We watched the vaccines roll out in the spring with enormous anticipation. We’d been waiting for ten months, locked down, kids at home, adults at home, venturing out only on essential errands, not seeing friends or family, not going anywhere on weekends… it was like living in a bunker surrounded by invisible toxic gas. Every foray into the outside world was full of risk. Seeing family or friends could kill them or their vulnerable relatives. Our whole world had shrunk down to the walls of our house. We knew that we were the lucky ones, with Mike in a job that could be done from home, kids who were older and thus able to engage in remote learning, and with quiet places in our home for all of them to focus. We knew many other people were not so lucky. But this year had still been very, very hard. The approach of the vaccines was like bobbing for a year in a lifeboat and finally seeing a rescue ship on the horizon. And when the rescue ship finally arrived and loomed over us there was a crush of millions of people wanting climb the narrow ladders to the ship’s deck. The deployment of the vaccine was like hearing instructions from a megaphone from the rescue ship’s deck, far above our heads, as we sat below in our ragged, leaky lifeboats, about who would climb the ladder first. The logistics of deploying the vaccine to hundreds of millions of people were insane. The vaccine had to be manufactured, then distributed, all over the country at the same time, with vast shipments of vaccine making their way to each region. The shipments were then handed off to local distributors, who varied widely in the speed and effectiveness of their operations. In each region, shipments were broken up for distribution to clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, assisted living facilities, and dozens of other venues. Our county used massive venues like the Levi stadium and the fairgrounds. To make sure that the vaccine went first to the people who needed it most, the government published lists of which categories of people – by age, health status, and occupation -- would be eligible first, so that eligibility rolled through the population from most vulnerable to least. The first to get the vaccines were the elderly, and health care providers and people who worked with the elderly, who were at the very front lines of this fight. Every health care worker protected meant more sick people getting cared for, and fewer elderly people exposed. Then came essential workers, people working in health care and people whose jobs helped to keep the broader society functioning. This was a long list that included education, law enforcement, food and agriculture, energy, transportation, teachers, emergency services, and many more. At the same time, different age brackets were opened up, starting with the elderly, then working their way down the list by decades. Stories of people getting vaccines began to circulate. There was a story of nurses in Oregon delivering vaccine to a clinic in a blizzard. Traffic stopped in the snow, and the vaccine was going to expire, so they got out of their car and walked up and down the lines of trapped cars, just administering the vaccine to people stuck on the freeway with them. It was like Buck delivering vaccine by dogsled in Jack London’s Call of the Wild, or like Moreta’s ride, delivering vaccine on dragon-back to far flung settlements on Pern. On my family’s Sunday zoom calls, we saw the vaccine ripple through my family from oldest to youngest. My Dad got the vaccine first. Fresno was one of the less effective regions for vaccine distribution. They got to assisted living facilities first, but independent seniors came much later. Fresno appeared to have a small number of venues and poor sign-up management. My Dad ended up going to a drive-up clinic with open distribution to the eligible. He had his caregiver drive him to a clinic, and wait in the car line. The line of cars went for blocks. There was a problem with the elderly needing bathroom facilities during the long wait in their cars and using the businesses next to their cars. Finally he got his vaccine through the window of his car – he sent us a photo! My Dad’s caregiver, who was also eligible to get the vaccine as someone working with the elderly, was an anti-vaccination right-winger. She believed that the vaccine was an infringement of her personal liberty, so she refused it. Her refusal to get vaccinated -- especially as a person working with a highly vulnerable client -- was grossly irresponsible and a great source of stress in the family. The next people in my family to get the vaccine, several weeks later, were my siblings and siblings-in-law who are all over age 60. My sister Leslie was on vacation with her husband Bill down in Florida at the time when they became eligible. They had driven down from Boston to get away from winter and were living in almost complete seclusion in an apartment in Florida due to the pandemic. They managed to snag an appointment… back in Boston. So they