Why did Bernice bob her hair?

"Bernice Bobs Her Hair," F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story published in the May 1, 1920, issue of the Saturday Evening Post. It was his first story to receive national attention. (Thanks, Wikipedia, for the image. I  wear your [Edit] T-shirt when I'm editing.)

I lived in 1919 for five years. It was the mid-to-late twenty-teens and, physically, I was in Cheyenne, Wyoming, but my mind was in 1919 Denver. This is the year my grandparents migrated to Colorado. War puts people in motion and the Great War  did that. But other factors were at work. Young people were restless, as we were to see in 1920s literature. We have always been part of a moveable feast in this country. We value the ability to get up and move. No state border guards to show our papers to. No permission needed if we decide to quit our job and move cross-country to take another one. Relationships break and partners seek new pastures, new people to connect with. 

Some move for their health. That was never more true than in the 19-teens when the flu pandemic and tuberculosis caused many to get up and go. In John Green's book "Tuberculosis is Everything," we see the rise of TB sanitoria throughout the western U.S., land of clean air, dry climates, and expansive vistas. Some cities got their starts with TB, places like Pasadena, Calif., and Colorado Springs, Colo. Denver's air, when it wasn't choked by those winter air inversions and coal smoke, was pristine, just the thing for lungers, as TB patients were called and not in a nice way.

So I spent much of my 20-teens in the 19-teens. I suppose part of me will always be there. The novel that arose from the project, "Zeppelins over Denver," is nearing publication. I've written a follow-up since, this one set in 1922. And I am always at work writing stories and blogs. I've surpassed my 10,000 hours of creative practice. I'm a bit tired of practicing and want to get on my way to doing and finishing and enjoying. 

I'm still hooked on the era. My Millennial daughter Annie phoned yesterday. She was deciding on a haircut for a job interview. She talked about getting a bob. 

"Bernice bobbed her hair," I said. 

Annie didn't recognize the literary reference but suspected it. "OK, Dad, who's Bernice?" 

"From the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, " 'Bernice Bobs Her Hair.' " 

"What happens, Dad. A sad ending, right?"

I had to think. "I don't remember. It's been awhile."

"It's not Gatsby-like, is it? Grim and filled with messages about a corrupt society?"

"I'll have to get back to you on that."

So I pulled up "Bernice Bobs Her Hair and Other Stories." I was about to send it to my Kindle when I came across an  audiobook version. I began listening to that, took a break for lunch, and when I returned, I found a "Bernice" graphic novel just released in 2024. The cover illustration intrigued me and I downloaded that. I stayed up late to read. Glad I did. My neighborhood is dark and quiet at midnight, as is my house. Peaceful. My laughs echoed down the hallway and might have reached my slumbering wife but she didn't mention it the next morning.

I did not remember the track of this story. I must have read it in grade school, junior high, high school. Now I do remember another notable story of that era, "Why I Live at the P.O." by Eudora Welty. Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game" was an eye-opener. They all were in the same Catholic Church-approved collection as "A Bottle of Milk for Mother" by Nelson Algren and something by Hemingway probably one of the Nick Adams stories. I linger over those stories now. They are deep, wild, and funny, what I missed out on as a teen.

I loved "Bernice Bobs Her Hair." I had so much fun with the graphic novel adapted and illustrated by John Paizs and published by Graphic Publications. The story was first published in May 1920 in the Saturday Evening Post. Its popularity cased the Post to publish another Bernice Story in November that included a color illustration of Bernice. Fitzgerald was paid real money by the Post and it helped launch his career. In 1920, writers earned a living by writing stories for popular magazines. This has not been true during my time as a writer. 

Go read "Bernice." A pleasant journey during troubled times.

Paranoia strikes deep, into your heart it will creep

Happy New Year.

We are glad to say goodbye to 2020, the Year of the Pandemic. It also was the year that a majority of voters and Electoral College tallies booted Trump from office.

But not soon enough.

He's done plenty of damage to our democratic republic since Nov. 3. Call it a massive temper tantrum or Trump's reveal of his fascist inner self. He always wanted to the Da Boss or Der Fuehrer, as if he could ever be a leader to those of us with a heart and soul. 

Interesting reading in the New Yorker about America's authoritarian tendencies. Adam Gopnick writes in "What we get wrong about America's crisis of democracy." His main point is that authoritarianism is always with us and it behooves all of us to battle it all of the time. 

The default condition of humankind, traced across thousands of years of history, is some sort of autocracy... America itself has never had a particularly settled commitment to democratic, rational government. 

He goes on to talk about demagogues such as Barry Goldwater and Joseph McCarthy. Roy Cohn even rears his ugly head, as he did in "Angels in America." Cohn counseled McCarthy "in all things conspiratorial" and, not surprisingly, was Donald Trump's mentor.

As Steven Stills wrote and Buffalo Springfield sang: 

Paranoia strikes deep, into your heart it will creep. It starts when you're always afraid. Get out of line, the men come and take you away.

You are not paranoid to see an autocrat behind every tree. In the Trump administration, they are political appointees in very important positions. They also are GOPers elected to Congress and, alas, to the Wyoming State Legislature. Although they talk about them a lot, they don't believe in democratic principles. They are always with us, Gopnick says. He notes this:

The temptation of anti-democratic cult politics is forever with us, and so is the work of fending it off.

Damn. Just as we thought that all of our work is done here. Biden is in, Trump is out. Depending on what happens next week in Georgia, Democrats may even control both houses of Congress. Can we now rest on our laurels, as bloated as they may be from 10 months sitting in easy chairs avoiding the plague?

No.

The authoritarian Goldwater said something about eternal vigilance. That's what we have to be -- eternally vigilant. No rest for the weary, those of us whop have been involved in progressive politics most of our lives. We work hard to get Democrats elected and then relax. While we're at play, the bad guys are marshaling their forces, raising money, and forming PACs and think tanks to capture the next election cycle. Scary news this morning: Trump is the GOP front-runner for 2024. He will be merely 78 at election time, the same age President-elect Biden is now. If Trump wins (God forbid) he will be 82 when he gets impeached in 2028, the same age Generalissimo Francisco Franco was when he died in 1975 just in time to be a buzz-phrase on SNL: 

And this just in -- Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead!

After a year such as this one, it's painful to hear that our work is not done but just beginning. We can never let up. Retirees such as me cannot go to Florida and play pickleball all day. We can go to Florida but, the first thing to do after buying up all the sunscreen in Walgreen's is seek out fellow Democrats and get involved. Voting is important but just a tiny piece of this. Work for candidates. Volunteer for good causes. Attend city council meetings and, when necessary, speak up on behalf of accountability. Write biting letters to the editor and use humor when appropriate -- this will make friends among progressives and befuddle authoritarians such as Trump who were born with no sense of humor. 

Democracy is not easy. If it were, everyone would have it.

