hard on the heels of lightning, rattled windows and doors.

Later, when our grandson delivered me to the airport for a flight to Brisbane, the air was clear and cool; the way only a comprehensive tropical storm can leave it. Thunder still rumbled in the distance, and out over the Tiwi Islands sheet lightning backlit ghostly cloud formations. The storm’s earlier passage had been as rapid as it had been violent; having vented its fury, though, it had moved on – out over the sea.

Leaving Darwin

Blake pulled into the terminal’s passenger drop-zone. I stepped out, opened the hatch and hefted my T-bag and leather hand luggage.

‘Thanks for the lift Mate,’ I said as he appeared around the corner of the CRV.

‘You travel safe Pa,’ he responded.

‘Will do,’ I nodded.

‘And good luck in West Australia!’

‘Thanks Pa.’

I hugged him before slipping on my mask and heading, with a knot of overwhelming sadness in my stomach, for the Terminal Building. Blake had spent most of his childhood and teenage years growing up in our house; but, by the time I got back he’d be long gone – looking for a vocation that I hoped he’d find. 

Check-in had been a cinch. I’d already completed the process online and downloaded a boarding pass. So, formalities were just a matter of dropping baggage and proceeding through security screening. 

Studying People

Once in the departure lounge, I ordered a long black and retreated to a quiet, empty table; I’d planned on making a start on Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides.

I didn’t get far!

Instead of reading, my focus drifted to the other passengers waiting for their flights: the tattooed young woman in cut-offs that displayed ample cheeks below her frayed denims; a suited forty-something asian business executive, totally absorbed by whatever it was that was on his laptop screen; an ageing refugee from the Age of Aquarius with furtive eyes, lank and thinning long grey hair, round wire-rimmed glasses, scuffed leather sandals, and a skeletal physique that did nothing to adequately occupy his faded tie-dyed kaftan or wrinkled calico cargo pants. I wondered, as I so often do, about their stories: narratives of ambition or lack of it; and the quirks of fate or happenstance that had delivered them to Darwin Airport at this ungodly hour of the morning.

Introspection

After a while though, my eyes glazed as thoughts turned inward. I mulled over the years that had quietly slipped away while my attention had been diverted by the mundane obligations and trivialities of living. What remained seemed to be a litany of unfulfilled promises; uncomfortable memories of passions, purpose and preoccupations past; and, a pervasive emptiness. I pondered the uneven warp and weave of life’s tapestry that had brought me to this departure lounge; for a flight that would deliver me to a motorcycle road trip with my brother.

And just as I was getting really morose, my genuflection was peremptorily interrupted by the public address system.

‘Qantas advises that QF 824 for Brisbane is now ready for departure and open for boarding at Gate 9. Please have your Boarding Passes ready.’

Wheels Up

I opened my iPhone wallet, tapped on the electronic boarding pass, grabbed my bag and jacket, and headed for the gate. Inside the aircraft the seat I’d been allocated was next to the aisle on the left-hand side. As things turned out, there were only two of us in Row 3; me in the aisle seat on the left-hand side and the Asian business executive I’d noticed earlier in the window seat on the right-hand side. All things considered, not a bad result; there’d be no obligation to invent stuff to talk about.

Before taking a seat and buckling up, I took a pad and pencil out of my carry-on; tossed it onto the spare seat next to mine; and stowed the bag in the overhead locker. I then plugged in my earphones, selected John Fogerty’s The Long Road Home from the album list and clicked play. Born on the Bayou boomed in my head as I leaned back and watched the safety protocol demonstration; seat-belt fastening, floatation vest fitting, aisle lighting, and emergency exits – I’m sure you know the drill.

As good as its schedule, Qantas Flight 824 was wheels up at exactly two minutes past two am. By then, John Fogerty had bumped and ground his way through Born on the Bayou, Bad Moon Rising, Centrefield, Who’ll Stop the Rain, and was about to launch himself into Rambunctious Boy. The pad and pencil lay unmolested on the seat next to me as I pushed back into a semi-comfortable recline and drifted off to sleep.

