2020 Oy!

 It wasn't all bad. I actually did lose about eight pounds, and got rid of three big bags of clutter. I could lose another ten pounds if I set my mind to it, and fill another fifty bags with junk to throw out. I started running last year in January, and at first it took me twenty-two minutes to run the course I chose, and today, in good weather, I did it in just over sixteen. Progress. I'm glad my City Council meetings are online, so I don't have to be downtown until 11 P.M. I read ten books from The New York Times "Best 100 Books of 2019," a lot for me, since reading puts me to sleep. I recommend Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luisella and Pulitzer-winner Colson Whitehead's The Nickel Boys. Both of these books are heartbreaking, but this was the year for that. 

In 2019, I visited eleven counties within three hundred miles of here, one a month, except December, and Joe and I spent a week each in San Francisco and Los Angeles in late spring, Thanksgiving in Memphis, and a week in late December in New York City. We were able to stamp our "bicoastal élite" passports. In December 2019, I visited my sister  in Maryland and planned to go on to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the ninety-sixth county in my series, when Joe called that a congregant had died. I came home instead for the funeral.

After the New York trip, we returned to Morgantown December 30, and  I proceeded to get sick. I had the headache, coughing and fever that could have been Covid-19, only we didn't know about that. I went to WVU Medicine, and they said it was viral, take Tylenol, drink fluids, and rest. I developed a sinus infection, and went back for antibiotics. 

In February, I made it to Harrisburg for an overnight trip. It's a great city, but I ran myself ragged and was way tired. By the beginning of March, I was feeling strong again. We had services at temple Friday,March sixth, our annual Purim party on Saturday, an interfaith dinner at a church downtown on Sunday,  and Purim on the real date at Chabad on Monday. By then we had heard of coronavirus and had Friday's service socially distanced. Not many people showed up. 

We had a crazy long City Council meeting on Tuesday the tenth, and I figured I would go to Delaware County, Ohio on Wednesday and come back Friday before services. At that point there were no Covid-19 cases in Ohio or West Virginia. Wednesday morning, I read that three cases had turned up in Cleveland, and Governor DeWine was closing Ohio State in Columbus. I decided not to go.

December 29, yesterday, there were more than 1300 new cases in West Virginia. December 7, there were more than 9,000 new cases in Ohio. and as of today, 341,000 Americans have died. People are still arguing about masks. Businesses have closed and people are out of work, out of money, and out of food, yet the United States Senate is still arguing about helping people financially. I am sickened by the thought that this country has reached a dead end.

At least the Democrats won the election. They're not a perfect party, but the Republicans have shown themselves to be deaf, dumb and blind to what is going on. Still, the current President, who is spending this week on vacation in Palm Beach, is fighting the election results, not accepting his loss, and today people in Congress said they will challenge the results. The Vice-President is skiing in Vail. 

I remember in the early days of the AIDS crisis, in 1982, when people said it wasn't a big deal. "I don't know anyone who has it" was a common refrain. I worked for Social Security in the Miami area, and I saw handsome young men come in to apply for disability, and often the case would come back before it was adjudicated because the claimant had died. The rules were changed so that we could approve them in the office if they said they had AIDS. Some wouldn't do that, because of the stigma involved.  I took that seriously, and I'm here to tell the story. People are just now taking this virus more seriously. It was in the news today that a Republican Congressman-elect in Louisiana, who had recently called for opening the economy to avoid "disaster" had died of the virus. 

There were also protests about police brutality after the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis in May. The officer knew he was being recorded on cell phones, but thought this was something he could do. It was as much the brazenness, the idea that there would be no consequences, that see people against the police. The President's response was to blame the protesters, and he gassed people who were peacefully protesting, and sent in unidentified troops to round people up without charge. Here in Morgantown, there were protests, but we are not big city with a large minority population, and while there ae some issues with the police, they are relatively benign, and have done things like saving people from overdoses and jumping into the Monongahela River to save people from drowning. The City Council is discussing civilian oversight of the police, which has caused alarm in some quarters, while others fear we won't go far enough.

I'm in my fourth year on City Council. It's a lot like college: daunting the first year, then more comfortable the next two, then, the last year, just wanting it to be over. Everyone on Council put in a lot of work. We hired a new City Manager, dealt with a homeless encampment on city property in as humane a way as we could, dealt with a faltering budget and the fallout from the pandemic. We made rules to protect public safety following state guidelines, but stricter. We were sniped at from all sides through everything. 

My side project was pop music history at Osher Life-Long Learning at WVU. In the four-week winter term, I taught in person to a small group about Laura Nyro's first five albums. In the spring, I taught online about "The Great Hits and Albums of 1968." Summer brought six weeks called "Music from The Brill Building" about Jewish composers in New York who dominated pop music in the early sixties, writing for The Drifters, Gene Pitney, and girl groups like The Shangri-Las and The Crystals. In the fall I taught mostly albums from 1969, including artists who were new at Woodstock, like Crosby, Stills and Nash and Santana. The reviews were mostly good, but some complained that they were unfamiliar with the music, because I had veered away from Top 40. I'll teach 1970 in the spring, then that might be it. I'm ready for a change.

Joe and I visited Doddridge County, West Virginia, a very small county about sixty miles southwest of Morgantown. The county seat is West Union. In April, when we visited,  there had not been any Covid-19 cases there . We had lunch outside, took some pics and drove out to see a covered bridge. Outside of town, many homes had big banners and flags supporting th current President. We found the same thing traveling only sixteen miles north, to the tiny historic town of Greensboro, Pennsylvania. To me those flags might as well have had swastikas on them. In the summer, we visited our friends Scott and Jan, two gay men, who have a farm near Greensboro. We sat out on their porch and had lunch. Other than that day, we haven't seen friends live and in person. 

I did get to Ridgway, Pennsylvania, a few hours north of us, in the second county south of New York. It's a pretty place, and was still "green" on Pennsylvania' s map in June. It's in Elk County, which was my scheduled county for June. In Ridgway, people were masked, and restaurants were open with limited seating. In the smaller towns to the north, there were more signs out for the President. 

We took the risk of visiting my sister in Greenbelt, Maryland, once in the summer, and again  over Thanksgiving, just over two hundred miles away. We packed lunches and tried not to stop too often. My sister Robin has been cautious about going out, as we have, and we felt safe. A few days after we came back, we got tested and were both negative. 

I'd like to be hopeful about the future. The people in power scare me, and I hope that there is a peaceful transition on January 20th. I hope the vaccine is given to everyone and we are able to stop Covid-19. Our county is the only one in West Virginia that only gave the President a plurality of votes, and not a majority. People worked hard for state-level Democrats, all much better people than the Republicans, but none of them got the votes they needed to win. I truly despair for West Virginia. 

So far, we are well, and we have money, not a lot, but more than we've had in the past. We've been getting carry-out on Saturday nights from our favorite restaurants, and we've taken walks in the local parks and along the riverfront. We are not in danger of losing our house, or our healthcare. Joe's job is secure, at least for another three years. We are blessed in many ways, and I think our job this year is to be more charitable, to live more harmoniously in nature, and to be less materialistic. It's something to strive for.

I wish all of you reading this (averaging about 25) a healthful, prosperous, conscious 2021. 

