Barry's Back

 Two weeks ago, I set out to visit three counties from this year's list of twelve I wanted to visit, in three days. By the time I got to Lewisburg, in Greenbrier County, the third, I was fried. I napped in the motel for about two hours, had dinner at a Shoney's across the parking lot, checked out the internet and went to sleep early. I had planned to leave for home in the afternoon, but left early the next morning, feeling like I hadn't really explored Greenbrier.

I felt lousy, all sinusy and fatigued, from the end of October until.. now. I'm not perfect, but much better. 

I decided to visit Greenbrier County again, and stay two nights, giving me a half day and a full day. I had to wait for the January weather to improve, so I left Tuesday, January 24, which looked reasonable. I drove a back way, shorter, but taking possibly an extra hour, through Grafton, Philippi, Elkins and Marlinton. This looked shorter, but U.S. 219 from Elkins to Marlinton goes up and down mountains, twisting and turning. Although the speed limit is 55, there are at least a hundred signs recommending slowing down to 15, 20, 35, or 50 around the curves. The road was clear, but heavily graveled and salted, and I could see snow in the mountains surrounding the road. A day earlier, U.S. 219 would have been covered in ice and snow. There are ski resorts in the mountains. It was a beautiful ride, but I might not be tempted to do it again. 

I arrived in Lewisburg, the county seat of Greenbrier County, just after 2 P.M. The weather was just above freezing, but sunny. I looked for a few historic sites, and walked the historic downtown business district. Lewisburg advertises itself as "The Coolest Little City." That meant to me that there was an independent bookstore, always a plus. Unfortunately, the bookstore was closed for inventory this week and will reopen on Friday.

My hotel room is in the front of the hotel and there are trucks parked out front. They started revving up and making noise at 6 A.M. today. I slept a little after they were gone, but arose around 7. I had an itinerary: I wanted to see more in Lewisburg, then visit The Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, 12 miles to the east, see the town of Ronceverte (Greenbrier in French, supposedly) downstream from Lewisburg on the Greenbrier River and south on U.S. 219. From there, I planned to visit Alderson, with an interesting history, farther downstream from Ronceverte.

The weather forecast last night called for a winter weather watch, with possible snow and ice. This morning, the weather said there would be only rain south of I-64. My motel is a block south of I-64, and every place I planned to visit was farther south. 

The temperature was again just above freezing, but with torrents of rain all morning. I got soaked. I found the public library on the edge of downtown Lewisburg, and was shocked to see that it is a palace. I sat down in the reading area with the Charleston Gazette-Mail, and was dismayed to find out that the West Virginia Senate had passed a bill to allow people to carry weapons on college campuses. 27 of 28 Republicans in the Senate voted for it; all four Democrats voted against. The measure was opposed by the presidents and student bodies of every college in the state. 

I spoke with the head librarian, Ann Foss, and asked her how they got such a beautiful library in a county with one-third the population of Monongalia County, where the library is well- run and they try, but the building is a dungeon? She said it took five years of work by a dedicated group of volunteers, who cajoled wealthy donors into coughing up dough (my words, not hers). It got me wondering if we could do that in Morgantown. Near the library is a cemetery, where 95 unidentified Confederate soldiers, killed in battle in Lewisburg in 1862 are buried in a common grave shaped like a cross.

I headed out twelve miles east to the Greenbrier Hotel, on the edge of the mountains that separate Virginia from West Virginia. I got a visitor pass at the entrance by just giving the guard my name and phone number. It's quite a splendid place, built by the B&O Railroad early in the last century and expanded several times. It is now owned by our Governor, Jim Justice, and the upkeep alone explains why his coal companies can't pay their fines for environmental damage, and why their retirees find their promised health insurance cut off every other month. I glanced through the shops, where I saw a beautiful flannel shirt, but once I glanced at the $158 price tag, I made a note to find something similar at T.J. Maxx.

I drove back to Lewisburg, taking the truck route that skips downtown to head south on U.S. 219. I found the mall, with just a handful of stores on the outside open; the interior closed. There was a construction project going on at one end, but I don't know what it's about. There was a shopping center farther south with a Kroger store advertising that it was in Ronceverte, but it's a few miles north of there. I pulled into Wendy's in the Kroger parking lot for lunch as it was close to noon, and I didn't see anyplace else to eat. They used to have salad bars, but not anymore. I had a wretched chicken sandwich (skip the fries) with an unsweet iced tea. I walked into Kroger and bought an organic Bosc pear for now and a Cliff''s Bar for later. 

I was close to Ronceverte, so I stopped there and walked around in the rain. There is a B&O (now Chessie system) station there, although the trains don't stop. I saw a mile-long freight come by laden with coal. The commercial center of town is nearly dead, but the residential section on the cliff above doesn't look too bad. 