A Pact

Some ten years earlier, at our dying Dad’s bedside, Mel and I hatched a plan for a US road trip; and, by the end of that trip, we’d become mates in spite of our differences in experience, faith, and perspectives. So, we’d concluded a pact; to wit, we’d take a road trip together each year for as long as age and incipient infirmity allowed. 

And we’d faithfully honoured that pact from 2013 right up until the outbreak of Covid 19. That year we’d planned a trip, via the United States, to Paris and St Jean Pied de Port to walk the Camino; an extended stroll of some eight hundred kilometres from St Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela.

Covid Interdiction

The lightning spread of Covid 19 in 2020 precipitated border closures; and this, in turn, scuttled all plans for a gallop across the lower states of the US. It had also put paid to the not so leisurely stroll over the Pyrenees and across the north of Spain. Even our own internal borders had been slammed shut as our major cities locked down.

I’d been just days out from stepping onto a plane for a layover in Brisbane; before heading across the Pacific to Los Angeles. The closure of international borders meant scratching my road trip from Los Angeles to Fort Myers in Florida; cancelling our much anticipated stroll through Spain; and, kissing goodbye to about five thousand dollars in airfares. I was comprehensively pissed off; a technical term meaning fairly annoyed.

Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right

But then, we watched in nightly disbelief as the US death toll topped a half million; and I began to think that perhaps I’d been lucky. We continued to watch, slack-jawed, as the incumbent President rambled, denied, fumbled, and lied through countless Fox News Exclusives.

At various times, he asserted that the pandemic was nothing more than a flu that would disappear as the weather warmed; that it was a conspiracy sponsored by Democrats eager to discredit him; and that a comprehensive ingestion of bleach would put paid to the affliction. The idiocy would have been laughable had it not been so deadly. I’d never witnessed such narcissism, complacency, ignorance and prevarication masquerading as public policy. And, Americans in their millions aided and abetted their President in his infantile denial, myopia and stupidity by targeting any who would adopt even the most basic of science-based pandemic control measures.

Wave after wave of infection and death swept on to eviscerate Brazil – whose President was in Trumpophyllic denial; Britain and Europe – where the populist Boris vascilated, while Macron and Merkel clamped down; and, India where social distancing was an impossible dream and where the infected died in slums, in streets, and in crowded corridors of hospitals stretched beyond capacity.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

In Australia, where Obama’s Pandemic Control Protocol had been adopted, adapted and implemented, the response was to go early and go hard when it came to lockdowns, quarantines, and social distancing. State jurisdictions largely applied these protocols in concert; a notable exception being New South Wales, whose bureaucratic bungling had been responsible for the initial introduction and spread of the virus. Overall, Australia’s pandemic response, while not perfect, did stem the flood of infection and limit the national death toll.

Internationally, pharmaceutical corporations, building on research done with Ebola Outbreak and SARS, scrambled to develop an effective vaccine. And all the while the virus mutated and spread with the speed of a grass fire fanned by an autumn gale. The death toll continued to rise as May turned into August and then September. 

Arrogance, Ignorance and Mismanagement

The virus did not magically disappear when the weather warmed and international borders remained sealed; except, of course, for the privileged, powerful and entitled few who seemed to travel wherever and whenever their spirits moved. Late in the year Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Moderna among others, announced vaccines and submitted them for FDA approval. Suddenly, it seemed possible that there might be light at the end of the tunnel. But, given contingencies of a vaccine rollout, there seemed skant likelihood of road trips overseas for the foreseeable future.

In Australia a smug and complacent Federal Government, more committed to spin than substance, tried to obscure the fact that it had comprehensively bungled vaccine supply. Our supremely arrogant and breathtakingly incompetent Health Minister had rebuffed representations from Pfizer when he should have been negotiating supplies. The Prime Minister asserted that Australia was in a position to observe and learn from the experience of other OECD Countries; the vaccine rollout was, after all, not a race he said.

