2022- The Year I Got Old

 Technically, I've been old for a long time. I retired from LA Unified School District on my birthday in 2004; I applied for Social Security at sixty-two and got my first check eleven years ago. Still, I ran (slowly and short distances), rode a bicycle, hiked and belonged to a gym. 

I stopped the gym at the start of the pandemic and haven't tried to get back and I can't run at this point. Some days I can walk. I had an accident on my bicycle in May, like Joe Biden, Two friends, older than I, had more serious accidents on their bikes. In my case, I was getting off the bike to take a picture, and somehow a piece of metal that controls the height of the seat on the bike, went a half-inch into my leg. Of course it got infected, and at one point, while Joe and I were on vacation in Baltimore, my whole leg swelled up and was so painful I had to stop and sit down. I haven't been back on the bike since.

In August, just when we thought it was safe to go out again, Joe and I both came down with COVID. Our cases weren't as serious as most; we did not need to be hospitalized, and were up and about in a few days.

The big news this year was my run for United States Congress. I drove all over the District, twenty-seven counties in the Northern half of West Virginia, as much as 170 miles from home. I met a lot of good people, almost all of them Democrats. 

A friend 's son works for the Center for Disease Control. They sent him to Pakistan for a time. I asked him how people reacted to a gay Jew in Pakistan. He said "They never got past American." I didn't get hassled about being Jewish or gay. The people never got past "Democrat." 

I was hurt that my opponent's strategy was to say as little as possible, to not go anywhere in the District, to not acknowledge my existence. His whole primary pitch was "Donald Trump endorsed me." I guess that was enough. I represented Democrats in the state. Maybe there aren't enough of them to win a Congressional seat.  I had a committee of women who were dedicated to the campaign and worked hard to help me get elected. I will be grateful forever to them.

I've been sick with my trademark sinus and bronchial infection since late October. This happens when I'm stressed or not resting enough. Nowadays I can sleep nine hours at night and maybe two one hour naps during the day. If I do my usual walk I'm sometimes out of breath walking uphill.  The doctors at WVU told me I may have COPD, and they just called me from WVU Medicine yesterday to give me an appointment for emphysema. I was checked three times for COVID, flu, and RSV. Those tests are always negative.

I'm finding it difficult to be involved with anything. I met many good candidates across the northern part of the state; almost all of them lost to MAGA-affiliated Republicans. It's heartbreaking, and maybe my broken heart is as much a problem for me as the congestion in my airwaves and my fatigue.

I have to work on being healthier, whatever that takes, both physically and mentally. A politically involved friend called today to ask if the Democratic Party had asked me for help with future campaigns based on my experience as a Congressional candidate. I need to deal with my resentment that they have not, that the Democratic Party was uninterested in supporting my campaign and would be just as happy if I disappeared. 

Running for office was the thrill of a lifetime, and I don't regret it. I knew going in that the physical and emotional stress could kill me. It didn't. I just feel like I aged ten years this year. 

I hope 2023 will be better for everyone than 2022.

Barry Wendell for Congress

 Thanks to redistricting, and our state's population loss over the last ten years, West Virginia has gone from three congresspeople to two in this year's election. Our representative, David McKinley, was placed in the same district as another incumbent, Alex Mooney. People have been looking at this as a contest between two Republicans, McKinley as a "moderate" and Mooney as a full-on MAGA devotee. While McKinley did vote for the infrastructure bill, he calls Build Back Better "reckless social spending." He also claims President Biden has done nothing to stop the pandemic. His party has not proposed anything to help. Mooney criticizes McKinley for supporting Nancy Pelosi and the infrastructure bill. He also touts his own endorsement by the previous President.

This race leaves an opening for a Democrat, someone open-hearted, who favors social justice spending by the government, who is  pro-family, pro-choice, pro-science and willing to do whatever is best for the country, not just for a political party. I've asked at the last few monthly county Democratic Party meetings if anyone had signed up to run against McKinley and Mooney, and was met with silence. 