Pandemic Year 2020: A casual lunch with old friends and poetry

Met my friend (and my daughter's godfather) Dick a few weeks ago along with his wife Mary. Personal encounters have suffered during the pandemic. It's almost like a vacation when you get a chance to see old friends in person. We were appropriately social distanced in Cheyenne's Outback Steakhouse in the middle of a Monday afternoon. The couple from Longmont had been at a ranch near Dubois for Mary's school reunion. Mary wore a maroon mask with her school logo, Dick wore a generic mask and I had on one from the Colorado Rockies. A few months ago I began getting masks that showed something personal. The Rockies seemed have cool ones and, after this season, need all the help them can get. I like Black Lives Matter and Biden/Harris 2020 and VOTE! I may spring for those as they also mean a lot to me and the country.   

My friends and I were arrayed at a distance at a three-top table. We talked about old times and ate a late lunch. Dick recited some of his new four-line poems. He is writing more concise verse these days because, as he said, nobody reads his 50-line poems. There is some truth to that. Even though I have plenty of leisure time, hyperactive lives seem to crave brevity even when it's not necessary.

Dick and Mary both are writers. Mary has published a great biography and is a weekly newspaper columnist. Dick writes poems about spirituality and religion, not unusual topics for an ex-priest. Dick wrote this poem which he read to me yesterday and e-mailed me this morning. It's worth repeating as it is rare to have a poem written for me. It's happened before but the occasions are so rare that I remember it. A former Wyoming Poet Laureate wrote me a poem of condolence after my brother died. It was a wonderful thing to do.

In ancient times (BPC -- Before Personal Computers) people wrote poems for all sorts of occasions. Traditionally, England's poet laureate had two jobs, to write a poem for the new year and one for the monarch's birthday. In the 1800s, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, expanded those duties to writing about important events. The best known of these is "Charge of the Light Brigade" commemorating a British regiment's sacrifices in the Crimean War. I once had to memorize the poem as punishment in after-school detention at St. Francis Catholic School in Wichita, Kansas. I still remember many of the lines: "Cannon to the right of them/Cannon to the left of them/ Cannon in front of them/Volleyed and thundered;/Stormed at with shot and shell,/Boldly they rode and well,/Into the jaws of Death,/Into the mouth of hell/Rode the six hundred." 

The Victorian Era spawned many a heroic verse. That came to a bloody halt in the Great War. 

But back to personal poems. Dick wrote one for me and I wanted to share as poems should be published, one way or another. 

Mike Shay 

by Dick Lechman 

I saw God in Shay 

in his backyard garden 

acting the plant master 

like his friend God, clay master

Thanks, Dick. I would like to think that God exists in me and is revealed as I tend my garden. 

 Amen.

Summer of the Purple Pod Pole Beans and White Dwarf Cucumbers

Gardening vs. Farming.

Hobby vs. Growing Crops to Feed the Family and the Nation

I'm a hobbyist gardener. I am not growing a garden because my life depends on it. I am gardening because I enjoy growing things. I've been a gardener for many years in varied climate zones, from Wyoming to Florida. Unless you have a greenhouse or a Botanic Gardens Conservatory and Propagation Center, it's impossible to grow a Wyoming winter garden. Florida even names towns Winter Garden. When I lived in Central Florida, I had orange trees in my backyard and a garden in the ground, mostly growing root crops. The oranges were bitter because they were not grafted for sweetness. We used them to play fetch with our two big dogs. Root crops like potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots and beets went with our winter meals. I grew a few tomato plants and it was a constant battle with the bugs and rot and rust. Plenty of moisture, though, a factor when you're gardening at 6,220 feet. Cheyenne gets some rain but it's fickle. I see black clouds gather in the west, thunder shakes the rafters, the storm produces three drops of rain, and moves on the Nebraska. You're welcome, Huskers! Or black clouds gather in the west, thunder shakes the rafters, and ice balls rocket from the sky, shredding plant leaves and wrecking roof shingles and cars. 

It's the latter that made me put together a container garden for the summer of 2020. That, and lack of a gardener's mobility. The past few summers, I've gotten my gardening fix from propagating plants at the Botanic Gardens. And then coronavirus swept the world and forced the city to close the Gardens and send home all of its high-risk volunteers 65 and over. It didn't help that I'm a heart patient which makes the virus double deadly for me. 

I ordered seeds from the Laramie County Public Library Seed Bank. They were delivered by the United States Postal Service, one of the public services necessary for a functioning democracy (much like the library and the fire department). I planted them in pots in mid-May and was on my way. I planted in all of the containers I have accumulated over the years, some used by my Aunt Patricia who gardened in the challenging clime of Estes Park, elevation 7,523 feet. 

There were a few scary moments in May when night temps dipped below 40. Common wisdom here is that you wait until Memorial Day weekend to plant your seedlings. I had mine in pots so I could keep the young plants inside at night although I left out the seeded pots. The ground should be warm for germinating and mine remained warm enough to launch plants when the time came. 

You also have to account for strong cold winds. One year I put out seedlings on Memorial Day and the following week came a wind cold enough to freeze tomato leaves. So I had to start again. Hail is terrible, too. One summer I came home from work just in time to fetch my pots to the porch before the hailstorm came. I tried to put a tarp over the ground plants but got pelted by a few big stones and retreated. Golf ball size, mainly, with some bigger ones. The ground was covered when the storm moved east. My poor plants. I thought about farmers out on the open prairie who lost entire crops of soybeans and corn and probably their home gardens too. My loss was insignificant although it stung at the time.

Why bother? It's gratifying to grow things. This year, it helps keep away the Covid-19 blues. The food is great, especially the Gold Nugget cherry tomatoes I grew from seed. I've already picked enough for a half-dozen salads and pasta dishes with more to come. "Early and prolific," read the library seed packet. I grew Purple Pod pole beans in three containers. One is in a big pot with two Dwarf White cucumber plants and a flower mix that Chris got from the YMCA. The beans are an eerie purple and green and grow to absurd lengths if you're not vigilant. I took apart one of the pods to make sure no mutant life forms existed inside. I've eaten the beans in salads and stir fry and I swear that, late at night, garbled voices come from my innards.

I have pots with herbs and flowers, too. Can't barbecue without rosemary and basil and oregano. The lime and Thai basil plants that I bought at Lowe's have been prolific. The two rosemary plants not so much. I think I may have used the wrong potting soil or it's just not a great year for rosemary which comes from the Latin ros marinus which means "dew of the sea.". A few summers ago when I had only a herb garden, I plucked rosemary branches every third night and put them on the grill just for the scent. The next time I grilled, the 6-inch rosemary plant looked untouched. 

During Covid, newscasts have talked about the return of the Victory Garden. Mine could be one but I am not winning any wars over hunger. Lots of people are new to gardening. 

We've also been seeing a renaissance of farmer's markets. I haven't been this year due to the virus. I love our Saturday farmer's market. I go for the smells of roasting hatch chilis late in the summer and the Colorado peaches early in the season. I buy homegrown veggies from small farms in Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska. I buy homemade olive oil and salsa, honey and peanut butter. 