Keeping a Lid on Things

By late January, 2021, it became clear that the vaccine rollout was, in fact, a very deadly race; and Australia still hadn’t got to the starting gate. Our international borders would remain closed until vaccination rates reached 80%; and, there seemed little prospect of this being achieved any time before the end of 2021 at the earliest.

So, at Semester Break, I suggested to my good Lady that we attempt a road trip, by car, to Melbourne. The Northern Territory was basically Covid free except for repatriated Australians from a range of overseas destinations; these, however, had been confined to the Quarantine Station at Howard Springs. South Australia had been virtually Covid free for a couple of months; and Victoria seemed to have Covid its infections effectively managed; well, that’s what we thought at the time.

In Melbourne, Barb’s brother-in-law had been diagnosed with dementia late in 2020 and, given Victoria’s extended and repeated lockdowns, her sister had been coping with the emotional fallout and attendant health implications for more than six months. So, this seemed like as good a time as any to pay a visit; we’d had our first AstraZeneca shots and Barb hadn’t seen her sister for a little over two years.

The Road Trip that Wasn’t

So, a couple of days before the end of June, we took to the road in Barb’s trusty CRV; and headed, post haste, towards the South Australian Border via Tennant Creek and Alice Springs. And, we almost made it; but not quite. Because mobile coverage through Australia’s Red Centre is sporadic at best, we were forty kilometres short of the Border when our phones pinged. It was a message from our daughter in the ABC Newsroom in Darwin; South Australia’s borders with the NT and Victoria had just been closed. Without alternative options, we u-turned and started retracing our 1,500 km trek from Darwin.

By September, Victoria had a cumulative lockdown total for the year that topped two hundred days. Infections in New South Wales were growing exponentially and the Capital Territory was comprehensively locked down. The Delta variant seemed to defy any and all attempts to either manage or isolate it. Australia was, in fact, in a worse position than it had been a year earlier.

Lockdown

While the virulence of Delta was a contributing factor in the explosive spread of the virus, the good people of Melbourne were lockdown weary; and Sydney-siders struggled to take public health instructions seriously. It was fairly evident to all bar the lunatic fringe that a comprehensive vaccine rollout was the only path out of our malaise. Australia, it turned out, was in the race of its life. The Federal Government’s arrogance, complacency and incompetence in the matter of vaccine supply was having a devastating knock-on effect; medically, socially and economically.

By the time we’d re-traced our journey, Darwin had commenced a three-day lockdown. Apparently a fly-in-fly-out worker at the Tanami Mine had tested positive for Covid after returning from Newcastle via Brisbane, Darwin and Alice Springs. It was a good opportunity to start work on the front end of my FXD35i.

A Motorcycle Road Trip?

In due course, Lockdown ended. So did the Semester Break, and I went back to work; cajoling, harassing, and nagging students in an effort to move them towards the required completion of their Assessment Tasks. Then, one morning when I was at work early but really at a bit of a loose end, I fired off a text to Mel.

‘Hay Mate . . . I reckon it’s about time we did another road trip together.’

Mel must have been thinking along similar lines because, no sooner had I put the phone down than it pinged.

‘Too right . . . bit too cold to do Tassie at this time of the year though,’ his return text read.

We’d kicked around the idea of a road trip in Tasmania and agreed that it would be a hell of a gallop. We’d even put the idea on a kind of notional bucket list of must do rides.

‘I could fly there and do the Top End with you,’ Mel continued.

‘Yeah . . . you could do that. Problem is, the place is packed to the gunnels with grey nomads and other random refugees from Winter and Covid. Accommodation is pretty near impossible to find . . . and it’s expensive. What if I fly down there . . . we could head North – or South – for a couple of weeks?’

‘Sounds like a plan . . . when?’

‘Term Break’s from 25 September through October 10. I could come down then . . . if you can get the time off.’

And, just like that, we had a road trip on our hands.

Getting There

My flight to Brisbane largely passed while I hovered in that no-man’s land between day and dream. I’d exhausted John Fogerty fairly early on, and had set my playlist to shuffle. Then while the aircraft plowed through the darkness, I’d been treated to music from Keb Mo, Bert Kaempfert, Ray Charles, Sonny Terry, Bob Marley, and Guy Sebastian. Some, I’d actively paid attention to, others were simply a background score to my intermittent slumber.