I'm a Maryland native who lived in Miami and Los Angeles for most of my adult life. I'm Jewish and a gay man in a same-gender marriage. I'm also seventy-two years old. I used these as an excuse not to put in my name for this contest. But I'm younger than David McKinley, and I've lived in West Virginia longer than Alex Mooney. I was elected twice to Morgantown's City Council, the second time, in 2019, with seventy-three percent of the vote. 

There is now another candidate for the Democratic nomination in our district, a woman in Martinsburg. I don't know her. Nominations must be postmarked by tonight (Saturday, January 29), so it will be a few days before we all know if there are other candidates.

I've done interviews with news sources already, and I have calls and emails to return tonight. I still need a treasurer and a campaign manager, and I have ethics forms to complete, so everything is canceled while I get to work on my campaign.

I know it's a long shot, but West Virginians need a candidate who stands for civility, working people, unions, the environment and the science of public health. I'm that person.

Contact me at barryforcongress2022@gmail.com

It's 5782!

 My last post was about our trip to Los Angeles. I haven't posted about San Francisco and my next trip, to Fluvanna and Essex Counties in Virginia, with a stop on the way back to visit with my sister in Greenbelt, Maryland. Maybe I'll post those soon...ish.

Meantime, time flies, and it's a new Jewish year. COVID-19 has come roaring back, especially in West Virginia, where Jim Justice, our Republican governor, won't put up any mask restrictions because he's afraid he'll start another Civil War. Monongalia County, where we live, has fared relatively well, mostly because people here are not afraid of getting vaccinated. Still, our two hospitals are nearly full, because people in the surrounding areas come here for medical care, and the counties around us have more "vaccine hesitancy." Still, at West Virginia University, the heart of Morgantown, there are no real restrictions, despite the students and faculty both overwhelmingly voting for a vaccine mandate. As I'm writing this, there is a football game, and there are few restrictions on attending, only a suggestion that unvaccinated people wear a mask. 

But I digress. Rabbi Joe wrote sermons for Tree of Life this summer about how great it was to be together after having pre-recorded services last year. Then, as the number of new cases rose, the synagogue committee, which includes several doctors, voted to cancel in-person services. Instead we did it over Zoom, with only the rabbi, a few singers, a tech person, and someone to watch the door, which is now locked.  I was asked to read haftarah on Rosh Hashana, and chant Torah on Yom Kippur. The haftarah is about Hannah asking for a son and pledging him to the temple. Her son Samuel is raised by the temple priest. The Torah on Yom Kippur is from Deuteronomy 29 and 30: "This day I call heaven and earth to witness regarding you: life and death I have set before you, blessing and curse. Choose life-so that you and your children may live." (Deuteronomy 30:19, translation in Mishkan Hanefesh, copyright 2015, Central Conference of American Rabbis). Heavy stuff. I couldn't help but think that getting a vaccine is choosing life, and not getting it is choosing death.

Meanwhile, I haven't been entirely well since our return from California. I had a little bronchial thing going, and I was concerned because we had been in crowds. I went to an urgent care center here on August 6, and they referred me to a central location for a COVID test. It was negative, so I wasn't too worried. I went back September 9, after Rosh Hashana, because I could barely speak and I was feeling pain in my chest from the congestion, where before it had only been in my throat and upper respiratory tract. They gave me a strong antibiotic and another COVID test, also negative, and suggested I see an ear, nose and throat doctor. I went the next day, and he looked in my nose and throat, and while not going "Ewww!," I could tell he was thinking that. He extended the antibiotic, and gave me a nasal antihistamine.  I wasn't sure I would make it to Yom Kippur.

I did drag myself out, having food with my antibiotic in the morning, and coming home for a snack and a nap in the afternoon, before returning for the Memorial (Yizkor) service, where I sang a Hebrew version of the 23rd Psalm, and the ending service. We finished after 7 P.M.  I managed my singing and chanting without difficulty. 

After more than a week on a strong antibiotic, I'm feeling better. The blood tests, which were to check my immune system, were normal except for the one that shows if you have allergies. That one was off the chart. No surprise.