In Wyoming, we have the Food Freedom Act where people can sell to us right from their homes with no government intervention. Meat producers have to use a licensed kill facility but can package and sell from the back of their pickup. I've had grilled grass-fed steaks and they're yummy with Colorado corn and mutant purple beans from my garden. 

Did you say something?. 

Dear Republican U.S. Senators: Stop messing with mail-in voting

Letter I sent to Wyoming U.S. Senators Barrasso and Enzi:

We are lucky here in Wyoming that we have easy access to voting and competent county clerks to ensure that the rules are followed. I've seen many election days as an election judge. When we switched from paper to electronic voting, all of us received training on the new systems. 

Up until the most recent primary, I always voted in person. The experience was gratifying. When I worked the polls, I had many opportunities to work with old friends and to see my neighbors arrive, enthusiastic to do their civic duty. It always seemed like a holiday, even when I had to take the day off from my state job to be at the precinct.

Now that I am retired and partially disabled, I no longer work the polls and no longer venture out to my polling place which are now called voting centers instead of the old precinct set-up. I voted absentee and so did my wife and daughter. My wife is a type-one diabetic and we both are worried about Covid-19 as are most high-risk seniors. So we requested and received absentee ballots without needing an explanation because that is how Wyoming does it.

We will also vote absentee in the general election. All of the news about the slowdown at the U.S. Postal Service concerns us. Yes, we can always go to the city and county building and our ballots into the secure drop-off box. But this also means that we have to drive down there, find a parking place, put on our masks, and go to the drop-off box. What makes absentee voting by mail so preferable is the obvious ease of the process. Mail delivery is quick here in Cheyenne. I often mail a bill one day and see the debit in my account within days. 

So why is Postmaster DeJoy messing around with a system that works so well? I am suspicious of the timing of the dismantling of the quick-sorting machines and removal of convenient postal boxes. Absentee and mail-in voting depends on a dependable USPS. Mr. DeJoy assures us that the system has not been slowed down and then we see that he was a major donor to Mr. Trump and was then appointed to the postmaster position. As I was always told as a government employee, do not create any conflict of interest or even the appearance of one. 

Mr. DeJoy appears to have a conflict of interest and should be removed. I also urge you to support the House bill that guarantees the efficiency and funding of the USPS. If you don't, we can only assume that you support Mr. Trump's campaign to sabotage the post office and suppress the vote. You do believe in everyone's access to the polls, don't you? Then make sure that the functions of the American voting system, once the model for the world, will not be interfered with. 

We are watching.

Sincerely,

Michael Shay

P.S.: When I write letters like these, I tone it down. I want the senator or most likely his staff members to read it and I can register my complaint. If I wrote a letter saying what I really felt, it would start something like "Dear Sen. Barrasso: You miserable son of a bitch and Moscow Mitch ass-kisser. Stop f*cking around with our right to vote." Something like that. There are many ways I could phrase it. I am a concerned citizen and elder of my tribe so I am supposed to show a little couth, even when blogging. I try to do the same on Facebook because I know that Big Brother FB is watching. So, if Republicans keep up their attacks on voting, I may have to adopt a tougher stance. My missives may not get read but I will feel much better. 

Recalling Obama's big night at Denver's Mile High Stadium in the summer of 2008

As I watched President Obama's speech Wednesday night, I thought back to that late-August night in 2008 when he made his acceptance speech at the DNCC in Denver's Mile High Stadium. 

I was part of a capacity crowd that celebrated Obama's first major step along the way to the presidency. I was the embedded blogger with the Wyoming delegation, We sat at the 30-yard-line on Invesco Field, a field where the Denver Broncos would host their home opener in just a few weeks. On Sept. 14, the Broncos beat the San Diego Chargers 39-38 with a two-point conversion at 29 seconds left. Quarterback Jay Cutler had what might have been his best game as a Bronco. After an 8-8 season, the Broncos fired the old coach, hired a new coach and traded Cutler to Chicago. The team was not in the playoffs on the week of Jan. 20 when Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president. In the ensuing 11 years, the Broncos would get a new quarterback, lose one Super Bowl and win another. Obama won reelection in 2012 and experienced much drama in his eight years courtesy of the Know Nothing Republicans and Fox News.

But that Aug. 28 night at Mile High was glorious. More than 75,000 packed the stadium. That may be more than attended Trump's inauguration but that number could vary on whether you're listening to Trump's fever dreams or to reality.

I have never returned to that field of play, now named after Empower Retirement which was called Sports Authority Field before that. Naming rights are tricky things. Companies come and go, fortunes rise and fall. Empower was created with a merger between Great West Life and another insurance company. Great West insured my family during my career with the State of Wyoming. Great West was OK but battled us on payments related to drug and alcohol treatment and mental health care. Its replacement, Cigna, is much more accommodating. In the U.S. version of free-market capitalism, you never know upon what field you stand. The groomed turf can be pulled out from under you at any time. There's a metaphor in there somewhere. 

That Aug. 28 night 12 years ago is forever embedded in Mile High Stadium. The team brags about the fact that it's the only NFL football stadiums in which a presidential candidate made his acceptance speech and later went to to two terms as president. 

This year, the Dems' presidential candidate made his acceptance speech in an empty convention room. The Year of Coronavirus. The Broncos will play in an empty stadium. That will be eerie. Mile High has a reputation as one of the loudest and rowdiest in the NFL. Not sure if the Broncos will follow baseball with cardboard cutout fans and, in some cases, projections of fans filmed in earlier seasons. The team has quite an imagination so why not?

During the next sixty-some days in 2008, I worked hard to get Obama elected. I walked neighborhoods and called registered voters in Wyoming, Colorado, and Pennsylvania, I worked for Dems jockeying for Wyoming House and Senate candidates. I watched a lot of football too. Obama won, of course, over the late John McCain. Obama fielded a well-oiled machine that delivered votes from some unexpected places (not Wyoming, alas). Obama repeated in 2012 over Mitt Romney. A presidential two-peat is like back-to-back Super Bowl wins. The Broncos did that under John Elway who we don't talk about much because he is such a Trump ass-kisser. Looking back, McCain and Romney were moderates. Republicans grew sick of losing with qualified moderates so turned to a billionaire and white supremacist and reality show host, Donald Trump. They were helped by decades of GOP voter suppression and gerrymandering. And voter apathy, can't forget that. 

So, the democrats held their pep rally this past week and are fired up and ready to go. The GOP Hatefest will light up the airwaves next week. We can look forward to rousing speeches by The My Pillow Guy and Scott Baio. It will finish off with a stemwinder by Donald Trump which will be filled with the cruelty and hatred he has specialized in during the past four years.