Alderson is off Route 63, southwest of Ronceverte on another country road. It's not just a song. Alderson is on the railroad tracks and the river, with an actual AMTRAK station, where trains stop three times a week. It was about 1:30 by the time I got there, and I saw an old gas station with an orange "Gulf"" sign. "Visitor Center" was painted on the front window. I went in and found "Fruits of Labor" coffee shop and bakery, created to help people in recovery. It had stopped raining, and was up to 40 F. Still, I was chilled and soaked, so I ordered mint tea and a chocolate chip cookie, and sat for a half hour, chatting with the staff and some other customers. Alderson was the home of Bricktop, the famous cabaret singer of the early 20th century, whose mother had been a slave. They had a walking tour map, so, refreshed and drier, I took the tour. There is a historic bridge across the Greenbrier River, separating the part of the town in Greenbrier County from the part in Monroe County. The story is that there was a lion who somehow got loose in the town, scaring the residents. Now there is an abstract sculpture of a lion next to the bridge. 

It's eleven miles north on route 12 back to Interstate 64, then a short jaunt back to Lewisburg. Driving in on 219 yesterday, before I-64, I saw a  dealer selling classic cars. It was 3 P.M. and I could have used a nap, but I decided to check out the cars. I told the man who greeted me that people my age used to go to the car showrooms when the new models came out when we were twelve, thirteen and fourteen, and imagine ourselves in the latest models. Rich people my age, like Jay Leno and Bruce Springsteen, have garages full of classic cars. I told him I just wanted to look, and he let me. Best bet for me would have been a 1990 Mazda Miata (with a cassette player!) for $17,000. 

I came back to the hotel then, read a bit and tried to sleep. A guy in a semi pulled into the lot, backed up, causing his truck to make those obnoxious beeps and waking me up. I slept a little more, went to dinner at Shoney's at the end of the parking lot, and, as usual at buffets, I ate too much.

I'm driving home tomorrow, about 180 miles. The weather forecast is not good, but I'll be careful and take the faster route.

I had energy all day today, and did everything I planned to do, without flagging. So maybe Barry is back!

                                             Reading area at the Lewisburg Public Library

                                             A posh boutique at The Greenbrier Hotel

                                               Steps leading from downtown along the river and the railroad to the        residential area, Ronceverte

                             The lion sculpture and the Greenbrier River Bridge in Alderson

                                        A 1953 Ford for sale at Greenbrier Classic Cars

The First Week

At our neighborhood Kroger on a too-warm December 30, the clerk, an older woman, saw that one of my bags said "Jewish Currents." She looked at it awhile then asked, "Do y'all do anything special for New Year's?" Joe would have said "It's not our New Year." I disagree. As an American by birth and by choice, it is my New Year. I said " We'll probably go out to dinner and be home by 9 P.M." 

We did go out to Lavender Cafe, a favorite Asian restaurant. We put on ties, which is rare for either of us. Joe wanted fish in black bean sauce with chow fun noodles. They told him it would have to be two separate dishes. I had pad Thai with chicken, what I always get there. Then we drove downtown for ice cream from a chain ice cream place. I don't remember the flavors, but we were home by 8 P.M. and asleep well before midnight. 

We were invited to an early party January 1 (4-8) by our friend Adrianne, the closest Morgantown comes to a society matron. Since the Dobbs decision, she's become a Democratic Party activist. She helped me and other Democrats with our campaigns. Not long before we left the house, I scraped my arm on the corner of a kitchen counter and a piece of skin peeled off. I knew if I went to the emergency room I would be there for hours, so I put an antibiotic cream on it and covered it with a pad and off we went. The party was extravagant. Adrianne is from Georgia, and she served "Hoppin' John," which I had never heard of. It's black-eyed peas, collard greens, and ham hocks. Adrianne sent me a message a few days before the party that she would have some without pork, for us and someone else who isn't Jewish, but doesn't eat pork. The veggie Hoppin' John was quite good, and there was plenty of food. My problem was sampling all twenty or so desserts. One resolution down the drain by January 1. 

I have medical appointments all through January. One last Friday was with a pulmonologist to discuss why my breathing is off. This week on Tuesday, I'm having an endoscopy, where they look down my throat into my stomach to figure out why I still have acid reflux. The week after that it's an appointment with the doctor who will take the cataracts out of my eyes.