Yom Kippur always makes me think of life and death. Each year, as I get older, I wonder if this is my last year. I've lived longer than my father and both of his parents. I don't get sick often, but when I do, it's bad, with a long recovery. I try to "choose life" by exercising, keeping my weight down, and getting enough sleep, and I'm grateful for my negative COVID tests. Just in today's paper, they announced that ant-COVID vaccination boosters are a good idea for older people. I'll be first in line when they announce it. 

I wish everyone a healthy 5782.

Fayette County, West Virginia and Floyd County, Virginia

 I've been visiting one county per month since we moved to Morgantown in July, 2012, with an interruption from March 2020 until now. I was behind even then, so I need to hit twenty-eight counties in the next fourteen months. I know this sounds obsessive, but bear with me. I figured if I did the county that was due this month (I have a list through June 2022) and the county closest to it, I could be everywhere by next June. 

I left Wednesday, the 26th and came back Friday, spending Wednesday night in Fayetteville, West Virginia and Thursday night in Floyd, Virginia. I took masks with me, but generally didn't wear them. 

It's 147 miles south from Morgantown to Fayetteville, and another 138 miles southeast to Floyd, Virginia.

I'm imagining the Universe was sending me a message, as usual, mixed. I enjoyed being off on my own, exploring new places,. Neither town is that big a deal, but there is plentiful gorgeous scenery nearby. New River Gorge in Fayette County is now a National Park, and Blue Ridge Parkway runs through Floyd County. So maybe the Universe said "Get back on the road." 

But coming back, I was not feeling so hot digestively, and I missed the turnoff north of Beckley to U.S. 19, leaving me on the West Virginia Turnpike ($12 in tolls) through Charleston, adding a half-hour to my trip and  about thirty miles. Not a big deal, except for the accident south of Charleston that blocked traffic for an hour and a half. My plan was to get home by four, nap for an hour, cook dinner and go with Joe to services at 7:30. Instead, I got home at six, exhausted and bedraggled, having only eaten a cereal bar at 4 P.M. for lunch, with bottled iced tea, which I hoped would remove my headache. It helped. Joe suggested I should have used the machine we have that tells you where to turn. There was construction on the Turnpike, and while the exits were open, the signs telling you where the exit led were down. Also it poured down rain all the way through West Virginia. 

I felt good Saturday, but Sunday, I had a low fever and no energy. Mister Worst-Case Scenario, as Joe calls me, imagines I caught COVID, despite my fully vaccinated status, because the unmasked people in these rural counties, including children, could have passed me a variant. Or perhaps, hiking in the woods along Blue Ridge Parkway in shorts and a polo shirt, a tick bit me and now I'll have Lyme disease. The Universe says "watch out." 

I met some fun people in Fayetteville, "The Coolest Little Town" and I ate at Tudor's Biscuit World, a staple of West Virginia chain restaurants, for the first time. Late afternoon Wednesday, I visited New River Gorge National Park, newly designated. I walked the 128 steps to the place where you can see the bridge best. Three young people joined me, a talkative girl, who said she was a WVU student here in Morgantown, and two taciturn men with her, both smoking cigarettes, despite "No Smoking" signs posted all over the park. 

Oak Hill is the larger town in Fayette County, so I cruised through there in the evening, while it was still light. Parts of it are pretty suburban/country, but the main part of town looks like it has seen better days. I found the "mall" on U.S. 19, a long strip of stores, half of them closed, including the Shoney's, where I thought I might get dinner. I went into a Kroger store and bought a small yogurt, a single serving of Cheerios and an orange, and had those for dinner back in the room. 

I had breakfast in the motel Thursday, and took off for Floyd, Virginia, over the mountains, about forty miles south of Roanoke. I arrived close to noon and ate a chicken sandwich, my first chicken since Passover, in a pharmacy/lunchroom on the main drag, U.S. 221. I walked around a bit, checking out the obligatory monument to Confederate soldiers in front of the court house. The cross street, State Road 8, hosts some tourist shops, including a record and CD shop, much to my surprise. The owner stocks country, bluegrass and hillbilly music, much of it from that area and going back to historic recordings of the 1920s.  I was determined to find something, and bought a Bela Fleck album, where he worked with African musicians, and an acoustic Jerry Garcia album. I stopped in the tourist place, where the woman working there piled me up with brochures. I picked out a hiking spot she suggested on the Blue Ridge Parkway. There were one, three and ten mile marked hikes from there. I started on the three-mile hike, but soon realized one mile might be enough. It was. I was exhausted, and crawled back to Hotel Floyd, where there was a 4:00 check-in time. It was just after four. I napped for at least an hour.