Winter Solstice 2020

 The official time of the solstice is 5:03 A.M. EST Monday, December 21, between Chanukkah and Christmas, normally joyous times that have been tamped down by the coronavirus and the government's reaction, or lack thereof. We had snow this week in Morgantown, then temperatures just barely above freezing. It was pretty for a few days, but now it's getting slushy. And there's hardly been any sun for days. It feels like twilight just about all day.

Lots of people I know are posting on Facebook about how depressed they are. In the US  Senate, they have been arguing about sending people $600 in relief money (it just passed today, Sunday), while big corporations and rich people rake in billions. Our Governor here in West Virginia is sitting on CARES Act money while people are at risk of being evicted or having the lights shut off. Some money is going out to high school athletic teams and a possibly shady real estate deal here in Morgantown that the city is being asked to contribute to. 

A few posts ago, I said I might not run for City Council again next month. I thought if I could find a good progressive person in this ward, I would support them. If not, I would run again. I'm past that now. A well-meaning activist of my acquaintance called me Tuesday and asked if I was running. He  and others would support me, otherwise they needed to find someone at a "West Virginia Can't Wait" meeting that night. That group encourages people with no experience or connection to government to run; they often get slaughtered. I didn't know much before I ran for Council, but I at least got on the Library Commission and attended some Council meetings. I even spoke once or twice. It's harder to do that now, but people can come to meetings online and speak; they don't. I wish my friend had begged me to run again. I wish I still had a constituency that supported and encouraged me, but I don't. So no, I won't run again.

It's hard to give up a part of one's identity, but I've killed off part of myself and been reborn several times. I thought I might give up teaching at OLLI as well, but now I think only one change at a time. 

So I guess I have my own  issues. We have food and our health (so far). I stay away from anywhere where an armed militia might show up. I fear for my country in the next month. Our Congressperson didn't sign on to the Texas lawsuit to invalidate the election. The other two in West Virginia and our Governor, Secretary of State and Attorney General did. It's unbearable that these people run West Virginia. It's hard for me to even be here.

It will get colder here in West Virginia next month, but the light will come back, and hopefully, despite everything, there will be a vaccine, and a new and better administration for our country. I hope that I and so many of the people I know find a way out of depression. As they and I know, it's not pretty.

How We Are Doing

I have algoritms.
Groceries on Sunday and Thursday.
Laundry Tuesday and Friday.

Tuna for lunch; fake burgers and corn for dinner Monday.
Carry out Saturday night (pizza, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Indian).

Cleaning woman alternate Wednesdays, so

We go out for burritos or wraps

I run in the morning, walk a half-hour before sunset.

Same route, except different direction to walk on odd and even days.

Garbage and recycling out Thursday.

City Council three Tuesdays each month.

Four breakfasts in order:

1) toaster waffles

2) oatmeal and cream of wheat alternating

3) egg whites and toast with spinach, onions and mushrooms

and cream cheese.

4) Cereal: rice or corn Chex Mom's Whole Wheat 

All but #4 with yogurt (nonfat, plain) and fruit

Services online Friday night

I light candles and chant Kiddush

Taught six weeks of Music from the Brill Building

Six weeks of The Great Hits And Albums Of 1969,

Working on 1970 for spring

Rabbi Joe has lots to do with temple

See his blog for info (he doesn't have a blog)

Sleep late morning and/or afternoon.

Read Morgantown Dominion-Post and Charleston Gazette-Mail daily

Washington Post and New York Times Sunday edition

I read books, listen to records and CDs (tape player broken)

Waiting for the inauguration of President Biden to:

Get the kitchen sink fixed

Buy more CDs (new McCartney, Taylor Swift0

New running shoes

New portable cassette player

After the current unpleasantness, I want to

visit more counties near here 

(92 down, 28 to go by June 2022).

Plotting my escape to somewhere more friendly, less Republican,

Warmer, cheaper. Probably won't do it.

How are you coping?

Pandemic Thanksgiving

At Robin's

 Typically, I go with Joe to visit his family in Memphis at Thanksgiving. His aunt and uncle host Thanksgiving dinner. Joe's sister lives in Memphis, and his brother comes up from Louisiana. He has a cousin with a husband and kidskin Memphis, and her sister, also with a husband and two kids comes from Austin. Other cousins sometimes show up from Buffalo, Portland, Boston and Eureka. We drive to Pittsburgh, catch a plane, change at Atlanta or Charlotte, stop for lunch, and land in Memphis where we rent a car and drive to a hotel. We spend time with family, brunch at his cousin's, we go to a bar part-owned by Joe's sister and we try out several restaurants.

This year, the CDC said not to go anywhere because of a spike in novel coronavirus cases all over the country. My sister Robin invited us to visit in Greenbelt, Maryland, a bit more than two hundred miles from Morgantown. I had my doubts, but Joe was anxious to get out, and my sister, after she had invited us, suffered a back injury and needed our help. 

So we went. Instead of stopping at a restaurant for lunch, we packed sandwiches and fruit, and ate lunch in the car at a rest stop. We stopped at three rest stops on the way.

Greenbelt is a progressive city in Prince George's County, outside Washington, D.C. The rules there are that you can't be out of the house without a mask. I went out to run in the morning and Joe and I walked in the evening. People approaching us moved into the street to maintain six feet of distance from us.

Robin had picked out our menu, which, of course, included turkey. I have not eaten any meat since late March, when there were coronavirus cases at meat-packing plants, and the companies (and the United States government) seemed to think it was good that people were dying, because at least we had meat on the table. I could have lived on the plentiful side dishes, but I went for the turkey just these few days. 

We did go out Friday with a shopping list for the Co-Op, a locally owned grocery, a check to cash at the bank, and we stopped to have the tires checked on the car, since the tire light had gone on as we neared Greenbelt Wednesday. We had them change the oil as well. We were out for about two hours, not near anyone. Robin and Joe played scrabble and we watched "Jeopardy" together. We did housework for Robin also, and helped prepare meals with her. I read a book and kept up with social media. Robin put up pictures of us, usually eating. On Friday night, Joe's online Shabbat service was from Robin's dining room table, and he ran Saturday morning Torah service from Robin's little office. 

We packed up and left Sunday, with sandwiches, fruit and a cookie in a bag for lunch. I thought Robin was trying to delay us. She said over and over how much she appreciated our being there, and how her back was felling better.

I was nervous about traveling at all, but the traffic was light, and we didn't hang out with lots pf people. In fact, Greenbelt is safer than Morgantown because people are all masked and socially distanced. People take the coronavirus restrictions seriously. I don't always get that impression in Morgantown. I resented my sister's bossiness at first, but I found my compassion after a while. She needed help, and she is the only one who knows what it was like growing up in my parents' house.

We got back yesterday afternoon. We unpacked, I took a short nap while Joe made dinner, and I went out for groceries, where I had to complain about an unmasked employee and tell a few people that the mask has to be over your nose. Today (Monday) I'm overtired, but still managed to run this morning. One day, I'm going to have to take it easy, as befits my advanced age. I don't think I was exposed to coronavirus this trip. 

I'm glad we went, and I understand why people chafed under the recommendation to stay home. We didn't take a big risk, and it was great just to be away for a time.