I've been trying to visit one county per month within 300 miles of Morgantown, any state, in alphabetical order, since we moved to Morgantown in July 2012. I got held up, first with the pandemic, then with my campaign, which had me criss-crossing northern West Virginia, but not taking time to really explore. I figured if I started in November, and did three counties each month until June, I could be caught up. So the plan was to hit three counties this past week before my Friday office visit. The counties were Greene, Virginia, Giles,Virginia, and Greenbrier, West Virginia. I figured a half-day to drive, then an afternoon and the next morning to visit, and another drive in the afternoon. I managed to see a fair amount of Greene and Giles, but by the time I got to Greenbrier, I checked into the motel and crashed. It's 179 miles to Morgantown from Lewisburg, and by Thursday morning, I just headed home after breakfast.

Greene County is north of Albemarle County, where Charlottesville is located, and the south end of the county is rapidly developing as a suburb. I stayed in Albemarle County at a new motel in "The Usual Chain" about seven miles south of the county line, in a neighborhood full of strip malls and hotels, where it's nearly impossible to walk anywhere. I did manage to walk to a restaurant and a grocery store, but it wasn't easy. In Ruckersville, along U.S. 29, I found the tourist center in a 1920s farmhouse. The tourist lady and I got into a discussion. She's 60, born in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and has lived all over upstate New York (too much snow!) before coming to Charlottesville, where she lived for twenty years. She's glad to be gone ("It's not like it used to be!"). Joe's voice in my head says "Nothing is what it used to be, is it Mr. Granger? " " No, indeed."  I hear that complaint everywhere I go, including in Morgantown, where a woman I know, a civic gadfly, complained to me at Adrianne's party that Morgantown is not what it used to be.

Stanardsville, the county seat of Greene County, is still a rural small town, only a few blocks square. Half of the county was taken by the Federal government in the 1920s to form part of Shenandoah National Park. There is a monument to families who were forced to move off the mountain when the park was created. Even though it was quite warm when I was there (about 65 F.) a park ranger at the entrance to the park at Skyline Drive told me parts of the road were still icy and it was closed to the public.

Giles County is several hours southwest of Greene, just south of West Virginia. It's also in the mountains and pretty. It was a little cooler and overcast. I stayed 20 miles south in Dublin, Virginia. Much of the drive was on I-81, so it was a little easier than the back roads to Greene County. I stopped for lunch at a Sheetz in Staunton, a city I like and have visited. Sheetz is a gas station/convenience store/ restaurant, ubiquitous in this part of the world. I looked around a bit in Pearisburg, the county seat of Giles County, before heading to the motel. The woman at the desk suggested a place called "The Mason Jar" nearby for dinner. Another place down the road had a special on steak on Tuesday, but I normally don't eat beef. My sister and husband have both been on my case about not ordering what a restaurant is known for. This came about when I ordered chicken or turkey in a place known for crabs. There was a sign at The Mason Jar that the special was hamburger and French fries. I just about never eat that, but I ordered it, with American cheese on the burger and ketchup on the fries. It was excellent and cheap, but I could feel the difference in my body. Maddie, the waitress, came and sat with me. I was the only one in the restaurant on a rainy weeknight in January, although there may have been people in the bar downstairs. I was flattered because she'e 22 and pretty with tattoos and piercings. She told me her main job is at the restaurant, but she has a college degree in journalism and works part-time for a company doing publicity. I told her I had run for Congress in 2022 and she could look me up. She did. It says "politician, age 73" she said and gave me a look. "You can't be 73!" 

I spent the next morning in Pearisburg, looking around. There is a waterfall, but it was a four-mile round trip hike and I didn't think I could do it. I did drive up a mountain to Mountain Lake Resort. Part of "Dirty Dancing" was filmed there. I didn't find a lake. In town, I visited a thrift shop and a bookstore, Walgreen's and Food Lion. I bought cottage cheese, yogurt, a single serving of Cheerios and a banana, and ate lunch at a park in Pembroke, downhill from the resort, and east of Pearisburg. I drove from there through Narrows, a small town on New River, and then off to Lewisburg, which shouldn't have been far, but seemed like it was. On U.S. 219, there is a mountain wall, separating Virginia from West Virginia. In the northern part of the state, the boundaries were created by Mason and Dixon and Abraham Lincoln and don't seem to make any sense. 