Damn. You'd think that the more qualified and more talented team -- the Democrats -- could breeze over the crooks and liars of The Trump Team. A lopsided win, like the Team Formerly Known as the R*dskins over the Broncos in Super Bowl XXII or the Seattle Seahawks over the bumbling Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII. You'd think that unless you didn't know history and the vagaries of human nature. Demagogues have subverted democracies before. If Trump wins, we can forget about our democratic republic. It will be nostalgia, just like the rousing cheers for Obama in Mile High Stadium in the summer of 2008. 

Two senators from Wyoming who don't have a clue

Here are two GOP senators from Wyoming who don't have a clue about what people are facing out here. I sent them a plea to pass the HEROES Act that the House passed more than two months ago. The Republicans in the Senate, led by McConnell, sat on it for two months hoping COVID-19 would go away magically just as Trump believes. It did not go away. Millions are unemployed and all they care about is making sure businesses can't get sued by people who lost their jobs, possibly their lives, during the pandemic. This is the same bunch who passed a trillion-dollar tax cut for rich Americans. They just don't care. And they are as cruel as Trump, their ringmaster. 

Dear Michael, 

Thank you for taking the time to contact me about the ongoing federal response to the COVID-19 crisis. It is good to hear from you.

I appreciate you sharing your support for H.R.6800, the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act.  America is in an unprecedented health and economic crisis. To save lives and save our economy, Congress has a duty for the duration of this emergency to assist Americans who are facing uncertainty. American's deserve assurances with their jobs, in their homes, and when sending their children back to school. Any relief funding passed by Congress should be temporary, targeted, and focused on keeping Americans employed, getting our students back to school, and providing our healthcare professionals have the resources they need.  The Senate is considering several targeted measures that address impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and I look forward to debating these measures along with other proposals that will be brought forward during that debate.  Please know I will keep your thoughts in mind as the Senate continues its work on this issue.  

Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me about the coronavirus crisis. I value your input and look forward to hearing from you in the future.

John Barrasso, M.D.
United States Senator

Barrasso's net worth in 2018 was $15,928,012 according to Open Secrets. He is the 14th-richest U.S. Senator. Wall Street Journal (9/2019), using info from Roll Call, estimated $2.7 million. I'm sure it's higher now, in the COVID-19 year of 2020, especially after he gave himself a sweet tax cut.

 

Dear Michael:

 

The outbreak of COVID-19 is being carefully monitored and the federal government is working closely with state, local, tribal, and territorial partners to respond to this public health threat.

 

I voted in support of the third Senate package to combat the outbreak of COVID-19, the CARES Act (S.3548), and the Senate passed it unanimously. This package helps to fill in the gaps of the previous packages and provide the financial assistance needed for small businesses and employees in order to avoid massive unemployment lines and a complete economic collapse of our country.

 

In terms of a future relief package, the legislation is still being debated. I believe it is important for Congress to spend responsibly. I recognize the unprecedented crisis presented by COVID-19 and I have supported the necessary response, but we have already run up a $2.7 trillion deficit this year, more than triple the size of the deficit we ran at the same time last year. Our focus with any new legislation should be helping kids get back to school, getting Americans back to work and providing health care resources needed to fight this virus. In the meantime, it’s important for folks to continue to slow the spread within our communities by wearing masks and socially distancing when possible.

 

I will certainly keep your thoughts and concerns in mind as I continue to work with my colleagues on this critical issue. Thanks for getting in touch.

 

Sincerely,

Michael B. Enzi

United States Senator

Open Secrets (Center for Responsive Politics) shows Mike Enzi worth $2,137,028 in 2018 (ranked 48th in Senate). Wall Street Journal shows a mere $500,000. Still, Enzi takes his dough into a retirement paid for by you and me, the great unwashed who do not deserve a weekly unemployment bump of $600 because the U.S. has a big budget deficit created by some mysterious force that has nothing to do with the U.S. Senate.

No road trip for me

I decided to cancel my Aug. 3 appearance at ARTCORE'S Music & Poetry Series in Casper. I was on a double bill with musician Lauren Podjun. Writer Gayle Irwin will replace me. I met Gayle through Wyoming Writers, Inc, our statewide writing group.

Why did I cancel? Covid-19. Knowing ARTCORE Director Carolyn Deuel as I do, I am sure that the Bourgeois Pig venue would be as virus-safe as possible. ARTCORE is one of the first local arts agencies in Wyoming. Carolyn has been at its helm for most of that time.

That said, there is one overriding problem. I am a high-risk human during this pandemic. I am 69 and a cardiac patient since 2013. I experienced a widowmaker heart attack and, because I delayed getting help, now walk around with an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator or ICD in my chest. This makes me a prime target for the coronavirus. From the beginning, the top three riskiest groups are the elderly, cardiac patients and diabetics. I'm in the first two categories and Chris is one and three. Young, healthy people have caught the virus and died. Often, they also have pre-existing conditions. Any complication can be a deadly one. Young people like to gather and when they do, they pass along COVID-19 and being it home to older parents and other family members.

This doesn't have to be. Wear a mask. Practice social distancing and, if possible, stay home. And wash your hands. Sanitize kitchen and bathroom surfaces.

Wyoming Governor Gordon conducts COVID-19 briefings and has issued a series of orders. Those policies never included a mandatory mask policy which puts us in the company of such Coronavirus success stories as Florida and Texas. In March, the Governor did issue some strict policies that closed many businesses, performing venues, restaurants and coffee shops. He has gradually loosened the restrictions although he had to extend the latest one from July 31 to Aug. 15 due to a spike in infections that put us on the New York Times and Johns Hopkins COVID site hot zone charts. Today, Idaho is on the list due to rising cases. Tomorrow, it may be your state.

When I do get out of my bunker to the grocery store, I note that many people do not wear masks. I do. Employees do. Others don't. We've all seen mask-shaming and no-mask-shaming incidents online. I don't tell people what to do and that's the prevailing attitude in Wyoming. But the science is clear -- masks help protect you and those around you. Social-distancing does too, and that has been suggested to businesses around the state but not required. Grocery stores guide you with floor signs which keep us separated in line. Arrows point out directions for carts to travel, although that's violated regularly. No head-on casualties thus far, as far as I know.

No travel for me. No reading from my new book. That means I have to stay home to rewrite and revise, a major part of any writing enterprise.

So, in a time when getting out of the house is a blessing, I am not getting out of the house. I have lots of books and know where to get more without leaving home.

P.S.: U.S. COVID-19 death toll passed 150,000 today.

Hunkered down -- four months and counting

I posted my first blog about the pandemic on March 15. In "The pandemic comes to Wyoming," I mused about the deadly virus and the impact it could have on us. I don't have to read between the lines to know I was scared. The spiky virus laid in wait for us all. I had nightmares. Already there was a toilet paper shortage.