The Election - So Far

 Joe Biden won the election. Joe Biden won the election. Joe Biden won the election. Keep repeating until all the Republicans get it. The current President is doing everything he can to overturn the result. He's not dealing with the pandemic, the failing economy, or how to roll out a vaccine as soon as next month. He's sulking, tweeting, filing lawsuits and playing golf. It's horrible. And most Republicans won't say this is a waste of time and money, undermining democracy and destroying the reputation of the Republican Party. I hope they all get their comeuppance.

I live in West Virginia, where the current President won 68.6% of the vote, according to Politico. That's down .1% from his percentage in 2016. Monongalia County, where I live, is the only county in our state that did not give the current  President a majority, but only 49.4% to Biden's 48.2%. That's down .7% from the 50.1% he won in 2016. 

I know lots of Democratic activists in our county. We have a robust party that worked hard to sign up new voters and get out the vote. The results are disappointing. I thought it would be clear that the choice was between a grifter, a liar, a person with no morals, and a guy who may not set the world on fire, but will bring some sanity to the White House. All of that work barely made a dent. I don't pretend to understand.

I am a City Councilor in Morgantown. We have a liberal group of seven on Council; not as liberal as some would want. I don't have statistics by precinct, but I know that in Morgantown city, the home of West Virginia University, we did not vote for the current President in 2016, and I'm sure we didn't in 2020, since the race was close, and the city is the most liberal part of the county. 

Our Council election season starts in January, with the vote at the end of April. The last election, two years ago, my opponent, put up by a real estate developer, was convicted of fraud. Another man, a Republican Party operative, signed on as a write-in a month before the election. This time, I don' t know if I have enough energy to do this again. I'm the queer Jew on the Council, and I've lately been attacked by some queer people and non-observant Jews on the left. I'm not certain I have any constituency at this point, and at seventy-one, I might be just as happy being really retired. My husband, Rabbi Joe, has three and a half years on his contract with his congregation. He loves his work, and the congregation has been good to us both, but if he wants  to retire at that point, I would be happy to go elsewhere. 

I predict that with Republicans winning all statewide offices and a supermajority in the state House of Delegates and Senate, that five or six thousand young, educated people in this state will leave in the next year. 

71

 It's Saturday morning and Joe is about to start Torah study from home on Zoom with people from our temple. This is the week of Breishit, "In the beginning," as the annual cycle of reading the five Books of Moses begins anew. My birthday on the Jewish calendar was yesterday, as it was on Friday, October 26, 1962, the day before my bar mitzvah. That was after  my "regular" calendar birthday; this year, it's before. 

There was an article last Sunday in TheWashington Post, a review of a book about the times we were close to a nuclear war. The review started "October 27, 1962, was the most dangerous day in history." I remember reading about the Cuban missile crisis, which was happening that week. It was my first "bargaining with God" moment, where I asked God to put off the nuclear war until after my bar  mitzvah. My wish was granted, or maybe the diplomats worked everything out- it's hard to say. 

Once again, life on Earth is at a turning point. There is an election in a short space of time, and there is a lot riding on it. The current President won't commit to stepping down if he loses. He has been infected with the coronavirus (as his current wife and youngest son have been) yet he continues to hold big rallies, appearing maskless, despite the best public health advice. He and his toadies are pushing through a Supreme Court nominee who might vote with others to invalidate the election, cut off healthcare for millions of Americans, ban legal abortions or attempt to invalidate my twelve-year marriage. As I've pointed out, my marriage was with clergy in our denomination, a vow made in front of family, friends and God, so it can't really be invalidated. No court has that power.

In West Virginia, the pandemic is getting worse. And today, October 17, 2020, West Virginia University's football team  is playing Kansas University at home, with the stadium at  twenty-five percent capacity and the bars in town open. Our City Council has retained the ban on large house parties in student-centric neighborhoods, with my approval, but  there is still lots that could go wrong. Joe said, and I agree, that even if we don't contract  this virus, we may not survive the pandemic.

I finished my project to find a new city, with sixty-eight possibilities. I now fully realize that it's completely a fantasy. I don't see Joe and I going anywhere, even as many of our friends in Morgantown go south for the winter. I don't see us splitting up, although renting an apartment for myself for a month in the winter in Los Angeles or Fort Lauderdale is tempting. At least this year, I'm still on City Council, so I guess not. 

Effective Wednesday, I will no longer be seventy, but past seventy. As Werner Erhard said "THIS is  how your life  worked out." 

The New (Jewish) Year

 Last night before we fell asleep, Joe asked me what was good about 5780, the year on the  Jewish  calendar that ends tonight. I said "Our trip to New York in December." New York feels like home to me, even if I  never lived  there. We saw my relatives and Joe's, and friends Joe knows from high school and college. We got around  on busses and subways, and walked quite a bit. Although it was  December, the temperature never went below 40 F. We left December 30, just  before the madness of New Year's Eve, as our motel was filling up with  people from all over the world. In January, back home, I had many of the symptoms of COVID-19: sore throat, headaches, coughing, fever, and a sinus infection. It  was before anyone thought of COVID-19; no precautions were taken by the doctors who saw me. I had an antigen test in the spring. It said that's not what I had, but I hear the tests are not accurate, and that the antigens don't stay with you anyway. Just today, I got the results back from a new COVID-19 test, and I'm still negative. 

I'm less worried about what I'm missing than I might be. I used to go away every month for a few days to explore a new town, and I like going to the movies and the mall. I need new shoes for running, but I haven't been to the store. I'm not sick or broke, I have health insurance and a partner with whom I get along, even though  we're both  home all the time. That doesn't mean I don't dread going to the grocery store, or that I don't rage at fans of the current President who refuse to mask or even acknowledge  that we  have a big problem. 

I understand people who want to drop everything and run away, I've  been looking at other places to live  in one of my long, complicated studies. I'm teaching about pop music  in 1969 at OLLI this fall, and that may be my last class, at least for awhile. I can run again for Morgantown City Council in January, but maybe not. My mother's parents at seventy got rid of almost everything they owned, sold their townhouse in New  York City (like ours in Morgantown, but a little  larger) and moved into a one bedroom apartment in South Florida. It's tempting to do that somewhere. I already  lived in Miami, so maybe not Florida, but somewhere. It would be  a lot easier to stay here and let someone else figure out what to do with my stuff when I'm gone. 

It's 2 P.M. and I'm super tired and just rambling incoherently. A friend made us a round challah bread for the holiday and we have apples and honey, signifying a sweet new year. I guess we'll watch ourselves on YouTube tonight and tomorrow and then go down to the Monongahela River and toss  our sins into the water in the afternoon. It could be worse.

Labor Day Weekend

 In my last post, I talked about visiting my sister at the end of August, and going to the cemetery in Owings Mills, northwest of Baltimore, to visit my parents' grave.  We did that  and a few other  things, like having  lunch at Lenny's, which I guess is where people go for Jewish-style deli food, now that  Suburban House in Pikesville is  gone. I last visited my sister in December, before our trip to New York. Someone at  temple died  when  I was there, and I came back to  Morgantown  for the funeral, instead of going  on to Harrisburg, Dauphin  County, Pennsylvania, which was my ninetieth county to visit. 