Greenbrier County is large in area as West Virginia Counties go, and I drove through Ronceverte to Lewisburg, the county seat. I stayed just north of downtown. Lewisburg is a green and pretty town. I crashed and burned in the hotel. I got up for dinner and walked to a Shoney's restaurant in the same development as the motel. I was worried that I was wearing old torn-up jeans and thought I looked awful. In the restaurant, everyone was my age and older and was wearing old torn-up jeans, so I fit right in. There was a buffet, so I was able to eat healthier, except for the piece of fried chicken and the desserts. There is a bar in the hotel, and a woman I saw on my way out, who was smoking a cigarette just outside the bar, was still there, still smoking, with a tall, young, unkempt man, with wild red hair piled on top of his head. She went back in the bar, but the man, Phillip, stayed outside and we talked for a long time. His father is British, and he and the young woman are partners. They own a cattle ranch in Costa Rica, but he lives in West Virginia and does construction and other manual labor. He asked me to come in and have a beer, but I demurred. I told him I was too old to drink at 73. Like the woman, the night before, he didn't believe I could be that old. "What's your secret?" I said " I don't smoke or drink or do drugs." He and the young woman were both coughing. We talked for about a half hour, and by 7:30 I said "I'm fading. I have to go." All these people think I look young, but I don't feel that anymore. I want to go back to Greenbrier County, and really explore it. It was not in my congressional district, and I had never been there before.

I thought about going to urgent care Monday morning before I left, but I decided my time was limited, so I skipped it. My arm held up okay. It wasn't bleeding and didn't look bad until Wednesday night, when it was red and painful. Thursday morning it was oozing pus. I drove home, arriving about three, went to sleep, had dinner with Joe, and went out to urgent care. The doctor explained that because my tetanus shot was up to date, it held off the infection for a few days. If I had come in Sunday when it happened, it could have been stitched. They x-rayed my arm, and there was no bone or muscle damage. The nurse bathed my arm in peroxide and wrapped it in two layers. She said "It's easy to do this." I said "Easy for you. I can't do this alone and even with help it never works out." I cooked dinner and went to services with Joe Friday night. I felt clogged in my nose and ears, but basically good.

I rested a lot Saturday, doing my walk around the neighborhood without difficulty. Joe helped me change the dressing Saturday night. We ordered carry out pizza and stopped at Kroger for ice cream instead of going downtown to the retail chain ice cream place. WVU had a big basketball game ( Kansas, who won) and I didn't want to be out. 

The lesson? Stop everything if you have an injury and get it fixed right away. Also, don't try to do three counties in three days. I redid my schedule, looked at Year 12, July 2023 to June 2024 (Guernsey, Ohio to Harrison, West Virginia, alphabetically), and figured if I do two counties per month, I can be up to date by June next year. It's an attainable goal at least.

Here are some pics:

                                                            At Lavender Cafe New Year's Eve

Powell-McMullen House near Stanardsville, Greene County, Virginia, 1800, expanded 1842

Looking west from the north end of Greene County, into Shenandoah National Park. Skyline Drive through the park was closed for the winter.

                                                    Church in Stanardsville Historic District

                      Giles County Courthouse, Pearisburg, Virginia, 1836. The wings were added later

                                Abandoned movie theater, South Main Street, Pearisburg Historic District

            Biden got 23% of the vote in Giles County in 2020, but the Democrats make their presence known

               Greenbrier County Courthouse, Lewisburg, West Virginia, 1837, with later additions

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.

The Post-Election Rant

 Maybe it's too soon to write this. I need to heal both physically and emotionally from what transpired. I've had an ongoing sinus and bronchial infection since before Election Day. They swabbed me twice at Urgent Care and said "It's not COVID, not RSV, not flu." I had a flu shot in October. They couldn't tell me what was wrong, just to rest and hydrate. I'm not terribly good at either of those things. I try to walk in my neighborhood every day, about a mile and a half, and I do sit-ups, push-ups, stretches and a yoga pose involving balance most mornings. I'm always afraid that if I don't exercise, my heart will stop or I'll get fat. Emotionally, I don't know what's wrong. I went back to my former therapist, but I didn't have much to tell him, only to show him my paper calendar, scribbled all over every day in October, and totally blank in December. 

Three things made me ill. One was riding in the WVU Homecoming parade in a vintage Mustang convertible, which I loved, except it was cool out, and we were stopped for a long time, while the unfiltered exhaust from the car wafted back over me. I love old cars, but this 1964 1/2 Mustang had a 3-speed on the floor, no pollution controls, and an AM-only radio. It's a pretty car, a classic, but I'd rather drive my 2012 Suzuki. Another thing that didn't help was coming back one night from West Virginia's Northern Panhandle, about 70 miles away, driving uphill out of Wheeling on I-70, under reconstruction for what seems like years, going 50 in a 45 mph zone, in the left lane, where the right lane is about to disappear in a few feet, and there's a car there, and a giant truck getting up within two feet of my car, blasting his horn and flashing his lights at me. The trucking company was VSP. I regret that I didn't contact them as soon as I got home. The last thing to send me into a spiral, was when a friend in Morgan County said I should look at Nate Silver's "Five Thirty-Eight." I did and it said that I had a less than one percent chance of winning and that I might get thirty-three percent of the vote. 