It seemed most of the town was closed down until the weekend, when there were music venues opening up and a tourist scene, some of it, I gathered, for the first time since the pandemic began. There is a walkway from the back of the hotel to the main part of Route 8. A small farmers' market was going on, and I bought a cinnamon roll and took it back to the room for later. Starting out again, I saw a little shopping center with a storefront Democratic Party office. Floyd County votes nearly two-thirds Republican, so I wanted to see what a Democratic Party person would have to say.  I encountered 87 year old Jane Griffith, reading a thousand page biography of Robert Moses by Robert Caro from 1974. We talked for nearly an hour. She spent most of her adult life in Port Townsend, Washington. Joe has a cousin who lives there, but we have not been. Her husband was an Episcopal priest. When he died, her son, who runs a gallery in Floyd, asked her to move there. She had high hopes for Tara Orlando, who is running for Delegate in the Democratic primary. 

I left her at seven for Dogtown, a bar/ restaurant serving mostly pizza and beer. It was mobbed, but I waited patiently at the counter, and ordered a salad, a pizza and a Diet Coke. I sat outside in the beautiful evening weather, not too hot nor too humid. There were groups of young hipsters out, drinking beer, all of them smoking. There were some children out, too, with parents and dogs. The balcony where I sat overlooks a city park. The salad had grapes and goat cheese. It was enough for dinner, but I ate half the pizza and took the rest to my room where there was a refrigerator. In the room I ate the delicious, but disgustingly fat and sugary cinnamon bun from earlier. I got to sleep about 10:30.

I had fun. I loved being in a different place from home, different scenery, different people. I don't mind driving, and I had CDs I brought with me and the two new ones. Even the trip back, for all the grief I had, was a route I had not taken before. I guess the message from the Universe is to continue traveling, just remember your age, eat better, and take it easy.

Here are the pics:

Fayetteville Historic District

Fayette County Courthouse

Altamont Hotel, 1898, looks abandoned

E.B. Hawkins House, 1908

New River Gorge Bridge, n. of Fayetteville

New River Gorge, now in a National Park

Selfie at New River Gorge

The steps to the viewing platform for the bridge. The sign at the top says "You have a choice to go down , but no choice to walk up."

Former Esso station, now a restaurant

Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building 

 

 

 

Former Oak Hill High School, now a community center

Floyd County Courthouse, with the obligatory Confederate monument

Inscription on the Confederate monument

Floyd Presbyterian Church, 1850

Downtown Floyd Historic District

View from Blue Ridge Parkway in Floyd County

Unusual growth from a tree 

Blooming tree near Blue Ridge Parkway

The Pandemic Is Over ! (Maybe)/ "The Great Hits And Albums of 1970"

 We visited my sister Robin in Maryland for Passover, leaving here March 26, stopping in Kingwood, where my under-65 husband was able to get vaccinated against COVID-19 before he was eligible in our county. Kingwood is the seat of the county just to the east of us, on the border of Maryland, not far mileage-wise, but accessible only on narrow two-lane roads. We stopped for lunch near Hagerstown, more than halfway to my sister's place in Greenbelt, Prince George's County, expecting to eat at the noodle place in the parking lot of the mall. It was closed, so we ate Japanese food at a stand in the mall. I skipped my usual chicken. I've been off meat for most of the pandemic, because of news reports about executives at a chicken company taking bets on how many of their workers would get sick. I don't eat beef more than two or three times a year and have been off pork for several decades.

In Greenbelt, people were much more fastidious about masking and distancing than anywhere in West Virginia. The rule in the town is that you have to wear a mask anywhere out of your own house. Most people complied.

Joe ran Tree of Life's community seder from Robin's dining room, online . It went well, and people from all over were able to watch.  I ate chicken and some beef  at Robin's. Passover is a feast, and one should eat what one can, within the holiday guidelines.