Summer  has dragged and until today has been too hot. I don't see anyone other than Joe, and  I don't feel close to people here in Morgantown. City Council has been trying, with a string of executives leaving, the pandemic, what to do about the bars in town, about WVU students gathering in parties, sure that they won't get sick, and the homeless encampment. Nothing has been easy, and I've snapped at people (usually in writing) rather than being  diplomatic. 

Today was the Gay Pride picnic, online. I was able to see part of it, but not participate without setting up  a new identity and password. It said I could use Facebook, but that didn't work. I know that my friend Ash and others tried to make a go of this, and I'm grateful for that, but it didn't seem to work for me. Tomorrow, we're recording the service for Yom Kippur day. We've completed Rosh Hashana and the Yom Kippur evening service. It was like being on a movie set: mostly boring, getting things set up, a few retakes (not many) and a lot of time. I'm not good spending a lot of time on things. Joe has written a prayer book on his own, and done most of the singing. I love his hard work and dedication.

Nobody knows what will  happen this fall and winter. It's possible that  the current President will win the Electoral College again, by hook or crook. I'm one of those who thinks that would be the end of  our  country, at least  as a democracy with any claim to morality. And I read today that some are predicting that the number of deaths through the winter will be twice as many as have died so far from the pandemic. 

I have it good, and I'm depressed. Times must be much worse for everyone else. Part of me wants to run away from home, but there's no place to go. Another part of me thinks we all need (men of that persuasion) a giant jerk off party, online, of course, to lift our spirits. At seventy, I wouldn't be invited, anyway, and I'm married to clergy and an elected official. The second quarter of my life would like  that.

Chanie Cohen Kirschner, the sister of my friend Benyamin Cohen, puts up a description of the Torah reading for the week. This week's is blessings and curses in Deuteronomy 26-29. When I tutored bar mitzvah kids, the twelve year olds wanted to read the curses, but Mrs. Kirschener suggests we all look for blessings, like noticing the parts of our bodies that work every morning, getting out in nature, and being grateful for our families. If I were  a better person, I would stop complaining and be grateful for what I have, but  that's unlikely to happen. 

High Holy Days 5781

 The  holidays, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, are  a month  away now. Like all religious denominations, Jewish congregations are trying to figure out how to safely do services. For most Jews, God sends people to tell you how to be saved from trouble. So we take good advice, like doing services online. There was  talk of doing services for the holidays outdoors, but that didn't seem workable. What the board at Tree of  Life Morgantown decided was to prerecord the services, then have them on YouTube at the appropriate time. My husband, Joe Hample, is the rabbi at Tree of Life. I have worked as a cantorial soloist (someone who sings at services but doesn't have a formal certification), so they decided to ask me to sing a few things, and chant in Hebrew from Deuteronomy and First Samuel. I've done the chanting before.

Last Sunday, Joe and I dressed for the holiday and went to the temple, where a congregant who works in tech recorded us doing the evening service for Rosh Hashana. I've been busy with my class at OLLI and Morgantown city council and haven't rehearsed much. I didn't have a lot to do at the service, and it went pretty well, although I was exhausted from getting up early after not sleeping well, and being there for four hours.

I was panicked about how all this would go. People tell me I sing well, but when I last worked, seventeen years ago, I did vocal exercises every day. I don't sing as well as I did. The last year I worked, 2003, was  the  worst year of my life, worse even than 2020. My sister was ill at the beginning of the year, and stuck home. Her son, then eleven, couldn't go out because two people were randomly shooting people in the Washington area, where they lived. My mother had pancreatic cancer. I visited Baltimore, where my mother lived, for her 75th birthday. While there, I suffered a heart attack. My mother died five weeks later.

My goal at the time was to retire from the school district in 2004, and work full-time somewhere as a cantor. I auditioned for a job that came up in August 2003 when a cantor suddenly left his post, and I was hired. My cardiologist had advised me not to do that, but I hadn't yet (maybe still haven't) killed off my closet Type-A personality. I did the job, sixty miles east of Los Angeles, after buying a new car with the first of my inherited money. I have never been so exhausted in my life. It was a hard job anyway, rehearsing with a choir and singing the music left by the former cantor (we sang in the same key, which may be why I was hired). I got  along well with the rabbi there, but not so much with the choir and director. They were talking about hiring a full-time soloist in July, maybe me, but I looked around and decided I didn't want to live in that community. They ended up not hiring a cantor anyway. The whole experience was debilitating and depressing.

When Joe and I moved to Morgantown in 2012, there was talk at Tree of Life of using me as a cantor, which I squelched. I felt like I had closed that chapter of my life. Now they want me to do a few things, not beyond possibility, but still a drain on my not abundant energy. Joe has taken on most of the singing, which was too much for him. He's been working like mad to get it together. The people in charge, like those at most congregations, don't realize how hard it is to do the holidays.

I don't typically have panic attacks, but when I started going over the music, I thought about my mother,  my own precarious health, and what had  happened to my family all those years ago. It wasn't pretty.

I've calmed down now and I've accepted my role, but like most things I'm doing, I keep thinking I won't do it again. I'm still here, well after my "use by" date, my sister is healthy, her son grown up and married. I try to just count my blessings instead of obsessing about the past. Joe and I plan to visit with my sister in Maryland at the end of August, and maybe, as is my custom before the holidays, we'll visit my parents in the cemetery in Baltimore County. 

August 1, 2020

A  mutual friend invited me on Facebook to a "coming out" party for a trans woman, also a friend. It  was today, socially distanced, at different locations and times. Joe said he would go with me. I waited until yesterday to respond and I declined. I'm just not comfortable going out anywhere at this point. Joe and I have been home with our cat for a month (I skipped out for two days in June). We usually order carry-out Saturday night, and I guess I'm in a rut. The idea of going to a party with other people, even distanced and masked, just seems foreign to me now. A few years ago, I was delighted when younger people invited me somewhere. At this party the people would have been 25-40, I'm guessing. That's a lot younger than I am, and where I used to be flattered, now I'm uncomfortable.

I've been preaching kindness online, and talked about "baseless hatred" as a cause for the destruction of the second temple, which  we commemorated at Tisha B'Av Wednesday night and Thursday. Meanwhile, a dear friend in Los Angeles has been inexplicably pushing  hydroxychloroquine as a cure  for coronavirus and touting Republican talking points. I've been shocked, and I finally told her she "needed to get help." She didn't take that well; who would? I went back and deleted that today. It's easy to say "Be kind  to everyone," but even with friends it's hard to do. I try not to have "rage" as my foremost emotion, but sometimes that is what is called for.

People are comparing this pandemic to AIDS, but then there were behaviors that could be avoided, once you passed the initial test. I spent a few years without sex before there was testing, not knowing if I was infected. Still, there is a lingering pain with me over friends who died, and I remember people saying it was worse than World War II, because there didn't seem to be an end. This pandemic is much more random than AIDS, and even more endless. There is no evidence that this virus will ever go away. At seventy, I feel that it's very likely, even if  I don't get this, that I won't live to see the end of it.