Four months to the day later and I'm still here. Still hunkered down, for the most part. I'm high risk so wear a mask when I go out. In the beginning, the only masks I could find were bandannas. I then graduated to hospital-style paper masks that my daughter brought home from her part-time job. Later I ordered cloth masks and we now have plenty. Not enough to share with all of the maskless shoppers at the grocery store. But enough. I still tend to buy too much food when I shop, especially non-perishable items such as canned milk, canned fruit, soup, and pasta. I'm versed on various ways humanity can perish thanks to books and movies. I go all the way back to the bomb shelter building days of the 1950s, duck-and-cover classroom drills. The threat was real then. We thought atomic fire would end us. Other threats lurked, less bombastic ones that could do us in.

And here we are.

If you add to that an imbecile in the White House, economic meltdown, global warming, racial strife, and unhinged evangelicals, we are in deep shit.

It also is a great time for creativity especially if it involves humor. Dark humor. The darker the better.

To be continued...

Life in the Time of Distancing

My sister-in-law, Ellen Berry, died last week in Florida after a three-year bout with lung cancer. She was 61.

She was a wonderful person and I will miss her. My wife Chris, her only sibling, was with her at home for five days before she passed. Chris was lucky to get a flight out at a decent price. She was in shock when Ellen’s husband Chuck called with bad news on Saturday morning, June 20. He came home from work on Friday evening and found her on the floor. She was rushed to the hospital and put in ICU.

Chris and I scrambled to get her on a plane from Cheyenne to Daytona Beach. She flew Delta on June 23 on a bereavement fare. She was thankful to be with her sister in the final days.

Chris stayed in Ormond Beach for the planned celebration of life. This morning, she called and said that it had been cancelled due to the coronavirus. In case you haven’t heard, Florida is one of the states where Covid-19 has spiked. Chris’s family decided that gathering for a wake was too risky for all, not just for the over-60 high-risk crowd but for everyone. Many young people have been admitted to hospitals in the last few weeks. They have also acted as disease spreaders, the Typhoid Marys of their generation.

It’s a sad thing when you can’t get together to send off a loved one. This is happening all over the world. We need these farewells just as we need the welcoming ceremonies for newborns. Joy and sorrow must be shared. It leaves a hole when it is not. Weddings, reunions, graduations all need to be shared. For those who can’t attend, the photos are gifts to be shared. They also provide mysteries for future generations. Who is that guy with Aunt Mary?

I feel that lack of togetherness today. Chris and I have been hunkered down at home since mid-March. No St. Patrick’s Day parties and now there will be no Fourth of July parties. I miss human contact. I grew up in a big family and we thrived on human contact. I’m also a writer and spend a lot of time by myself, just me and my imagination and my laptop. When I emerge from my den after composing a few pages of prose, I seek out people to bother. These days, most of that bothering is done by phone, e-mail, Zoom. My family members get together almost every Sunday on Skype. It’s a welcome connection. My siblings and their kids are mostly in Florida, a few hours’ drive from each other. I live in Wyoming, a few days drive or a day-long airplane ride away. We have family clusters in Georgia and North Carolina. A niece works in New Zealand and my sister and her husband live in Lyon, France.

While it is wonderful to see and hear relatives via laptop, I miss the in-person gatherings. In December, I attended my niece Meghan’s wedding in Atlanta. It was such a pleasure to shake hands and hug, so much of it in the four days I was there. It’s a small thing, this contact with another human, but now I miss it when it can’t be done. 

A pleasure center activates when we touch. It’s a rush. Sometimes, it’s scary or sad, as when a family member jets off to take a job a half-world away. Our rushed farewells are now at airport curbside. Maybe we get in a quick farewell as we hustle to the security line-up. Back in the day, you could see your wife all of the way to departure gate. You could hold hands and kiss right up until the final call. You could stand by the plate-glass window and see the plane back up and taxi out to the runway. If you were lucky, you could watch as it took off and disappeared over the horizon. Maybe it was worse to linger at the airport instead of being shooed away from the unloading zone by a robotic voice. 

My grandmother Florence, born a decade before the Wright Brothers flight, took my brother and me to lunch at the old Denver airport, Sky Chef I think it was called. We ate and watched the planes. There even was a balcony where you could stand outside and watch all of the comings-and-goings. I was fond of airports. I wasn’t always fond of flying, especially when I jetted away from loved ones, or jetted toward a loved one’s funeral.

Sadness has crept into everything. Hunkering down has had a price. People have lost friends and lost jobs. Police have killed people just for being black. We have a president and an entire political party that thrive on cruelty. We can’t go out to the brewpub and have a beer with an old friend. I wear a mask and I expect you to wear one even though I can’t see your smile.

During all of this, we have discovered humanity in unexpected places. Creativity, too. Let’s let those thrive as we figure a way out of this.

As the hymn says, gonna lay down my sword and shield

A viral plague kills thousands and forces millions to hunker down at home and practice social distancing when out in public.

Black Americans killed on the streets by rampaging police.

Millions of Americans lose jobs due to record unemployment.

The President of the United States hides in the White House guarded by armed troops and a fortified fence.

Riots in the streets.

Armed secret police of unknown origin face down peaceful protesters in the nation's capital.

This could be a blurb for a best-seller or an action-packed new movie.

Instead, they are news headlines.

That was the week that was. The U.S. is in deep do-do. Trump can't be blamed for it all. But he can be blamed for making it much, much worse. He is totally unfit for the highest position in the land. Where other leaders unite, Trump divides.

What makes it worse is that Trump is a lifelong racist and a narcissist. He can't look weak even when he is. He has all the traits of a schoolyard bully.

What does a person like this due when threatened? We've seen it. Brute force. He is the commander-in-chief and thus he commands unlimited power, or so he believes. He wanted to unleash troops on protesters. It's been done in the past but you have to go back the Vietnam War protests to see it in action. It happened but not to the extent we feared. Heads were beaten, rubber bullets fired, tear gas employed, arrests made. But the protesters didn't give up and critics of both political parties and a phalanx of retired U.S. generals condemned Trump's tactics. Protests have calmed down. The rioters have not been identified but you know they were radicals intent on watching the country burn. White supremacists. Anarchists. Black radicals.

The protesters cause is just. Peace prevailed. Many police sided with the protesters. A Tennessee National Guard unit laid down their shields after protesters sang the anthem of nonviolent protest.

I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield
Down by the riverside.

And study war no more...

I have a part to play in this. Not sure yet what it is. But it's clear we need to change the way government employees treat minorities. Not just police. Everyone up and down the chain of command including police and the President. I was a government employee for 25 years. Now retired, I wonder what I could have done better. As many have said, racism is a systemic problem. I am not a racist. But as a white guy, I worked for a system that perpetuated certain racist policies. It was built that way. I may have thought about that briefly during my public service. But how did I transform it to serve everyone's needs?

I was slightly woke but really blind and now I see.

What did I do in the arts that made a difference? And what can I do now?

Stay tuned...