Ultimately, it was the rattle of a service trolley as it started its journey down the aisle that dragged me back to consciousness. Outside, the first hint of sunrise burnished the edge of the velvet blackness along the eastern horizon. My pencil and pad still lay, loaded with good intentions but unmolested, on the empty window seat. 

Breakfast

The snack, because what we received didn’t remotely resemble breakfast, comprised a semi-warm spanish omelette in a pre-formed cardboard container; semi-cool yoghurt sealed in a moulded plastic tub; and, black coffee which I would have deemed undrinkable had there been a viable alternative. Given that yoghurt is something that I simply cannot force down, I settled for luke-warm omelette and ersatz coffee. Suddenly, I felt nostalgic for the real food, ceramic plates and silverware that used to be the flying experience of my youth. That having been said, I was pretty hungry and the repast did fill a gap.

Later as trays were collected, the sun burst above the horizon; and our aircraft commenced its long, shallow descent through wispy clusters of stratus clouds. Then, out over the sea just short of Stradbroke, the Boeing banked to join final approach for Eagle Farm. Our road trip in the time of Covid looked as though it might actually happen. Touchdown was as close to perfect as you’re ever going to get.

Arrival

Now, one of the upsides of Business Class is you get a shot at being amongst the first to disembark. If you’re a smoker, this is a distinct advantage; because you can make a beeline for the designated smokers’ area and top up your nicotine before collecting luggage; which is exactly what I did.

It had just gone 6.15am when I slipped on my very extensively travelled leather Harley Davidson jacket and headed out in search of the Designated Smokers’ Area. While not exactly cold, the air was crisp and I was pleased to have jacketed before venturing out. Once there, I flipped a Styvesant out, stripped off my mask, lit up, and drew in a deep lung-full. When I looked up, I noticed the young woman with the extra short denim cut-offs.

Freedom Fighter

‘Hey,’ she said.

‘Hi,’ I responded. 

‘I saw you in the departure lounge at the Darwin airport . . . Right?’

‘Mmmm . . . horrible time of the day to be flying eh?’

‘You’re not wrong about that,’ she said.

‘You at the start of a trip or coming home?’ I asked.

‘Brisbane’s home . . . just been in Darwin to help organise the Free in the NT Campaign.’

‘Free from what?’ I asked.

‘Oh, you know . . . the government taking over control of people’s lives, mandatory vaccinations and all that stuff.’

There was silence for a while as we both drew on our respective cigarettes. The sky was the colour of the faded denim in her abbreviated cut-offs. Cloud cover was minimal and I could smell the sea on a gentle breeze that wafted from the East. It really was way too nice a day to be getting into the fraught subject of vaccinations . . . but I couldn’t help myself.

An Anti-Vax Matra

‘So . . . you’re not keen on vaccination, I take it?’ I asked, though it was more of a statement than a question.

‘No I’m not!’ she replied with just a bit more vehemence than I thought strictly necessary at that time of the day.

‘You just don’t know what’s in that stuff!’

‘Well,’ I countered, ‘I guess the scientists who developed it do . . . and I’m sure you could find out if you really wanted to know.’

‘It’s what they don’t tell you that bothers me,’ she said a little more calmly.

‘Oh . . . so you think there’s some sort of hidden agenda?’ I asked.

‘Absolutely . . . don’t you?’

‘Well . . . apart from chicken, do you know what’s in Kentucky Fried Chicken?’ I asked.

‘No . . . not really,’ she conceded.

‘What about Maccas? Do you know what they put in the meat to stop it going off? 

‘No!’ she said with an edge of frustration in her tone.

OK . . . so, what about those energy drinks? Do you know what’s in them?’

‘No!’ she retorted, ‘but you’re missing the point.’

‘Am I?’ I asked. ‘What about the traces of titanium, aluminium, arsenic, beryllium, chromium, cobalt, lead nickel and selenium you took on board when you had your tattoos done?’