My committee thought all along that I would win. I knew that this was an overwhelmingly Republican district. I went to as many events as I could in as many places as I could. I met some wonderful people, almost all Democrats, putting up a fight for their values. In Morgan and Hampshire Counties, I was fussed over by the Democrats. Morgan County found me an old Humvee to ride in for their Apple Butter Festival Parade. Neither Morgan nor Hampshire Counties had any other Democrats on their ballot. 

Alex Mooney, my opponent, never showed up anywhere in the District, even though he was unknown in north central West Virginia and the northern panhandle. His claim to fame was an endorsement from Donald Trump. His primary opponent, David McKinley, the long-time Congressman in out area and the Northern Panhandle, was endorsed in the Republican primary by our Democratic Senator, Joe Manchin. McKinley used to be a climate-change denier, but the last few years suggested we should study the problem for twenty years or so before taking any action. He is a totally-owned subsidiary of the coal industry. That didn't help him in the primary. I had no endorsements from anyone. The national Working Families Party endorsed me, but the local chapter head wouldn't return phone calls from my campaign manager. West Virginia Can't Wait interviewed me, and then said they couldn't endorse me. The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which endorses LGBT candidates, had me fill out a complicated form, then told me it would be sixty days before they could make a decision. I emailed them after sixty days, and they responded that they would not endorse me. The national Democratic Party, the DCCC, ignored me. All of these groups asked me almost every day to send them money for other candidates. The week of the election, I blocked all of them. 

Mooney and I were together on an interview with the Morgantown Dominion-Post. We took turns answering the same questions. I was nervous about going up against a five-term congressman, but I spoke more clearly and forcefully than he did, and in my opinion, I gave much better answers, even given that we are on opposite ends of the political spectrum. The article about the interviews, written by David Beard, who I think is a Republican-leaning reporter, made Mooney sound better than he was.

Still, the Dominion-Post endorsed me, which was a surprise. Not that I wasn't the better candidate, but that they tend to ignore me as much as possible. I also spoke to Leah Willingham, an AP reporter based in Charleston. We talked for a long time, but the article she wrote was mostly about Mooney's plan to challenge Joe Manchin for Senate in 2024. I ran into Senator Manchin at a West Virginia Federation of Democratic Women luncheon in Charleston, and I introduced myself. He said "Good luck to you" and walked away. His communication manager handed me his business card. I spoke with him, and requested an endorsement from Senator Manchin. He said he would talk to Manchin's campaign manager, who would get back to me. He didn't.

So Mooney won in 26 of the 27 counties. I won in Monongalia County, my home county and the second largest in population in the district. I beat Nate Silver's prediction of 33% of the vote by getting over 34%. Mooney announced a week after the election that he would challenge Joe Manchin for U. S. Senate in 2024. Manchin says he hasn't decided if he will run again. He's older than I am, so I can see his issue.

I met good candidates from all over the district, running for State Senate and House of Delegates. That "red wave" that didn't happen nationally, did happen in West Virginia. All of the seats in the House of Delegates were on the ballot; only twelve of one hundred seats were won by Democrats. In the Senate, Barbara Evans Fleischauer, a long-time House of Delegates member, lost a Senate race to Michael Oliverio, who had been in the Legislature as a Democrat at one time, but is now a Republican, and  the state representative of ALEC, the corporate lobbying group. The people who lost wanted to put coal miners' health above coal company profits, wanted to bring infrastructure money into West Virginia, reduce medical costs and expand Medicaid,  and bring back the Extended Child Care Tax Credit, that had lifted 40,000 children out of poverty in our state.

We're all depressed. I'm sure people had their reasons for voting for Republicans, who are anti-abortion, openly hostile to LGBT people and immigrants, and consistently put corporations over people. They support pollution, and are anti-public schools. Many people have talked about giving up, and if they can, moving away. I understand that, but now that I'm well-known, at least among active Democrats in the northern part of the state, I feel an obligation to stay and fight for my people.

Today, Saturday, November 19, I rested much of the day, although I got out to walk once the temperature went above freezing, and my physical symptoms are starting to subside. I'm out of politics for now. A friend, a retired union organizer, suggested I run again in two years. It's doubtful.

For now, I'm grateful to the group of women who managed the campaign, worked the website, created the graphics, put ads on Facebook and Google, and took care of the lawn signs. Democratic Party members in overwhelmingly Republican counties welcomed me with open arms; candidates for local offices became my friends. I had about two hundred donors, all friends, family members, people I met in the district and out, and people I don't know from out-of-state who must have heard about my campaign somewhere. I had no corporate money and ran an entire campaign on $25,000. I'm deeply grateful to everyone who worked or donated to the campaign, and I'm proud of what we accomplished.