We came back after a few days, and two weeks from the day we left Morgantown, we visited Morgantown Mall, in the city of Westover, south on U.S. 19 and across the Monongahela River. Joe headed for the last traditional department store (there were once four) to buy some clothes. I had  a list of CDs to  buy at the media store, but it was gone. I did buy new athletic shoes. We headed out to University Town Center, just north on I-79, in Granville, and stopped at a TV and media store where we had bought our computers. The young clerk scoffed when I said I needed a new portable cassette player and asked about buying CDs. The  "We millennials buy vinyl. We've found that vinyl sounds better," he said to the man who has been buying vinyl since 1955, probably before his grandfather was born. I knew that long ago, but it's hard to take vinyl in the car, and I  don't subscribe to streaming services. Our last stop was Target, where I found a cheap tape player, and a CD version of "McCartney III," the latest from Paul McCartney (I have a vinyl copy of the original "McCartney" from 1970, and "McCartney II," from 1980. I know this is a lot of blather, but it was our first "outing" in over a year.

We were invited to an outdoor lunch with a neighborhood gay couple and another friend of theirs, a widowed man who lives down the street from us. The weather was warm and we sat outside, maskless. That was in April.

Just this week, the weather turned warm, after a much cooler than expected early May, and the CDC announced that people who were "fully vaccinated" could be indoors or outdoors without masks. Many people were surprised and unsure that we could really do this. Cases are up in parts of the United States, roaring out of control in India, and in West Virginia, vaccinations have slowed due to reluctance on the part of many citizens. Our county's statistics are good, but variants have shown up among college students, who could only get vaccinated in the last few weeks. They are just starting to vaccinate people in the 12-16 age range.

Joe and I were doing Shabbat services from home for a year. I sang the candle blessing at the beginning and the wine blessing at the end, and a song if there was a new Jewish month coming up. A few weeks ago, the synagogue leaders decided we could do the service alone, without a congregation, at the synagogue building. A family asked to have a bar mitzvah at the temple, and asked me to be a guest. Most people were not masked, and at the reception at a hotel, where the rule was to wear masks unless eating, the rule was not followed, except by the staff and a few of us guest. I was a little put off, although I genuinely like this family, and I guess no one was hurt after all.

Friday, May 21, we opened the synagogue for services. It was still broadcast over the internet. Thirteen of us came. Others have said they were not ready. There were no refreshments after. The idea was to not have people stand around chit-chatting, but they did anyway, and, as the night was warm, people hung out later on the steps. I enjoyed seeing people face-to-face, even masked. Everyone was glad to get out. Friday afternoon, I had confronted a maskless shopper at our local supermarket, but the manager came over to our argument to tell me that the market's national office had told them that starting that day, they would not tell people to wear masks. I was upset that the supermarket chain did not care that the City of Morgantown, where I am on Council, had not rescinded its ordinance mandating masks. At home, I emailed the Mayor, Council and Manager to ask if there was a change. Apparently, I didn't get the memo (there was no memo) that the rules we set up expired Friday night. So I was right technically that people should have been masked Friday afternoon. I didn't need to get into an argument with someone over it, and today, Monday, I wrote to the manager and apologized for my behavior.

We were invited to dinner at the home of congregants Saturday and Sunday; unmasked and inside, three couples Saturday  evening, and four couples on a screened porch Sunday late afternoon. We also attended a memorial to people who had died of COVID-19 at a church near our house. We were all happy to see each other in person, almost shocked and gleeful.

So things seem to be  open, and masks are optional for those of us who are more than two weeks from our second shot. It's liberating and joyous, and a little scary. Are we really immune? What about variants? Will this immunity last? And I feel some guilt about American "privilege" when I see what's happening in India and other  places in the world. 