I've been keeping busy with my obsessions. I'm teaching a class about the music from The Brill Building in New York in the early 1960s, some of my favorites by The Drifters and composers like Burt Bacharach, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill, Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. I've spent an inordinate amount of time doing research and putting together strings of videos. They are on YouTube  at "Music From The Brill Building Week One" up to "Week Four" under my name.

I also have City Council where we are trying to hire a new city manager. I've tried to get a ban on evictions through, but others want to take  a "wait and see" pose, or think the Governor or the President should impose a ban (they should but they won't). We also have a homeless encampment where local agencies have worked to place people in housing. The camp keeps growing and we are torn between dealing with illegal activity at the camp, not spreading people out during a pandemic, and hearing some in the adjoining neighborhoods complaining. Anything we do will be criticized.

Joe and I get along well. We have too much in common, I fear, and I know we each have resentments against the other, but we  really have no one else, so we just give each other space. He has a sister, two brothers and friends in New York and California he talks to frequently; I have my sister. My best friends are in California, and I don't talk to them often. Last Saturday I called a close friend in California who doesn't do social media, and we spoke for a long time. Most days, it's Joe and the cat for me.

It's hard  to complain when money is not a problem, we have affordable housing (although it needs lots of repairs) and two cars. We almost never use both cars now. I'm not uncomfortable being home so much, and even that is scary. Why don't I want to be somewhere else?

I feel like the United States is over as a country. What will happen with the election, I don't know, maybe it will be good. As a teen in very racist suburban Baltimore, I knew that everyone wouldn't just get along because a civil rights bill was passed. And if Trump is defeated, the people still mourning the Confederacy or carrying Nazi flags will still be here. I know too much history not to be frightened for the future.

That's enough ranting for now. I'm still working on being kinder, gentler and happier. I wish that  for you who read this as well.

Elk County, Pennsylvania

Maybe it was a mistake to do this. Last week, June 25 and 26, I did an overnight trip to Elk County, Pennsylvania, about a four-hour drive from Morgantown. Ridgway, the county seat, is roughly halfway between Pittsburgh and Buffalo. This was supposed to be my ninety-sixth county visit, but I missed Delaware, Ohio, Delaware, Pennsylvania, The District of Columbia and Dorchester, Maryland, so it is only the ninety-second. I visited Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, in February, two months behind schedule, because of a funeral in December, and because I was sick most of January. After that, the pandemic hit, and travel was pretty much over.

I visited my regular doctor at WVU Medicine on the twenty-second, and I asked for an antigen test, because what I had in January seemed a lot like a relatively mild case of COVID-19. Relatively, because I was sick enough to not leave the house for ten days, and for not more than an hour the next ten. The test came back negative, meaning I probably had something else, but people in the field told me that many of the tests are unreliable and that the antigens clear out quickly. All that means is that I could get sick all over again.

Pennsylvania has red, yellow and green classifications for reopening of Counties. Elk is green, meaning just masks and distancing. All counties are out of the red category, which was stay-at-home orders. There have been only nine confirmed cases in Elk County, and three probable cases. There are fewer than 32,000 people in the county. In Pennsylvania, new cases are down, as opposed. to West Virginia, where they are going up, mostly in prisons, and among high school seniors this year who visited Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and came back sick.

So Thursday, after our 7 A.M. trip to "senior hour" at Kroger, where many of the staff thought wearing a mask was a joke, we made breakfast, and I packed up. I may never go back to that Kroger. I made a reservation at a non-chain motel just outside of Ridgway, and bagged a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a banana for lunch on the road. Google took me up I-79 to Pittsburgh, through downtown and up PA-28, then on some scary back roads to Ridgway. I stopped half-way in a far northern township of Allegheny County, bought a bottle of iced tea and a bag of baked potato chips at a convenience store and found a park to sit in and eat.

Once in Elk County, I saw there were hunting lodges and resorts for hunters along the road. Pennsylvania has forest land set aside specifically for hunters. I visited Main Street and found the courthouse and the chamber of commerce tourist bureau, where a nice woman loaded me up with pamphlets and maps. I checked into the hotel, where I had to wait for a surly young man, not cute, to greet me. He had me fill out a form and gave me the carbon copy and a key. I thought I was in the last century. The motel was mostly empty, and the room was clean, but unadorned. There was a c.1960 room air conditioner on. I napped for an hour and woke up freezing. Thursday night, I turned off the air conditioner and put on the heat.

I headed back to Main Street to look for dinner. I thought there might be something at the downtown grocery store, but nothing I wanted, and I needed to sit somewhere. There was an Italian place "under new management" down the street. They had moved out half the tables, and the staff all wore masks. Masks are rare in West Virginia. Since I'm not eating meat, I ordered cheese manicotti, which came with a salad and an enormous piece of good bread, of which I only consumed half.

I walked to the edge of downtown, just two blocks, to find a historic house. The owner, O.B. Grant, owned a tannery along the Clarion River in the 1800s, and apparently cut down most of the native hemlock in the area to supply tannin for tanning hides. Near there, along the river, is a rail-to-trails. I walked down about twenty minutes each way. It's like our trail, along a former railroad line by a river, but not paved, even in town. There is lush vegetation, somewhat different from in Morgantown. I was just amazed at how in their short, cool, summer all kinds of plants cover every available inch of territory, intermixed with yellow and purple flowers. There was a sign on the trail to wear orange to protect oneself from hunters. I saw a few other people on the trail, including a woman and her dog, both clad in orange, with the dog illegally off-leash. The dog came over to me and said "Hi," as friendly dogs will do.

Sunset Thursday was at 8:52, one minute later than Morgantown. I headed back to the room by eight, skipping the ice cream parlor on Main. Unfortunately, there was an ice cream place just before the motel, an old-fashioned drive-in. I got some soft ice cream for $2.35. I handed the high-school-age woman a twenty and she rang it up, with the cash register showing $17.65 in change. I fished in my pocket. "Here, I have the thirty-five cents," I said. She was totally flustered. Trying to be helpful, I added "You can just give me back eighteen dollars." She had to go check that with an older woman, maybe her mother, who put. it all into her calculator, and verified that the register would be correct anyway, if she took my thirty-five cents and gave me eighteen dollars back.

I spent some time on the internet and went to sleep with the heat on in the room.

The motel said they had a "continental breakfast."  That wasn't true, so I feasted in the room on the half bag of potato chips and half a bottle of iced tea from lunch Thursday and a couple of prunes from a bag I had brought with me. I went out to look for. a house west of Ridgway, which I was unable to find, so I turned around and drove to St. Mary's, the largest city in Elk County, with about 13,000 people. Ridgway has just over 4,000. I found a historic chapel south of downtown, near a Wal-Mart, lots. of fast-food places and car dealerships. Back in town, I found some other historic places, and walked around a bit. It was sunny and cool, pleasant. From there, I drove north to two towns along U.S. 219, Johnsonburg and Wilcox. Johnsonburg has a beautiful downtown district, completely vacant. There is a branch library across the street. from the historic colonnade, the Brick Block, and just up the street, a smelly paper mill. Nearby is a state park with a lake, so I stopped there for a pic. People were out in boats. I took back roads to Wilcox, a town  at the north end of Elk County. I found a historic house there. I also saw a disturbing number of signs and banners with the name of the current President. A sign on a. business said "A Deplorable Lives Here." I took my picture and headed back to Ridgway down U.S. 219.