The Heart

 I've learned how to be intuitive and read the signs. I had two instances of chest pain, one at the West Virginia Capitol in Charleston, in late July when I had 45 seconds to talk about why a ban on abortions is bad. This was after leaving home at 5:45 A.M. to get there by 8. The other time, I was walking my usual 1.5 mile route around my neighborhood, when I ran into my friend Eleanor, out with her dog. She asked how I was felling and I said "Great" then realized I didn't feel great. Then my campaign manager's husband, eighteen days younger than I am, died of a heart attack, and there was an article in the paper about how having COVID could mess up your heart. I had COVID in August. Also, my ankles were swollen, not a good sign. 

 I left a phone message for my cardiologist. The nurse called me back. She said "So you turned around and went home when you were walking?" Technically, no. I continued my route, uphill, only slowly. I'm like that. The doctor called me later and asked if I wanted a heart catheterization. I begged off, citing my campaign schedule (I'm running for U.S. Congress for the northern half of West Virginia). I agreed to a stress test for last Thursday morning, the day after Yom Kippur. I did great on the treadmill, going fast and steep, up to a heat rate of 146 bpm without chest pain. That afternoon, feeling good about the test, I walked a half mile to the PRT, West Virginia University's little trains that cover the sprawling campuses and downtown, and rode to a pro-choice rally on campus. I saw friends there and had the opportunity to speak. I thought about asking for a ride home from someone I knew who lives a few blocks from me, but decided to go back as I came. Yes, I was tired. I was walking the last few blocks, when my cell phone rang.

"Hi, Doc. How are you?" I asked. 

"How are you?" 

"You tell me." He said there was a problem in my heart, apparently where I had my original heart attack in 2003. So a catheterization was scheduled for today, October 10.

It took some time. I was there with my husband from 6:45 until 11:30. I  joked with the nurses beforehand, and told them about my campaign. They were impressed that I was married to a man for nearly fourteen years. I was impressed that my husband got up early and texted back and forth with my sister the whole time we were there, without telling me until we were home. There were other perks: a handsome young man shaved my arms and my groin. I asked him about his life and how he got this job. He's an undergrad at WVU, there is a short training period, and he wanted to work while he was in school. I admired his determination and work ethic. I would never have touched an old man, even in that extremely non-sexual way, when I was that young.

I was semi-out for the procedure. I sensed they were doing something, but I didn't know what. They were putting a camera through my arm to look at my heart. When it was over, the two doctors woke me and said everything was fine, they didn't need to do anything. I guess something was irregular, but not bad. The staff at WVU Heart and Vascular were all great, every one of them. The young man who assisted the nurses, the nurse who told me she gets up at 3:30 A.M. to go to work and has a 7-year old son, my cardiologist, who has worked with me for ten years, and the people who check you in and out. I respect and admire all of them.

My father died of heart failure at 69, and my mother at 75 of pancreatic cancer. I'll be 73 this month. I get that one can't expect to live forever. WVU Medicine still wants to operate on my left eye and look down my gullet to see what's cooking there. The skin people want me to put some crap on my bald head because they think I could develop cancer there. I'm a mess. And I see why people just give up and say "I'm not taking any more medical treatments." I'm still trying to work it all and stay healthy, and I understand how important it is that I have insurance (Medicare, basically) and don't pay for most treatments. I hope that this wealthy country can make sure someday soon that everyone is covered for medical treatments. I want to make that happen.

When I talk to college students about my campaign, I tell them this is my "capstone," the last thing I do before I graduate. If I win, I'll try for a second term. If I don't win, I won't run for office again (b'li neder, look it up) .

The people at the hospital all said I was lucky, lucky to meet my husband, lucky my heart is okay, lucky to be walking around nearly twenty years after a heart attack. If I were a Christian, I would say I was "blessed." As a Jew, I just say thanks to God for all the good things in my life so far, even knowing it won't go on forever. 

In "Interview With The Vampire," someone asks why there aren't more of them, since they can't be killed. And the answer is that they walk out in the sun, which kills them, after a hundred or two hundred years, because the world has changed so much and all the people they knew are gone. I understand that now. "My" era seems long ago, and I don't understand much of what goes on today. In "Lord of the Rings," Frodo sails away at the end, because he was bitten by the spider. He looks to have recovered, but he says he only stayed alive to write the story.

Maybe my next project will be to write the story.

5783, The Morgantown High Walk Out and "Bros."