I just finished teaching an online class for Osher Life-Long Learning called "The Great Hits And Albums of 1970."  I put up at least twenty videos on YouTube each week to play in class. They are still there, if you want to look under my name. At first, I just went chronologically through a list of charted albums, from a book I have. We saw the breakup of The Beatles, with their last albums, and the first solo albums from  each of The Fab Four. I played one cut from each album. We spent time with Creedence  Clearwater Revival, the Jackson Five, Three Dog Night, old-timers like Engelbert Humperdinck and Tom Jones (not so old then) and comedy from David Frye ("I Am The President"). We had second albums from Crosby, Stills, Nash (and Young),  solo albums from Stills and Young and Santana. We saw The Supremes without Diana Ross, and Diana Ross without The Supremes. I played tunes from British groups Traffic, Jethro Tull, King Crimson and The Moody Blues. We heard from Grand Funk Railroad and Quicksilver Messenger Service. I spent a lot of time researching the bands and the music. It was exhausting.

On the other hand, this is exactly the kind of interpretive cultural history that I trained for, but never used in real life. People in the class, who are all over fifty, and mostly over sixty-five were, for the most part, enthralled, with memories of their young days and some new things to learn. It was perfect.

Sometime around week three, an article appeared in one of the Sunday magazines about the girl in the picture from Kent State, May 4, 1970, with her arms raised and apparently screaming, as she knelt over the body of a student shot dead by the Ohio National Guard. She was a fourteen-year old runaway at the time, and the writer caught up with her, retired in Florida. The horror of that time returned to my consciousness. I was a junior at Johns Hopkins that year, and we shut down  the campus weeks early after that event. President Nixon and many of  his followers felt it was a good thing that college students were murdered. At twenty, I couldn't yet vote, but I'm proud to say I've never voted for a Republican for any public office. I sold ice cream from a Good Humor truck in the summer of 1970, and spent most of  my senior year depressed, trying to figure out what my adult life would be. I had no idea. Those times came back to me this spring.

I was saddened to see what happened to so many of the stars I highlighted: eleven year old Michael Jackson, so brimming with potential, innocent twenty-year old Karen Carpenter, still living at home with her brother and parents when their hit "Close To You" came out. Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix, both gone in 1971, John Lennon murdered in 1980, Duane Allman and Berry Oakley of The Allman Brothers killed in motorcycle accidents, John Ham and Tom Evans of Badfinger who both committed suicide. 

For the last class, May 21, I had fallen far enough behind to have forty-one albums I could have highlighted. Some albums I picked were Led Zeppelin III, Derek and the Dominoes, Jesus Christ Superstar, Idewild South by The Allman Brothers and Judy Collins' Whales and Nightingales, where she sang "Amazing Grace." She said she was hoping that would stop the war in Vietnam. For the last four albums, I picked albums that didn't chart that I like. I had The Beach Boys sing "This Whole World" from Sunflower, The Five Stairsteps sing "O-o-h Child," about things would get easier, Laura Nyro's cover of the 1962 King-Goffin hit for The Drifters, "Up On The Roof" and I ended with the ten-minute Latin jazz piece "Just For You" by Sweetwater, a relatively forgotten group from Los Angeles. Sweetwater sang "See the change in the world, just for you." The world didn't really change for me in 1970, and generally I'm not sure things are much better than they were then. As usual, I can't complain about my own life, despite missteps and hardships along the way. Other than being old, which I should have anticipated, but didn't, I am relatively healthy, financially more solvent than ever and blessed with a mate who got me through these last frightening months. 

This Is Us

 The S.A.G. Awards have been delayed this year because of the pandemic. I've been a member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) since 1986, and joined the Screen Actors Guild a year later when I had one line on General Hospital, which made me eligible. Now the unions are merged. Every year, the studios send out DVDS or allow one to stream their movies and television shows, with the hope that they will get votes in the awards program. It's a lot less glitzy and less exclusive than the Academy Awards, but it is actors voting for other actors. 

In Los Angeles, I often saw many of the nominated movies before the awards season. I haven't been in a movie theater since 2019. Joe and I don't watch television. I spend my time now with books, connecting with people online, and with my work on Morgantown's City Council. 