I parked on the corner of Main Street, where 219 turns east. There was a Chinese restaurant which I thought had a sign that said "Carry-Out Only" Thursday night. Friday they had a buffet set out for lunch for only $7.00. The person at the counter was a young man, maybe college-age, who spoke perfect Pennsylvania English to me, but spoke to the cook, probably his father, some form of Chinese. They had moved some tables against the wall to provide spacing. I forewent the chicken dishes I usually eat at these buffets, and filled up on noodles with vegetables, egg drop soup and mushrooms. It was enough.

I headed home via U.S. 219 to U.S. 119 just south of Dubois. In southern Pennsylvania, U.S. 119 is a back road, but the highway is a toll road, and I enjoy the scenery. Once you enter West Virginia, you are only seven miles from our house. I didn't take my "water" pill Friday morning, and only stopped once for the bathroom, at a Sheetz gas and convenience store near Indiana, Pennsylvania. While in Ridgway, almost everyone was masked, in Indiana they were not. Traffic was backed up around Greensburg when I came by. This route was shorter by fifteen miles than the way I went up, and took about ten minutes longer.

It's a little scary to be out, to sit in a restaurant, to stay in a strange motel. Pennsylvania has been better about masks and social distancing than West Virginia, and especially in a rural area, I felt as safe as I might being out in Morgantown.

Main Street, Ridgway Historic District

Elk County Courthouse

Ridgway Armory, 1904

A house on West Main Street, Ridgway, with a rainbow flag

O.B. Grant House, West Main Street, Ridgeway, 1870

wildflowers on an empty lot, Ridgway

along the rail trail, just south of downtown Ridgway

Decker's Chapel, 1856, St. Mary's

Downtown St.Mary's with an eternal flame memorial to soldiers from the area

View from downtown St. Mary's

John E. Weidenboerner House, St.Mary's 1881, built by a prominent citizen after a devastating fire in the town

Apollo Theater, downtown St. Mary's

Mural with the paper plant behind it, Johnsonburg

Anderson Brick Block, 1890s, built as stores with apartments above, now completely empty, Johnsonburg

cast iron front building, Johnsonburg Commercial Historic District

East Branch Clarion River Lake, near Johnsonburg

Swedish Lutheran Parsonage, Wilcox, 1901

mid-century modern bank building, Main St. and U.S. 219, Ridgway

My Confession

I thought about my response to the demonstrations and the "Black Lives Matter" movement. But leaders of the movement said we should listen, not talk. An opinion piece in last Sunday's Washington Post said that white people, when confronted with racism, form book clubs. I don't do book clubs, but I do read. I lately finished Ta-Nehisi Coates' We Had Eight Years In Power,  with essays he wrote during the Obama presidency, with new commentary. I also read Matthew Desmond's Evicted, a non-fiction study of housing issues in Milwaukee, and a Pulitzer-prize winner.

I used to feel not guilty about race issues because my family didn't live in the United States during slavery, and although I grew up in racist Maryland in the 1950s and 1960s, my parents were from New York, and therefore removed from all that. Still, my parents got a good deal on a small suburban house in 1953. If you were a veteran, you could buy a house for just over $11,000, one hundred dollars down and seventy-five dollars a month for twenty-five years. The only other condition was that you had to be White. Black people didn't live on our street until 1968, by which time I was in college. The builder of our house was a "liberal." He would sell houses to Jews, when others building in that area would not. We had all new schools where we lived; people I knew in Baltimore City, just a few blocks from where we lived in Baltimore County, went to older schools. Jewish people fled the City as the schools integrated and eventually became all Black. My class at Woodlawn High  had six Black students out of 450. Forest Park High, just as close to our house as Woodlawn, but in Baltimore City, had twenty-two White students in my graduation year. My girlfriend at the time, Seema, went to Forest Park. Her single mother had to move from their rental apartment in Lower Park Heights when the building was sold, and they ended up in a new apartment building near where I lived. Seema would have gone to Woodlawn with me senior year, but chose to pay tuition to finish at Forest Park. I went to her prom, and we had a great time. She was friends with everyone in her class.

I did well on standardized tests, but I was never a good student. If I had been Black at Woodlawn, I might have had a problem. While in college, I took a test for a summer job at the post office. Two of us, both Jewish students from my neighborhood, scored best on the test and got work. The test was hard, like an SAT. People who worked at the post office could not have passed it. If you could do basic alphabetization and filing and had a good back, you could do that job. I was grateful for the work, but even then I knew some poor kid, Black or White, needed that job more than I did. A few years earlier, the post office had moved from a point in the city near the end of several bus lines, to the county, where bus service was scarce at best. I didn't have a car, but I had to drop off my mom somewhere before work, or she had to drop me. The other kid and I were able to carpool sometimes.

Two stories I remember from my mother. She moved to Baltimore at nineteen as a new bride. She took a job selling womens' hats at Hutzler's department store downtown. One day a Black woman came in and asked to try on a hat. My mother helped her with the hat, but after the woman left, her boss came over and told her that Black people were not allowed to try on clothes in the store. My mother was surprised, but she was new in town and didn't question it. In our new house, my mother got a job teaching school, and after a few years, started teaching at the school my sister and I attended. Never one for housework, or staying home, she hired someone to clean the house and watch us kids. Mom told me that she explained to one of these "colored girls" that. she could open a can of tuna or bring something for her lunch. The woman said "Where's my plate and fork?," and my mother said "Just take a plate and fork." The woman said "That's not how we do here. I have to have my own plate and fork." My mother didn't understand at first.

Many of the places we went as kids did not serve Black people. I was fifteen before I saw a Black person in a restaurant, at the bowling alley, or a movie theater. There were businesses on Pennsylvania Avenue and Gay Street in Baltimore for Black people. Price's Dairy, Gwynn Oak Amusement Park and Milford Mill Pool were near us; Black people could not go to these places. Our synagogue used to sponsor special days at Gwynn Oak, where you could get a sticker to go on most of the rides for a dollar. That ended when a five-year-old asked to bring his friend. The friend was Black and the Dad argued with the staff at Gwynn Oak about what harm would come from a five-year old being admitted to the park. The synagogue never went back. Milford Mill was a stone quarry that had filled with water when the workers hit an underground spring. An entrepreneur from Florida created a beach and eventually built an indoor and outdoor pool, and a snack bar with a killer juke box. There were dances on weekend nights. We weren't allowed to go to the dances because it attracted a rough crowd of White kids from the city. School dances in the city were for Black kids by that time. After 1964, Milford Mill said it was a private club. You could get a guest membership for five dollars, and pay a buck every time you went, only you had to be White. Baltimore County didn't have public pools. Druid Hill Park in Baltimore City at one time had a White and a Black pool, but, in integrating the pools, they closed the Black pool, and the White pool became all Black. Lochearn, which was the neighborhood immediately next to ours, opened a swim club, and we thought we would go there, until our parents found out that they would not accept Jews as members. Eventually, there were private Jewish swim clubs, and that's where my parents went. At fourteen and fifteen, I went to Milford Mill, because those were the only two years I could go with friends before I started working in the summer at sixteen.