 The Jewish year 5783 started September 25 with Rosh Hashana, and continues tomorrow night with Yom Kippur, a fast day, when God supposedly decides "who shall live and who shall die." The day after Yom Kippur, I will be at WVU Heart and Vascular Institute having a stress test to see if my heart is still working. It's inconvenient because I'm in the middle of a campaign for United States Congress. I am happy to be doing this, but not sleeping or relaxing enough and, yes, I'm stressed out. I never expected to work this hard at this age.

One thing I did, partly for the campaign, and partly just to show support, was go to Morgantown High School when there was a student walk-out last week. The issue was that the superintendent of Monongalia County School District said that, based on an opinion from an unnamed attorney, teachers could not put up gay pride flags in their classroom. I think only a few teachers had them, but those teachers and the students were angry that the flags disappeared, and the students staged a walkout after lunch.

Public schools have been attacked in the Legislature, by the Governor and right-wing pundits for teaching kids anything about racism or sex or anything that would make parents uncomfortable. I'm guessing this was a fear reaction on the part of the superintendent.

When I was in high school, more than fifty-five years ago, no one was gay. Many of us turned out to be gay years later, but not in school. Gay Pride flags didn't exist.I went to the demonstration without intending to speak, but a young woman got up and said "I'm tired of old, privileged, white cisgender men telling us how to live." When I had the chance, I grabbed the megaphone (which didn't work) and I said "I'm an old, privileged, cisgender white male... and I'm queer." I expressed my support for the students, and said that I had lost jobs because I was gay and that many of my close friends had died from AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s. I then pointed out that I was the first openly gay City Councilor in Morgantown and that I'm now a candidate for United States Congress. I knew two of the high school students in the crowd, and a young woman working at a restaurant told me this week that she had seen me at the demonstration. 

But what I really want to say to the students is this: In my school, the daring people were couples where one was Jewish and one Christian. Our neighborhoods, and therefore our schools, were segregated and the most shocking person you could date was someone from another religion. Two couples like that in my class were told "it can't possibly work out." One of the couples was pregnant before we graduated. Both came to our 50th reunion in 2018 (a year late), and the pregnant one recently gloated on Facebook about a 56th anniversary, and how people told them they wouldn't stay together. So here's my message to the students at the demo: "Look around your school and see who you like and could live with. You are not too young to do this. I was attracted to a fellow student in high school and I think he was attracted to me also. We could never act on that and because he was Christian and I was Jewish and we lived in different neighborhoods, we couldn't really be close friends. I wish I could have gone to the 50th reunion with him, and said 'See, it did work out.' I didn't do that, but in more than 50 years, you could go to the reunion with your same-gender, trans or non-binary high school pal. I hope you would say 'That Barry Wendell told us we could do this, and he was right.' Don't be afraid to love."

My husband Joe is the rabbi at our local synagogue in Morgantown and he's stressed about the holidays, and a hundred other things he has to do. My stress is mostly about my Congressional campaign and my health. I've seen reviews of the movie "Bros," called a "gay rom-com," unusual because the gay characters are played by openly gay actors. Joe was washing dishes after dinner when I announced I was going to the 7 P.M. show at a local theater. I was surprised that it was playing in Morgantown, since edgy movies don't often get here. Joe dropped the sponge in the sink and ran to get a jacket and off we went. It was definitely entertaining and sexy. The lead actors weren't young, but certainly cute enough, and there were supporting actors who were different shades of gay and trans and different races. That was the P.C. part. 

Billy Eichner, who plays the lead and cowrote the script has a great speech about how he was always told to "tone it down" and appear "normal" and how it took him years to understand who he really was and be able to be that person. Joe started rabbinical school at 47. I started taking acting, singing and dance lessons at 36, started studying cantorial music at 43 and entered politics at 66. We both were held back in careers we didn't really like because we were gay and clearly not "normal" people. Now, late in life, we both understand who we really are, and while as clergy and politician we still have to hold back a bit, at least we are fully aware of our strengths and weaknesses. 

I've read that the box office for this movie was dismal, but we loved it. It's well acted, charming, sexy, good to look at and there were some laugh-out-loud bits, some of which might only be understood by gay audiences. Joe and I were the only ones in the theater at 7 P.M. on a Monday. If it's only a movie for certain gay people (I think it has universal appeal) it was still worthwhile, and I applaud everyone involved in it. I was moved and my thoughts were provoked.

It's well after 11 now, and I have to work on my campaign tomorrow and go to services in the evening tomorrow night and most of the day Wednesday. If I pass the stress test Thursday morning, I have three local events the rest of the day, and I'm to be in a parade out of town Saturday morning. Joe is teaching a class tomorrow afternoon at Life-Long Learning before services. I'm glad we took time out to go to a movie where we saw better-looking (and a generation younger) versions of ourselves. We needed to laugh and cry and be out of our regular life for a few hours. 