I've watched a few television shows online, and one movie, Minari, about a Korean family living on a farm in Arkansas. I saw an episode of the show about John Brown and about the girl who plays chess. They were good. But the one that's caught me up is This Is Us, one of the few shows from a traditional network (NBC). The shows they sent to stream are from the fourth and fifth season. I've watched some of it in past years, and I've always liked it. The first year it was nominated it took me some time to figure out the premise. It's a family, and the children in one episode are the adults in another episode. The glue is the father, played by the gorgeous (IMHO) Milo Ventimiglia, who is dead. We see him as a young lover, a husband and a Dad to the three children,  a son and daughter, and the Black child born the same day as the son, and raised along with him. 

What's hooked me on this show is the way the past lives on for the adult children, and for the mother. They remember everything, and we see everything, and how it plays out for them. The acting is terrific, and I find the foibles and hang-ups of the three grown children moving.

I'm writing this at 5 A.M. Monday. I've been awake since three. No reason particularly, it's just that after the third time one gets up to go to the bathroom, it can be hard to get back to sleep. When I'm up late, I think about my seventy-one years of life, and the things that have happened. I go over events from ages ago, and sometimes wonder how I got to where I am now. Often I think about friends and family who have died. March is hard for me anyway. My father died March 17, 1991, and my mother died March 18, 2003. So of course, I think about them, just as the grown children on This Is Us remember their father. 

In an episode in Season Four, the mother is diagnosed with a major health issue. She has remarried, and her husband is there for her. My Mom had a boyfriend when she became ill, who stayed with her through her illness, and helped me and my sister through our mourning period. He died a few years ago. 

It's been hard this last year for everyone. Friends have been quarantined because someone in their kid's school tested positive for the coronavirus. Others have juggled full-time jobs and children home from school; an older friend lost his wife, who was in a nursing home. He wasn't allowed to see her for months before she died. Jobs disappeared and people couldn't pay rent or utilities or buy food. I've been home with Joe for a year. We have not lost income, been sick, or had people close to us die. Still, we're dealing with the sadness of not being able to travel, to eat inside a restaurant (we do carry-out) or see people in person. Our closest friends, still, are in California. 

Like the characters in This Is Us, I still live in my childhood, my adolescence and my earlier adulthood, with the great things that happened, the mistakes and missteps, the grief over the loss of friends in the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s and 90s, the relationships I've screwed up and the people I've hurt and those who've hurt me. Facebook has brought back friends from years ago, and at my fiftieth high school reunion, now almost four years ago, everyone was so kind and loving. I'm still comforted by that. 

I don't want to get all maudlin, like some of the stories on This Is Us, but like those characters, I, and maybe all of us, need to acknowledge and deal with our demons, be better to one another and appreciate the love we have in our life.

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. 

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. 

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.

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

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."

Medical Check-In

I have healthcare through WVU Hospitals. I see a general practitioner annually, a cardiologist, dermatologist and allergist usually twice a year, and I have an annual check-in with a Medicare doctor. They GP, cardiologist and Medicare doctor  were scheduled for this month, but the general practitioner was postponed and they asked me to do an online with the Medicare doctor. I've seen the same Medicare doctor for four years, a soft-spoken Italian woman. This year they told me she was on leave and gave me a physician's assistant. There were complicated instructions involving an app on my phone, but they relented somewhat and said I could do it on a laptop. The app on the laptop wanted permission to go into all the other apps on my desktop and change them, so no. The phone app was better, but then there was a WVU app on top of that that wanted to access everything on my phone. When I clicked "No" it said I couldn't use it, so I said "Yes."' Later, I sent a note to WVU complaining.

The PA was an older woman  (I checked. Her degree was from 1979, so maybe sixty). She had issues with the technology. They always ask the same questions "Do you have rugs or rickety stairs?" "Do you have a bar in your bathtub to hold on to?" "Are you afraid in your house?" No, I'm afraid out of my house these days. They test your memory, and ask if you are depressed. "I'm a 70-year old gay man living in West Virgina," I said. "Of course I'm depressed." I said that.

I told her about being sick all of January after spending a glorious week running around Manhattan at the end of December. Is it possible I had a mild case of COVID-19? Mild, like not going out of the house for ten days, then no more than an hour a day for the next ten, not being well until the end of February. She told me there is a test, but we don't have it, and if you had it before, we don't know if you can get it again. The regular test for the virus would show if you had it, but you don't qualify for the test.