I understand that I have privilege, and I've used that throughout my life, sometimes unknowingly, other times fully understanding that I could do what Black people couldn't. Even today, I travel around to different, overwhelmingly White counties in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. I dress down, travel alone, leave the jewelry on my dresser and put on a local accent (not that. different from Baltimore). People have looked at me funny, but when they ask where I'm from, I smile and say "West Virginia," and that's usually enough to put people at ease.

I'm in a position to hold Morgantown's police accountable about racism. We are not like Baltimore, where the police have always been awful. I try to treat everyone equally and I am willing to listen to anyone about the limited power I have.

If you have a Google account, you can comment here, or on Twitter, where I am BarryLeeWendell. My City Council page on Facebook, Barry. Wendell for Morgantown Councilor, Ward Seven, is open. If you are a Facebook friend, we can talk there.

The. Demonstrations and The Pandemic

On May 25, a police officer in Minneapolis held  his knee on George Floyd's neck, ultimately killing him. Other officers watched while Floyd. pleaded that he couldn't breathe. Floyd was on the ground, handcuffed and not resisting. The officers had. to know they were being recorded on a cell phone, but didn't think it would be a problem for them.

Once the video was released on social media, there were demonstrations, and at time riots in cities around the world. Rioters smashed storefronts and looted stores; a police station burned. Our American President accused "antifa" of organizing the riots, although some have said there were white supremacist groups behind much of the violence. In Washington, armed troops with no insignia lobbed pepper balls and rubber bullets at demonstrators and news reporters who were clearly marked. In Morgantown, there were major demonstrations several days last week. The Morgantown Police stayed away, thankfully. I didn't go, being afraid to be around so many people in the midst of a pandemic. When I finally did go one afternoon, there were very few people out and I didn't stay long. Judging from the pictures of the large demonstration in Morgantown, but more importantly in New York and Washington, I worry about people becoming ill from being in the large crowds.

Demonstration in downtown Morgantown

Demonstrators blocked High Street, our main street

May 31, before the street demonstrations here, I attended a "video demonstration" featuring the head of the NAACP locally, and three African-Americans, all state delegates, from different parts of the state. All of them have been harassed by the police, after being elected. Delegate Danielle Walker is in Morgantown. I was upset.

I asked the City Manager what stats there were on complaints about the department, the break down by race of drug arrests, and how many were sent to Municipal Court (a $15 fine for small amounts of cannabis, thanks to our Council) and how many to Magistrate Court. I also asked the ACLU if they had stats. I haven't heard back from the ACLU, but I got a response from the Police Chief and Deputy Chief. They have policies about being polite to everyone, banning chokeholds and other good things, no complaints lodged against them in the last year, and all cases going to Magistrate Court, which was a bit unsettling. Magistrate Court can give probation, but Municipal Court can't, which is the reason they gave me. Magistrate Court can also fine you $1,000 or six months in jail for carrying a small amount of cannabis.

Meanwhile, a video collective put out a release about a Black man who was badly beaten by the police in Morgantown. I read the article and found that the incident, eighteen months ago, was not in Morgantown, but in Westover, walking distance from downtown Morgantown, but with a different police force. I asked the collective to change the title of the video and they did. Now it says "...near Morgantown."

I've received a few dozen emails yesterday and today from people asking that we defund the Morgantown Police and spend more on social services. I only recognized two of the names, and I asked one of those to call me so we could talk about this. We do not have a big-city police department here, and, although the Morgantown Police are under City Council, where I am a member, the County Sheriff, West Virgina University Police and State Troopers also operate in our city. In the last two weeks, no one in Morgantown can say that our police interfered in the demonstrations. The police don't have the equipment that was used on demonstrators in Washington. We are not the kind of city where the police brutalize the public. Most of the letters say "I'm a Morgantown resident." I doubt that, and if they are, they have not been involved in any way with city government and do not understand what we have here. We do have serious drug issues and domestic abuse problems that the police deal with. We have tried to find an alternative to having the police take inebriates to the hospital; we do have people who intervene with addicts, and there is a needle exchange program. We are waiting for state approval to put up sharps containers. Our city is limited by state law and lack of money from doing more. Our police are not overpaid and the force is not fully staffed.

I had been visiting one county per month, in alphabetical order, within three hundred miles of Morgantown. I missed December to attend a funeral of a friend from synagogue, and I missed. January because I was sick almost the entire month. In February, I spent a full day and two nights in Harrisburg, in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.

I wrote here about my canceled trip in mid-March to Delaware, Ohio because. it was obvious that there was a health problem. We've rarely gone out since then. I've been running a bit almost every day. My former gym has reopened with restrictions, but I'm not ready for that. We get carry-out Saturday nights and sometimes for lunch.

This past Sunday was supposed to have beautiful weather, and I suggested to Joe that we visit Doddridge County, sixty-five miles southwest of here, originally on my schedule for a May visit. Doddridge has a population of less than 8,000 people, and more than eighty per cent of voters went for the current president in 2016. We walked around West Union, the county seat, stopping for lunch at Betty Noll's Restaurant, the only place open in the middle of town. We both had fried fish fillets with three sides. Joe had cole slaw, broccoli and fries; I had mac and cheese, corn and apple sauce. The food was good, if not exactly diet-conscious. We were able to see most of the town in about an hour of walking in the pleasant sunshine. Doddridge County is off U.S. 50 between Clarksburg and Parkersburg. The former B&O Railroad line is now a paved trail.

We walked into town less than a mile along the rail trail from a park off U.S. 50 to downtown. On the way back a gentleman stopped us on the trail He was in a bathrobe at 3 P.M. He lives down the hill from th trail and his family has been in the area since before the Civil War. He owns some gas wells on his property. He said he could tell we were not from West Union, he said. I asked how he knew that, and he answered diplomatically "You look smart." A friend in Morgantown also told me her ancestors lived in Doddridge before the Civil War. West Union was apparently a stop on the Underground Railroad.

After seeing the town, we searched for a restored covered bridge in Center Point, really out in the woods. We saw many houses festooned with banners with the name of the current President, one of which also flew a Confederate flag. Doddridge County is a center of fracking in the state. People say it is prosperous, but aside from the newer schools along U.S. 50 and a handful of big new houses along the country roads, it doesn't look it.

We were glad to get away for a day. Neither of us has been far from home since March. We wore masks, as did some of the people we saw, but Doddridge is one of two counties in West Virginia with no reported COVID-19 cases.

Update: the person I asked to call me about the police did call. I missed the call, and she, phone banking today for the election, said she will call back tomorrow. Also, the first case of COVID-19 in Doddridge was reported today (Tuesday afternoon) after a prisoner tested positive.

Doddridge County's grand Victorian Court House

Main Street, West Union

A house in West Union's residential historic district

Former Doddridge County High

W. Scott Stuart House, 1905

Lathrop Russell Charter House, 1877

a sign says this was a stagecoach stop in the 19th century, now a store

covered bridge, Center Point, 1888

Martin Wenglinsky

One of those companies that checks your DNA sent me an ad saying they could find my grandparents' World War II military records. Grandfather? My father was a soldier in World War II, not my grandfather. I clicked "grandfather" anyway and got the draft registration for my father, known then as Martin Wenglinsky. It showed his address in the Lower Park Heights neighborhood of Baltimore, his parents' address, in an apartment building off Grand Concourse in The Bronx, and the name and address of his employer, David Wendell, who lived in then-tony Ashburton in Baltimore. David Wendell was my grandfather's younger brother.