The robin and the solar system

Between sunup and sundown on a May day, a robin built a nest on my solar system. When I say solar system, I mean to the control box that monitors the roof's solar panels. The greater system, the one that is powered by the sun, is also the source of power for my house's system. The electrician and crew spent a week installing the metal boxes and the panels. The robin watched from her perch on an elm branch. She pounced when the networks of steel and aluminum and copper were in their proper spots. Hers is a fine nest, a work of art. Robin sits in the nest and stares when I arrive on the patio to water plants or grill a burger. If I linger too long, she flees and and watches me from an elm branch. She is wary of the bipeds who built her foundation. We're known for our mischief. Any living thing can tell you.

Hunkered down at the pop-up drive-in on a May Wyoming evening

Our first public outing of the COVID-19 era was to a combination drive-in concert and movie. It was held in a pasture on the Terry Bison Ranch south of Cheyenne. It had a gentle slope so cars could park and most of us could see the inflatable screen and the covered bandstand. 

When we arrived about 7:15 p.m., a line of cars, trucks and SUVs stretched out of the ranch onto the I-25 service road. Chris said it was a sign that everyone is just aching to get out and do something normal and fun. I agreed. A great idea that entertains and keeps us safe. Kudos to the ranch and Blue Pig Productions. They planned for everything including the rain squall that swept through just as the headliner band started playing. We had seen the storm front assembling as we drove to the event along Terry Ranch Road. A typical one for late May. A black swatch against the sun lowering over the Rocky Mountains. Pretty and ominous. But these storms are hit or miss. Sometimes you get missed and sometimes you get hit. 

This one hit us just as we got settled into our space. The sounds of the warm-up band came over the car radio at 90.7 FM. Raindrops speckled the windshield as Sean Curtis and the Divide took the stage. As the band played the rain fell harder, swamping our windshield and the band. But they performed uninterrupted until the lead guitarist's amp shorted out and he had to flee. The rest of the band members played on, wet and cold. "I can't feel my fingers" said the bass guitarist after one of the songs. But they played on. Good stuff, too. A C/W band with a touch of alt-country and Americana, a sound a bit like Drive-By Truckers or Turnpike Troubadours. 

The emcee, Dominic Syracuse, had prompted us to applaud by honking our horns. We did. By the time the band wrapped up their last song, the sky was clearing and the sun colored pink the retreating clouds. 

We picnicked in the car. Daughter Annie joined Chris in a preemptive strike at the port-a-potties. Annie returned with some chicken nuggets and fries from the snack stand. I ate ham and cheese and crunched chips. Cookies for desert. I drank sparingly because I didn't want to face the trip to the johns with my walker. I would have felt silly, all those people staring at the poor cripple poking along on the prairie. I don't know why I should care but I do. More my problem than anyone else. 

Everyone returned to the car and the movie started after some of the staff adjusted the screen that kept tilting in the post-storm wind. Wyoming not the place for anything inflatable. We're seen inflatable Halloween and Christmas decorations flying down our street. Unanchored bounce castles have gone airborne in summer gusts. A brisk wind came through the annual Superday event a few years back and blew tent awnings and brochures and hot-dog wrappers to Nebraska. 

But "Back to the Future" came on with the darkness. There was only a brief period when the wind tilted the screen and the actors' heads disappeared. I forgot how much fun the movie was as I hadn't seen it for decades. I didn't think of COVID-19 for two hours. That's what it's about, right? We want it like the old days when people could venture out safely and go to concerts and drive-ins. We want to be closer to people that a car-length away but that's still in the future. 

The ranch staff cleared us out quickly. They had some cleaning-up to do and we had the trek home via the interstate. I hope the ranch does it again. This high-risk guy wants to stay safe but I also want to be back out in America again. Summertime America. It's a short season here in the High Plains. Short and glorious.

See you next time. 

Still sort-of hunkered down somewhere in Wyoming

Listening to "Dear Prudence" on WPR's Throwback Thursday. Song from the Beatles White Album. Not sure if I bought the White Album but listened to it a thousand times. Many of the songs were in the movie "Across the Universe," a movie that tugged at the nostalgia that comes with the 1960s.

Beautiful morning here in the High Plains. Heard some good news yesterday. The Cheyenne Botanic Gardens Conservatory opens for business on June 2. Only the ground floor will be open. Each group gets an hour to tour so more people can visit. Not sure how we're supposed to time them. "All right, people. Scram. Your hour's up. Vamoose!" Still, it shows a slight return to normalcy. I've been in touch with the staff over the shutdown. Talked to Amelia to see if we could arrange an August literary reading at the Conservatory. Amelia said that she's not booking anything new for the summer. They are going to rent out rooms for paying customers but nothing new until fall. Rick Kempa of Rock Springs asked me to schedule a summer reading for his new book and mine. I will try the library.

Masked up yesterday and ventured out to Lowe's to buy some plants and replace a window screen. I got the plants but no screen. I did get my money back. I had to wait in line six feet behind the first customer. Two people behind me. My cart was filled with plants, herbs and a few veggies, and some potting soil. The clerk, not happy, gave me my money back and pointed out the aisle where I could find screens if there were any. There weren't. Did find some twine to make a trellis for my herb rack. Trying to do everything on the cheap in this pandemic year. I planted herb seeds in egg cartons and then into pots. But two weeks later and no sprouts. The egg carton approach does not work for me. The soil and the egg carton gets soggy and I think it damages the seeds. Anyway, as I dug up the transplants yesterday there were no seedlings there, nothing of anything. I replaced the nothing with something. I had requested the free seeds from the library seed bank and thought I would be growing my garden from scratch this year. The other day I did plant seeds for cukes, pea pods, and pole beans and am waiting for them to sprout. I have two growing racks on the back porch that get full morning and early afternoon sunshine. I'll be doing more transplanting today.

Local business are opening up. A new downtown craft brewery opened on Monday. Black Tooth Brewery's second location -- its first in downtown Sheridan. During my work travels I visited the Sheridan site and liked it. Sheridan has a neat downtown with lots of indie businesses. Great coffee shop that I frequented when I was at the Jentel Foundation writing a novel that I am now going to finish. The pandemic has been deadly for indie businesses and reviving downtowns. Trends for the last decade have been toward gathering places most located in downtowns that had seen better days and were trying to come back. Black Tooth is the fourth microbrewery in downtown Cheyenne. They've been closed since March 18 except for takeout and the brewing of hand sanitizer. Chronicles Distillery downtown made lots of hand sanitizer and I bought nine spray bottles since none could be found in the grocery stores. Chronicles donated most of their supply to health workers, hospitals and clinics. Then they started peddling the goods to the citizenry. I ordered online and then pulled up outside for the exchange of the goods. Other customers were ordering some of the locally brewed whiskey and vodka which is a whole different kind of sanitizing..

Chris, Annie and I will attend a concert and drive-in movie Saturday night at the Terry Bison Ranch. Tickets for each car were $25 and we registered online. Must stay in our cars which may be a challenge for those of us of a certain age who need to pee. Not sure how we will manage. Might have to leave mid-way through "Back to the Future."