Meanwhile, our Governor wants to partly reopen the state this week. Maybe outdoor dining if separated from others (and if it ever stops raining) and haircuts. Our county is not included, because we are considered a "hotspot" in the state with 107 confirmed cases. My constituents are already asking City Council here in Morgantown to block off a lane on certain streets to add space for cafés on the expanded sidewalk. And Delegate Evan Hansen, from our district, and a scientist by training, points out that, although the state has recorded fifty deaths from COVID-19, statistics show that deaths in the state since the first of the year are running 1,600 above what one might expect, with most of the "excess deaths" in March and April. So maybe the pandemic is worse here than people think. Certainly everyone should be tested, and everyone should be covered by healthcare, not just rich people or people who are here "legally." People who lose their jobs, and thus their health insurance must be covered. You can't stop a pandemic if there is anyone excluded from treatment. Anyone.

Joe and I have still been going to the grocery store twice a week. All but one worker at our local Kroger is masked, but the vendors who come in to stock the shelves are typically not, and many of the customers are not masked, especially the younger ones. With pressure from the state and federal government to reopen quickly, I fear going out in the future will be terrifying. Even our city manager's office has proposed reopening. There's a meeting tonight (Tuesday) and I know some of us will object to opening city offices too soon.

In addition to my OLLI class and City Council, I've been reading a lot, five books at a time. I'm reading about the music from the Brill Building in the 1960s (my next class), a haunting collection of short stories from Carol Shields, purchased at a library sale in New Vienna, Ohio on my trip to Clinton County in December of 2018, a Pulitzer-winning book about people who are evicted, and how and why that happens. I'm reading Ta-Nehisi Coates' book We Had Eight Years, a collection of his writings during the Obama presidency with new commentaries, and Vikram Seth's more than 1500 page novel about India in 1951 and 1952, which I'm reading for the third time, A Suitable Boy. Coates attended my high school, briefly, I think, and twenty-five years after I graduated.

I read Morgantown's Dominion-Post and Charleston's Gazette-Mail every day, and Sunday's Washington Post and New York Times. We get Consumer Reports and Rolling Stone for me, and The New Yorker and The Economist for Joe. Joe has stopped reading news for the most part. It makes him too anxious. I have to read about the virus in New York City and the politics in Washington in short doses to keep from losing my mind completely.

I'm traveling in my dreams. Last night, I told the bus driver parked on 6th Street by the Los Angeles County Art Museum that I wouldn't be going on the trip to New York because I had been there with Joe in December, and last year with my mother and sister. I had a memory in the dream of visiting some elderly relative in The Bronx in an apartment house on a hill. I was, in reality, in New York with Joe in December, and in New York with my mother and sister (and nephew) not last summer, but in 2002. I haven't had relatives in the Bronx since the 1950s. That scene was filched from another dream. My friend and classmate (second to eighth grade) Rodger Kamenetz writes about dreams. Maybe I should ask him what this means.

The PA at WVU was only worried that I get up to pee five or six times during the night. She doesn't think it's heart failure because I run several days a week, and that seems to be getting better. Maybe it's kidney failure or prostate problems. She wants tests for all of those. The cardiologist told me that  my heart works at 40% of what it should do. My father died of kidney failure (refusing dialysis) when he was a year and a half younger than I am now. And Medicare won't cover a prostate test.

So, the future doesn't look bright. My generation had too many people to start out with. They sent some of us to Vietnam to reduce our numbers, ignored AIDS for many years to kill off those of us who are gay men, and now that we are old, we are expendable so that the economy can reopen. Without the possibility of contracting or contracting again COVID-19, I still have plenty of medical issues that could end my life. I was able to answer most of the questions in a good way. I generally remember to take my meds, I can still keep track of money, carry grocery bags, remember most things, cook, clean (although I pointed out that we generally don't). I don't fall or feel dizzy. My goal now is to keep it all going as long as possible. I said the other day "If I can have ten more years of decent health, I'll be happy." Then I remembered that one of my grandmother's friends said that sitting around the lake in her Florida condo development more than fifty years ago. I guess that's where I am now.