drove TWO DAYS back to Massachusetts to get their shots, then drove TWO DAYS BACK to Florida. Leslie said she teared up when she finally got the shot, it was such an enormous relief. Friends of mine who were immunocompromised got their shots around this time too. So here and there, vulnerable people in mid-life were getting vaccinated too. But the doors were not yet open to the millions of middle aged adults, young adults, or minors. And there were stories of people showing up at pharmacies and clinics at closing time, hoping to snag an unclaimed, leftover vaccine. Vaccines couldn’t be used the next day, so if they didn’t go into an arm by the end of the day they had to be discarded. So there was a light trickle of stories of people getting their shots this way. Our schedule was not open and flexible enough to try for one of these low-probability shots As adults in our 40s, in non-essential positions, Mike and I were quite low down the eligibility list. Our low priority was very understandable, and we agreed with it, and we waited as patiently as we could. But it was still hard. On the weekly family zoom calls, I saw my Dad’s relief at getting vaccinated, then a couple weeks later I saw the relief as my siblings-in-law then my siblings got their vaccines. Then I was the only one left who was unvaccinated! My extended family was quite understandably relieved to have gotten their shot and were beginning to look forward to travel and seeing family and friends, and to commiserate about how hard lockdown had been. I, however, was still unvaccinated, anxious, and locked down. To return to my metaphor, I could hear the chatter and laughter coming from the folks way up on the deck of the rescue ship, but the five of us were still bobbing in our lifeboat down below, watching others slowly climb the ladders, and waiting for permission to climb the ladder ourselves. This was a strange time, when the adult population was partially vaccinated. Those who had received the shot were all bouncy and starting to exert pressure on the still-unvaccinated to visit, go out to dinner, travel, and have fun together. And basically begin to return to normal. The still-unvaccinated got to be the wet blankets: still locked down, still anxious, still unwilling to take risks. But eventually, our turns DID come. The school had approached me to be a lunch duty monitor once school resumed in person, and I had agreed. The school was contacting all experienced lunch duty volunteers to come on for the spring, as lunch would be tightly controlled, with social distancing, masking, delineated areas for play, and so forth, and they didn’t want to have to train new parents on basic lunch rules. I agreed to volunteer I was nervous about volunteering as an unvaccinated person. I’d be exposed to hundreds of unvaccinated children. We’d all be outdoors, but I would still be circulating around them while they ate their lunches unmasked. My tension levels rose as I realized I was heading into quite a lot of potential exposure. We’d kept ourselves safe for so long… I didn’t want to blow it now, with the vaccine on the horizon. Reading over the vaccine eligibility requirements one evening, I realized that school volunteers were qualified to receive the vaccine under the higher priority ‘educator’ umbrella. I wrote to the principal to ask if she could write me a letter to vouch for my being a volunteer, so I could qualify for the vaccine, and she checked with the district, then wrote me a letter! That was a very exciting day! Mike and I got onto the computers to find a vaccination slot for me. This turned out to be quite complicated. There were dozens of websites for vaccine distribution sites. There were aggregator websites, but these were incomplete. So the county would have one, and each pharmacy chain would have one, and each hospital would have one. Each venue had their own appointment system, and each one had a long registration process involving lots of personal and insurance information. Each vaccination venue had online sign-up sheets, and they periodically released new available dates. We found that the slots were snapped up so quickly, even right under our eyes. We spent days looking for slots, then when we found one, we’d try to register for it, only to have it be filled by the time we tried to submit the form. It was scary and frustrating, to be chasing this elusive vaccine which we’d been waiting for for so long. But finally, after several days of trying, I got an appointment at Levi’s stadium in San Jose! My appointment was for April 6, 2021. One year and one month, almost exactly, after everything locked down. On April 6th, I drove to Levi’s stadium in San Jose. The place was HUGE, with acres of parking, and in the middle was the stadium. The thing that struck me most about this experience was massive logistical operation at work here. There were DOZENS of volunteers directing a constant stream of people to the correct next step. There were parking attendants, security, check-in desks, and