Inconsistency or Hypocrisy

A silent tension was building; I could feel it, but I ploughed on.

‘Truth is, you don’t know what’s in all that stuff you cram into your body every day – right?’

She nodded and was just about to respond, but I had the wind in my sales.

‘Well, if you’re OK with Fast Food, Red Bull, and that cigarette you’re smoking, it’s probably a waste of time worrying about what’s in the Covid vaccine . . . I think that train’s already left the station.’

Clearly annoyed, her nostrils flared and eyes opened wide. I could tell she was taking a long deep breath so she could give me both barrels.

‘You sound exactly like my father,’ she eventually blurted. ‘He’s old school . . . part of the way things are . . . unwilling to question or consider other possibilities.’

Just Another Old Fart

‘No,’ I volleyed. ‘I sound exactly like a bloke who went to school with a kid who’d spent the best part of a year in an iron lung. I sound like a bloke who remembers what Polio, Tuberculosis, Smallpox and Typhoid were like. I sound like a bloke who knows that if everyone was like you back then, we’d still have those bloody diseases!’

My cigarette had burned down to the filter and, anyway, it was time to go. I stood, stubbed out the butt of my cigarette and turned to head for the terminal. 

Determined to have the last word, the woman in the ultra abbreviated denims with the over-exhibited glutes, fired a passing shot at the back of my receding jacket.

‘You’re just as ignorant as all the other old farts!’

Moving On

Without turning I held up my middle finger and flipped the bird. Then, I crossed the road, entered the terminal and headed for the baggage claim area.

Now, I’m not so naive as to believe that anything I’d said would have made a damn’s worth of difference to what that young Freedom Campaigner thought. If anything, what I’d said probably served to narrow her tunnel vision. The truth is, I’m old enough to know better than argue the toss with anyone that young; but, the truth also is that I’m young enough to argue anyway. In the end, though, I really didn’t give a rat’s; what lay ahead was the very real possibility of a road trip in spite of the time of Covid

Rescue

I fired off a text to let Mel know I’d arrived; collected my T-Bag from the conveyor belt; and walked out through the automatic doors, back across the street and over to the passenger pick-up area. When I arrived, there would have been fewer than a dozen people waiting to be picked up; a far cry from the way things used to be, pre-Covid.

I found a bench at the far right-hand extremity of the concourse, parked my T-Bag and lit up. Normally, you wouldn’t have gotten away with it; passengers were usually three to four deep along the concourse and it wouldn’t have taken too long before someone complained.

Brisbane and Dad

There was a time, while Dad was still alive, when I’d been through this airport on almost a weekly basis. On Friday afternoons, after finishing off at the office, I’d head home, pack, and be on the Red Eye Special to Brisbane. Then on Sunday, after spending the weekend with Dad, I’d be on the 9 pm flight back to Darwin; and another week’s work. But, that had all changed after we lost Dad. Over the dozen or so intervening years, I’d probably been to Brisbane half a dozen times; and, even then, usually on my way to somewhere else. 

I guess though, Brisbane will forever be a city that reminds me of Dad. I remember, as a small child, walking the city’s streets; soaking up the size and grandeur of the architecture; and listening in wonder to his narrative of the city’s history, its characters and its quirks. While meandering down by the river one day, I vividly recall his lifting me to the height of the plaques mounted on the old stone building buttresses giving silent testimony to the high water marks of floods from days of yore. Years later, when he’d been his church’s President in Queensland, we’d stayed with him at his Eight Miles Plains home; while waiting for visas to enter Papua New Guinea.

Nothing’s Quite as Permanent as a Temporary Situation

On our return from Papua New Guinea we purchased a home in Rochedale south-east of the city. Dad had just retired and moved into the church’s retirement village at Victoria Point. But, as events had transpired, our stay had been brief. Within months, I’d been offered a short-term teaching contract at Marrara Christian School in the Northern Territory. At the time, I’d needed the work and had told Dad  that our move to the Territory would only be temporary; for a year or two at most. Thirty years down the track, it seems that there is nothing quite as permanent as a temporary situation.