It's ugly on the national scene. Our ugly president wants to reopen the economy no matter how many people it kills. 93,000-plus have died in the U.S., and there are probably many more that went uncounted. The U.S. leads the world in confirmed cases. There's been no direction from the federal government and that's a crime that Trump and the G.O.P. will have to answer for it at the ballot box. Trump is trying to prevent people from voting by mail but this is a state responsibility and not a federal one. Democratic Party-led states are having none of the president's blather and neither am I. I ordered a mail-in ballot and plan to use it. The better the turnout the more likely it is that we can get rid of the criminal element in D.C.

Chris, Annie and I continue to take safety precautions. Annie wears a mask during her shifts at Big Lots. Chris and I wear masks going out and if someone needs to come in the house.

Wyoming reports 11 deaths statewide with more than 500 confirmed cases. The worst hot spot is on the Wind River Reservation in Fremont County. The Navajo Nation in Arizona has more per capita cases than New York and New Jersey, the epicenters of the virus. Very sad. Minority communities in urban centers are being hit hard. All of this points out the many holes that exist in our slapdash health care system. And did I mention that the GOP-led feds are clueless in the face of a national emergency?

Barrasso and his GOP pals have a COVID-19 message: Forget Trump, Blame China

Note of paranoia from Wyoming Senator/Sawbones John Barrasso.

Somehow I got on his email list. I haven’t yet unsubscribed because it is so telling to see what he’s sending out to his broader constituency.

On May 1, I received an e-mail with some helpful hints about the pandemic. It opens on a hopeful note: “We are all in this together.” I had to laugh. Together? The senator, thanks to deluded Wyoming R voters and those who stayed home, has a guaranteed job through 2024. A guaranteed paycheck and staff goes with it as does health care paid for by you and me. He can get a COVID-19 test whenever he wants. He’s become a millionaire since going to Congress. If Trump is reelected and the GOP keeps its majority in the Senate, Republican Barrasso will be up for a major leadership role. Meanwhile, he joins #MoscowMitch in opposition to the new stimulus bill approved by the House and now a-mouldering on Mitch’s desk.

In an interview on, of course, Fox, Barrasso said that :

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "must be living on Fantasy Island" if she thinks her $3 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill will become law…. It's bloated and partisan, and it's a payout to her liberal constituencies. 

Barrasso may look thin on TV but he's usually all about being bloated and partisan. Remember, he voted for Trump’s tax cut for the rich and he hovers around #MoscowMitch in every blasted press photo and every televised news conference.

In the meantime, Barrasso and his right-wing pals stir up a war with China. It’s a dandy way to take our minds off of Trump’s ineptitude in handling this health crisis. Here’s his May 8 message, courtesy of Friend of John Barrasso:

The coronavirus has changed our daily lives and brought our economy to a standstill. 

We’ve had to adjust to social distancing and making tough calls between health and safety, and keeping essential parts of our country going. 

China’s response, or lack thereof, led to our current pandemic, shutting entire countries and the global economy down. Rather than warn the world, it appears the Chinese government chose to cover up their deadly mistake.  

Mike, China has a history of being a bad actor, from human rights violations to privacy concerns, and their role in the coronavirus pandemic is no different. We must hold China accountable - will you add your name to our petition? 

SIGN THE PETITION 

We must stand together to hold China responsible. Not only did China choose to withhold information about the virus, they have been actively pushing propaganda and attempting to deflect blame to the United States. 

We must take a stand. Add your name to join us in holding China accountable. 

HOLD CHINA ACCOUNTABLE 

Thank you for your commitment to our fight, 

Team Barrasso

I disabled the links as I don’t want to lead you astray. If you must blame China, don’t buy anything at a big box store or in one of America’s disappearing malls. That’ll show ‘em.

Pandemic Days: Wyoming Legislature convenes and experts try to get a handle on virus death count

Our legislature gathers for a short special session tomorrow to decide how to divvy up the federal pandemic stimulus funds. I’d vote to give it all to hospitals and health care workers especially those in smaller communities. These small hospitals have been hit hard by lack of elective surgical procedures which pay most of the bills. They could also be helped by Medicaid expansion. Unfortunately, the majority-GOP lege has decided to once again study the issue until the Obamacare-related program rides off into the sunset just like Obama.

Governor Gordon has stipulated that the opening of the state shall proceed in a step-by-step plan that most seem to be ignoring. Social distancing and mask-wearing have been crucial in stemming the COVID-19 tide. The state has registered 600-some cases and only seven deaths. We see numbers similar to those in neighboring Montana and South Dakota, other places where social distancing is the norm. Populous Colorado, on the other hand, has more than 20,000 cases and 1,009 deaths. Neighboring Weld County on our southern border shows 2,190 cases, the fourth-highest tally in the state – the top three are in the Denver metro area.

Whenever my wife and I go out, we wear masks and carry hand sanitizer. We had a dryer delivered yesterday because our old one conked out. The delivery guys showed up with no masks so we happily lent them some. They put them on once we explained our high-risk status. Chris and I are both Democrats and are much more open to COVID-19 due to our Godless status and opposition to Donald Trump. Governors of hard-hit urban states have been labeled “blue-state whiners” when they complain about lots of death and no testing or PPE for health care workers. Apparently health care workers in red states just quietly get sick and die. Especially vulnerable are staff members in nursing homes and long-term health facilities. One-third of U.S. fatalities come out of those places. Since retirees congregate in warm places such as Florida, Arizona, and Texas, many of the casualties are from those states. My stepmother was one of them (see previous post).

Other visitors to our house have included Instacart delivery people. They don’t come in but leave the groceries on the porch. We had the crew from Skyline Solar here ten days ago to install the wiring and panels for going solar. They wore masks to the job at our request and were very nice. One young worker was tasked with adding support beams in our attic. It couldn’t have been easy working in our hot attic while wearing a mask and work gloves. When he reappeared, he was drenched in sweat. The electricians were in and out and wore masks. 

Our house was built in the middle of the previous century so needed some upgrading to join the 21^st century. They installed a new breaker box on the patio wall and tackled the interior breaker box with a mixture of awe and frustration. We have one of those punchbox types so popular in the 1950s and woefully inadequate in 2020. The electrician said he could replace it with a new breaker box but it was a bit expensive for our current budget. So we had to make do.

Annie is a Millennial so she orders food via Door Dash and all of the rest. A few days ago she ordered a chocolate pie. I like pie but the only kind I’ve had delivered is a pizza pie, a name that’s fallen out of favor. Chris and I now are used to the doorbell ringing and opening the door to find a sandwich or wings or burger in a bag on the porch. We wipe them down when we bring them in. All of us have to trust in the cleanliness of the purveyor when it comes to the making and bagging of the food. It would be so much easier if stainless steel bots did all of the work but we’re not there yet. Before the pandemic, most fast-food outlets took pride in assembling your order while you watched. Subway is a prime example. So is Chipotle. Not sure how that will change when bistros return to some sort of normalcy.