M. Wenglinsky and Sons was the family business, making pieces for mens' suits and wholesaling them out to manufacturers. "M." was my great-grandfather Mendel, who went by "Morris" in the United States, having brought his family to New York from Russian-occupied Poland around 1903. Someone tried to sandblast the name of the company off the side of the Cluett Building, but one can still see it at 22 W.19th St. in Manhattan. M. Wenglinsky had contracts with the government for clothing and supplies in both World War I and World War II. Mendel had six sons, and at one time, in addition to New York, there were factories in Paterson, New Jersey, London, England, Havana, Cuba, and Baltimore, Maryland.

My American-born father, I suspect something of a hipster, was not much of a student, not stupid by any stretch, but not well-disciplined. They gave up after he left his third high school, and he went to work in the family business. He told me that at some point he found out he was being paid less than anyone else in the plant, so he joined the union to make more money. When the union went on strike, he still went in to work with his father, but they had nothing to do. Someone gave him a package to deliver across the street, and the union people saw him and would not allow him to be hired back after the strike.

"No problem," said my grandfather, "you can go work for your uncle in Baltimore, and he'll teach you the business." Only Uncle Dave, who was much younger than my grandfather, had an infant son, and didn't want my father to learn the business. Apparently, they never got along well.

So, it's 1942, and my father is twenty and renting a room in a row house in a working class Jewish neighborhood, and I know that 1942 was not a good year to turn twenty in the United States. He was drafted, sent to Needles, California to train for desert combat, then shipped off to the Pacific.

My father was not much of a talker, and I was able to get very little from him about his war experiences. When we were children, we lived in a suburb full of kids, and most of our fathers were veterans. On summer nights they would sit outside and talk about the war with each other, but would clam up if any of us kids were around. 

It's hard for me to imagine how lonesome he must have been in Baltimore, and how terrifying it would have been to be drafted during World War II. At twenty, I was in college and protesting the war in Vietnam. It was when the shootings at Kent State happened, and the patriotism my father had evaporated from my thoughts. 

I might write more about this another time.

From Memorial Day Weekend

There's been a lot of talk about reopening the economy, and even in Morgantown, our Acting City Manager is opening offices, with precautions, of course, and expects the City Council, of which I am a member,  to resume meeting in person. We have a workshop in June where fifteen or so of us will be locked up for a day and a half to talk about the future. I have my doubts about attending. The woman who will run this event, Julia Novak, who has a consulting firm, asked us a few weeks ago to speak to  her about our thoughts on the city. I spoke to her by phone Thursday and expressed my doubts about attending at all, that several of us had misgivings about spending money for this when city revenue is sharply down, and that the former cohesiveness of Council is fraying. She took all of that in. Some of the people on Council had not contacted her, as she requested.

As usual in my life, there is a point to my being on Council that I hadn't counted on. Our City Manager left last week for a job in his native Michigan, the Police Chief is resigning at the end of June, and we have an unprecedented financial and medical emergency in the city. Most people would poo-poo this, but I can't help feeling that, despite my reluctance, God has chosen me to step up to the plate and be a leader, exactly when I don't want to be a leader.

In my last post, I was hoping that everyone could be tested for COVID-19, so we would know exactly where we stand. After Joe Severino, a young reporter for Charleston's Gazette-Mail (and a former WVU student who reported on City Council) wrote a series of articles about a group of African-Americans who were infected at a large church service in early March, and for some reason couldn't get tested, the state started two days of mobile testing, open to everyone with or without insurance. The dates in our county were yesterday and today. Joe and I didn't go. We've been cautious about going out and we're not sick. The test I want, to see if there are antibodies, is not widely available, and my friends who know say those tests are not yet reliable and don't mean you have immunity from reinfection.

Meanwhile, our local mall opened this week, and restaurants are able to open if they limit capacity and take precautions. We ate outside two weeks ago on a warm, dry day (we've had rain nearly every day the last few weeks) and the staff was cautious and prepared.  There were only four or five tables, where usually there would be ten. Still, a raucous family of five sat behind us, and they and everyone who walked through the area did not have masks. Reports from friends who have been to Lowe's and Wal Mart say that very few people are masked, and someone said they were confronted and mocked for wearing one. It's Saturday afternoon, and Joe and I will probably get Chinese or Indian carry-out for dinner from a downtown restaurant. Even if we are allowed to eat in, I'm not ready. In the Eastern Panhandle of our state, near Harper's Ferry, Charlestown and Martinsburg, the number of cases has increased dramatically. They border areas of Maryland and Virginia where nothing is open, so people have migrated in. Democratic legislators in the area have called for the Governor to close things up again in that part of the state, but he assures them that he and his great friend, the President, know what they are doing.

It's increasingly clear that the President has no idea what he is doing, and our Governor is giving in to pressure from certain businesses, like allowing tanning salons to reopen. Our whole country seems to be derailed, and while the Governor was cautious at first, he seems reckless now.

The only place I've seen obituaries for people who have died is in The New York Times, which we get delivered late Saturday night for Sunday, and in Rolling Stone, which this month featured obituaries for singer-songwriter John Prine, and for  Adam Schlesinger, of the band Fountains of Wayne, who died from COVID-19. Schlesinger's symptoms in early March are similar to what I had in January, only they took a sudden and dramatic turn for the worse and he died at age fifty-two. Maybe I had that and maybe not, but I have to think there is some kind of purpose to my life continuing. I take that as a challenge to be better, more of an activist.

I'm not optimistic about the future of the country, or really, of our species. I should be doing more. I gave some of my $1200 government money to political candidates who might make a difference, and I argued on Facebook with people on the left who say they can't vote for Biden because he is pro-Israel. Our synagogue had a presentation this week online with Rabbi Joe, Imam Kip of the local mosque and Pastor Zac of First Presbyterian Church, about how to lead the congregation from a distance. Of course, all three were frustrated, but when Mavis Grant-Lilly, a local activist and the moderator, asked what surprised them, Imam Kip gave the most honest answer of the night, when he said "I'm surprised by the lack of intelligence of people...even those in positions of power." Pastor Zac said he was surprised that people are so impatient when they know lives are at stake. Rabbi Joe and I sent a picture of ourselves in masks to Morgantown's Communications Director to forward to the County Health Department, saying we wear masks because pikkuach nefesh, saving lives, is the most important commandment in Judaism.

What I've learned from Joe and others is that our first priority is saving lives, and the economy is way behind that. Because we don't eat meat at home, only out of the house, I have not eaten meat other than fish since we've been locked down. With the callousness of the meat industry toward its workers, and the "meat at all costs" attitude of the President,  this would be a good time to stop eating meat altogether. And before the pandemic, I had picked out a new car for us to replace our 2012 Suzuki, but now, I don't think I will ever buy a new car. We have not both been out at the same time since early March, so two cars is a luxury. Maybe it's a good time now to push for that Green New Deal, for Medicare For All, for a much reduced consumption of everything. As we say in Judaism "Therefore Choose Life."