Then, following his diagnosis with cancer, I’d flown down regularly to walk the last miles of his journey with him. These years later, in the face of all conscious knowledge, I’m still drawn to the places he lived, laughed, frequented, walked and worked.

I’d only started to kick back and enjoy my cigarette when Mel’s white Kia Picanto coasted to a stop at the curbside.

Good to See You, Mate

‘Hey Mate,’ I called out as he opened the door and unfolded himself into a standing position.

‘Sorry about the ungentlemanly hour of the day, Mate. I know you think it’s offensive to be up and about at this time of the day.’

He laughed; one of those hearty guffaws so reminiscent of our Dad. Opening the hatch, he commenced the rearrangement of his mobile office so I could fit in my T-Bag and leather carry-on.

‘Good to see you, Mate,’ he said with one of those infectious grins.

Good to be here,’ I responded as we both climbed into his diminutive but sporty ride.

Queensland . . . Great One Day, Perfect the Next

Mel eased away from the curb; cruised through the pick-up lane; accelerated onto Airport Drive; and then took the on-ramp for the Pacific Motorway. At a little after 7am, the sun had achieved a couple of hours worth of elevation above the horizon. The light cloud cover continued to fade as increasing warmth facilitated re-absorption of moisture into the atmosphere.

Traffic was light as we crossed the Brisbane River, took the Mt Gravatt-Capalaba Road exit and headed for Upper Mt Gravatt. I hadn’t been paying too much attention to the direction we were headed; Mel knew the city well so there was no real need to give directions a second thought.

But experience has shown me that there is almost always method in his madness; and that day was to be no exception. Just after turning right onto Logan Road, Mel slowed and pulled into the curb outside an establishment called Hallowed Ground; purveyors of fine coffee. We got out, re-fitted our masks, scanned the QR Code and slipped inside.

Coffee and Conversation

A strong aroma of roasting beans and brewing coffee hung in the air like a promise of good fortune. We ordered – a flat white for Mel and a long black for me – and retired to an empty table nestled in the corner by a window that opened onto the sidewalk.

‘You must be knackered,’ Mel observed.

‘Nah . . . all good. Did some serious napping through the small hours.’

Ah! This was easy living – at least for me. No commitments to fulfil; no expectations to be met. Just my Bro, me, good coffee, and time to talk – or not. Either way nothing really mattered.

We caught up with the comings and goings of our respective families; jawed about the frailties, inconsistency, dishonesty, and stupidity of our politicians; eviscerated the entire anti-vaxxer movement; speculated and puzzled about possible lines of reasoning that might prompt a person to take an anti-vaxxer stance; and, lamented the lurch that Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians had taken in the general direction of right-wing conservatism. 

It was mid-morning before we decided it was time to move. We slipped up the road to Mel’s place on the lower slopes of Mt Gravatt so I could drop my luggage and settle in. Then we headed out to the block. Mel’s son and his wife had purchased land in the burbs south of Brisbane. Construction of their new home had commenced and Mel and I were both keen to check on progress.

Kickin’ Back

By the time we got home it was early afternoon. Mel retired to his home office to check on and clear email traffic. I took the opportunity to stretch out and make a belated start to Prince of Tides; and three hours later, when I floated back to consciousness, Mel stuck his head in.

‘Been having a bit of a kip, Mate?’ he queried with amusement playing around the edges of his eyes.

‘No . . . just been studying the inside of my eye-lids,’ I retorted.

‘Yeah . . . I knew that,’ he said.

‘Hey, you interested in getting some Thai tonight?’ he asked.

‘Absolutely . . . what time are you thinking?’

‘About 6.30ish?’

‘Done’, I said.

Tarragindi Thai is one of Mel’s favourites; good food, friendly service, and reasonable prices. The food, relaxed ambiance, and company didn’t disappoint; though Mel’s grandson was a bit over it after an hour or so. Eventually the little fella’s parents caved in and took him home to bed. Mel and I stayed on for several coffees and to continue the conversation we’d started earlier in the day.

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