I hope everyone is sealed in the Book of Life for a healthy and fulfilling 5783.

West Virginia Democratic Women August 8, 2022

I was invited to speak to this group on 8/8/22 Here's what I said:

I am Barry Lee Wendell,  the Democratic Party candidate in West Virginia’s Second Congressional District. The District is rated R +30, so a hard race to win. As a 72-year old Jew in a same-gender marriage, I may not be the best person to run for this office. Two of us stepped up, and I won the primary. 

I had a scare Friday. A friend, a recently retired high school science teacher in Long Beach, California,  a friend of at least thirty years, was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he was born and raised. His father had just died at 90 and they conducted a shiva minyan, a Jewish prayer service held every day for a week after a death, from the assisted living facility where his father had lived. Jonathan is married to a Mexican-American man who has a PhD. In early childhood education for children who lack language skills in both English and Spanish. George teaches elementary school in Long Beach. Jonathan and George have an adopted son who just graduated from high school this year. Jonathan’s father was born to a Jewish family in Warsaw, Poland, in 1931. A Polish family hid him and his parents during World War II. They all survived, but were not permitted to stay in Poland. They settled in Canada. 

Candidates in the United States have flirted with Nazi ideas, most closely, Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for Governor in Pennsylvania, who has a Jewish opponent, Josh Shapiro. In our own state, Delegate Danielle Walker has faced threats, including from a man wearing Nazi paraphernalia when she was at a Black Lives Matter rally in Preston County. 

The attacks on women’s rights, starting with the Supreme Court’s majority vote overturning  Roe vs.Wade, is a prelude to worse things. I attended the so-called hearing on HB 302 in Charleston two weeks ago. While Justice Alito said this doesn’t mean they will try to overturn same-gender marriage, Justice Thomas said it very well might. Ruth Rowan, a delegate from Hampshire County who introduced an anti-abortion amendment last year in the Legislature  said “West Virginia is a Christian state” as her reason for introducing the bill. I wrote to her and told her there is no established religion in this country. I worry about people like Jonathan and George and their apparently happy and well-adjusted son, Jimmy.

I make it clear in my campaign that “Mountaineers are always free” and that we are all entitled to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” I always say I am pro-choice, a religious Jew, and married to a man, Morgantown’s Rabbi Joe. People often tell me I’m brave. The truth is that my father died at 69 and my mother at 75. I’ll be 73 by Election Day and I don’t see a long future ahead of me, nor do I have a career that will be upended by a defeat in this election. 

I have a dedicated group of volunteers. I love traveling around the state, I think I write and speak well. In Los Angeles, I studied both writing and acting. I don’t have the technological skills of today’s third graders, and I prefer that someone else raise money. I’m grateful that I have people who have volunteered to help or take charge of those things. 

We have about eighty donors to the campaign, all friends and family across the country, and people in West Virginia who have heard me speak or seen me online. I can’t match Alex Mooney for money, and I tell people not to fret that they don’t have enough money to send me. I tell them I’m grateful for every dollar, and I am, and that they should tell their friends and neighbors about the campaign. 

Alex Mooney has done nothing for West Virginia. He voted against the various Infrastructure and Build Back Better Acts, he voted against getting our veterans who are ill from burn pits the benefits they deserve, against lowering the cost of life-saving drugs like insulin. He has said “ Life begins at conception” and “Marriage is only between a man and a woman.” That gets personal for me. 

Liberal institutions have not given my campaign their support, and my sister called me to say that she saw in The Washington Post that the national Democratic Party wouldn’t contest the incumbents in West Virginia. Danielle Walker, the new vice-chair of the West Virginia Democratic Party, has spoken at my events and touted my candidacy online, but that’s the extent of state support. My campaign has reached out to County chairs in the counties in my district. I’ve gotten support and encouragement from Berkeley, Hampshire, Marshall and Tucker Counties. Individuals in Mineral and Wood Counties have reached out to me.

Joe Statler, the lone Republican delegate in Monongalia County, saw me in Charleston. He laughed when I asked him to vote against banning abortion, and asked how my campaign is going. I said “It’s going great. I’ll be a shoo-in once Mooney and Trump go to jail.” It was my turn to laugh.

This is the choice: Do we just want to let it go that we have a corporate extremist ideologue in Congress, or are we willing to fight to bring real democracy by backing a non-corporate, open-hearted and open-minded candidate who wants people in West Virginia to have better lives. I ask for your support and encouragement in this campaign. Thanks you for inviting me and allowing me to speak.