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.