volunteers at every corner and every turn facilitating and telling you where to go next (“middle escalator” or “go to desk 7” or “walk past the red wall and then turn left.”) It was like an airport, but with massive efficiency so that there were NO lines and all was socially distanced and everyone was going where they needed to go. I never stopped walking except for the minute when I actually got my shot, then when I waited for 15 minutes under observation. I passed two whole floors of vaccination tables as I rode an escalator upwards, maybe 100 tables in all, and each one had a nurse sitting at it, and a Plexiglas shield wrapping around the front of the desk, and little containers of paperwork, hypodermics, and stickers. I was directed to one particular desk where my nurse greeted me, and we exchanged chit chat while she checked my paperwork, put stickers on baggies and test tubes, and then asked me to roll up my sleeve. She was very efficient and skilled, and the needle was tiny, so it hardly hurt at all. She put a band aid on my arm then pointed me in a new direction, where I encountered another volunteer who pointed me to an open scheduling desk, where another woman scheduled my second shot. Then I was directed to a waiting area with chairs all placed 6 feet apart to wait my 15 minutes for observation. The logistics on display here were incredible. Each vaccination took about a minute, so with 100 desks going at full tilt we’re looking at tens of thousands of vaccinations per day. I later learned that the area I went to was only one of THREE such areas within the stadium. This was a truly enormous and successful endeavor. After several years of being ashamed of my country, for its celebration of ignorance, bigotry, and misinformation coming from the very top, it felt very good to feel proud of our ability to research, develop, fund, and distribute a brand new medical technology to every person. This is our generation’s man on the moon, our own pyramids. I was so happy, so relieved, to finally get this vaccine. With this shot, I started climbing the ladder from the lifeboat to the deck of the rescue ship. I couldn’t celebrate too much, though, as Mike hadn’t received his yet. He was still down there in the lifeboat. I had some side effects the following day, but they were mild. I was up at Deer Hollow Farm doing chores with Owen when a wave of fatigue hit me. I was so tired I had to sit down, which never happened. I managed to finish my chores and drive back home, where I lay on the couch, first super-hot, then shivering cold. I lay on the couch for an hour or two (a cat helpfully curled up on my chest and took a nap). Mike made dinner, and by dinnertime I was able to get up and eat. Those two or three hours of fatigue and chills were the worst of it for me – the symptoms were all gone by the second day. As it turned out, only had one more week to wait. UC Davis opened up to every Californian age 16 and up that very week – they were ahead of Santa Clara County. And they were taking ANY Californian, not just people in the Sacramento area. This triggered a large movement of people from the Bay Area to the Central Valley to get their shots. My friend Heidi was part of this – she drove to Sacramento to get her shot. My age 30-something nieces and nephews who live in Sacramento got their appointments for that week as well. Almost entire generation of my family would get vaccinated that week. Mike managed to sign up for an appointment for that Wednesday up in Sacramento. He planned to drive up and back in one day. He was massively relieved to have an appointment on the books. However, a couple days after UC Davis opened their doors to the general population, our own Santa Clara County opened up to everyone 16+, so Mike got an appointment for that Thursday right here in Mountain View. He decided to take the local one, despite it being later by one day, as it didn’t have the 6-hour round trip drive. Getting the appointment in Santa Clara County was actually straightforward – there appeared to be lots of slots available. Mike’s experience in Mountain View was less efficient than the one I had at Levi’s Stadium, because the Mountain View facility was much smaller, but also because I had received my shot at the tail end of the previous tier of eligibility, while Mike was in the first week of general eligibility. So there was a huge amount of demand. He waited for about an hour in a line that went around the block, but once he reached the head of the line he, too, received his shot! This was a BIG day – now we’d BOTH received our first shot! We were both up on the deck of the rescue ship. The kids were still unvaccinated – Lela as our oldest was 15 and still under the cutoff – and both Ellie and Owen were heading back to in-person school without being vaccinated, so we could not relax yet. But it felt very, very good, as the two oldest and therefore most at risk people in our family, to finally have the beginnings of protection from the long-awaited vaccine.