One thing about COVID-19 deaths. This morning’s New York Times carried a Nicholas Kristof op-ed about the virus’s true death count. It’s not a number that Trump will like but it’s more in keeping with what experts such as Dr. Fauci say. Taking into account “excess deaths” during the first seven weeks of the pandemic ending April 25, the U.S. has already passed the 100,000 casualties mark. In the early weeks of the plague, people were dying of COVID-19 but because they had other maladies and they were elderly, their deaths were logged in as heart failure, respiratory failure, acute dementia, etc.

I know at least one example of this in my own family. My stepmother bore a litany of health issues before the virus snuck into her nursing home and killed her. But the cause of death wasn’t listed as such until she was swabbed for COVID-19 at the medical examiner’s office because she came from a nursing home experiencing an outbreak. The test came back positive. So, her death was not recorded properly by the State of Florida. That state’s excess death count is estimated by the NYT as 1,800. In Wyoming, its 100 which puts our tally at 107 instead of 7.

We don’t really know what we’re dealing with. Coronavirus causes strange sicknesses in children. It applies the coup de grace to old people in nursing homes and the younger workers who take care of them. So many outbreaks have occurred in these facilities from Florida to Colorado. A tragedy and a travesty. In the nurturing industries, the people we pay least work with our young children and our old people. It’s almost like we didn’t care about our future and our past. Our present isn’t doing so well either.

Telling the story behind the statistic

My stepmother died at a Florida nursing home on April 9. She was 94 and suffering from an assortment of maladies. She had end-stage celebral atherosclerosis. She was blind and bedridden and very weak.

It was coronavirus that dealt the final blow.

Our family didn't know it at the time. Her obituary said nothing about coronavirus because nobody knew she was yet another COVID-19 casualty. The nursing home, the Opis Coquina Center in Ormond Beach, Fla., said nothing. It was only through the efforts of the Daytona Beach News-Journal and other Florida papers that the medical examiner's office issued the names of those in nursing homes diagnosed, mostly post-mortem, with COVID-19.

This is from an April 20 article in the News-Journal by Nikki Ross:

Constance Shay, 94, was an Ormond Beach woman with coronavirus, who died of end stage cerebral atherosclerosis on April 9 at Opis Coquina Center, a nursing home in Ormond Beach, according to the Volusia County Medical Examiner’s report. 

Her medical history includes coronavirus, vascular dementia, hypertension, GERD and atherosclerosis. 

Since Shay resided at Opis Coquina Center, which has an active COVID-19 outbreak, her cremation was flagged. She was swabbed for COVID-19. 

She’d been a patient of the nursing home since 2016. Over the years her health declined and by February 2018 she was unable to care for herself or make decisions, and she had lost a significant amount of weight. She was placed in hospice. 

Her death is not included on the Florida Department of Health’s list of coronavirus related deaths.

The newspaper article was the first time that any of us, including my Florida siblings, knew about this. The newspapers dug deep to get this info and find out that the many of the Central Florida nursing home deaths were not included in the state's count of coronavirus-related fatalities. This is crucial because Florida is one of those states accused of undercounting the death count for political reasons. The Florida Office of Health reported this morning that more than 40,000 in the state have tested positive and 1,735 have died.

Today's New York Times had this:

While just 11 percent of the country’s cases have occurred in long-term care facilities, deaths related to COVID-19 in these facilities account for more than a third of the country’s pandemic fatalities. 

At least 28,100 patients and workers have died at nursing homes and long-term care facilities for the elderly.

None of this tells us who Constance Shay was as a person. She was Connie to us. She and my dad married in 1992. Both had lost spouses. My father had been devastated by my mom's death of ovarian cancer in 1986. The CPA was keeping busy doing people's taxes when he dropped by Connie's house to square her with the IRS. One thing led to another and they got married and stayed that way until my father died of prostate cancer in 2002. Connie stayed in Ormond Beach and eventually sold her house and moved into a long-term care facility. The last time I visited from Wyoming she had lost most of her sight. My sister and brother-in-law came over from Winter Park to visit and chat and read to her. She had other visitors from the family that remains in Florida, which is quite a crowd.

Connie was a lifelong Catholic like my father and they attended mass together every Sunday. One of their hobbies was tending to the flower gardens at St. Brendan Catholic Church, the same place Chris and I were married in 1982. They also had a verdant garden at their home. They both read a lot.

They are both gone now. I don't know if I will one day meet with them in heaven because I am no longer certain there is such a place. But I do know that we are made of stardust that will be floating around the heavens for eternity. We will run into each other somewhere in the cosmos. I hope to tell my birth mother and my father that we found a cure for cancer at long last. I hope to tell Connie that nobody ever died alone again and had the real cause of their death printed 11 days later in the morning paper.

Hospital stories on Nurse Appreciation Day

On the one side, you have Trump and his narcissistic minions.

On the other, you have nurses.

I align myself with nurses. They are on the front lines of the fight against coronavirus. They run toward the danger and, thanks to the Trump administration's incompetence, lack the necessary PPE to keep COVID-19 at bay.

Today is Nurse Appreciation Day and it launches National Nurses Week which ends on Florence Nightingale's birthday on May 12. They should be celebrated everywhere and every time. Mostly nurses are taken for granted until we are gasping for breath with COVID-19 or, in my case, from a heart attack.

I lie in the hospital bed in the ER. I am hooked up to oxygen and poked and prodded by doctors and nurses and techs. Chris is with me so she holds my hand when she can. When she can't and the nurses are tending to me, I feel a strange sense of calm.

I see my mother's face in theirs. She was a nurse from 21 to her early death at 59. Tomorrow, May 7, is her birthday. Happy 95th birthday, Mom. She took care of strangers and she nursed her family. I was born in December of 1950 at Denver's Mercy Hospital. Mom trained there at the tail end of the war thanks to the U.S. Navy and the Sisters of Mercy. She worked there when I was born. Later she joked that she was working the night I was born and took off a few minutes to deliver me and then was back at her job. The truth is that Mom took a week off to chill in the hospital after each birth. It was important the first time out with me. It was even more crucial in the 1960s when she had 5-6 kids at home and needed a break as the new ones arrived.

She could have been the poster child for nurses' week. We came to her for our miseries. As a nursing supervisor at a Florida hospital, staff members came to her to unburden themselves. For awhile, I was both -- son and employee. A university dropout with a low draft lottery number, I figured that I would surf and work as I waited for the inevitable. I worked an as orderly or nursing assistant, now known as Certified Nurse Assistants (CNA). People actually go to school for this now and I'm glad of it. Me and my coworkers got OJT. The nurses were patient and, at times, stern. There were a couple nurses we didn't challenge. We didn't mess with Mom, either, although her management style was more encouragement than stern lectures.

I do admit here and now that sometimes, taking temps and inserting catheters, I was a bit stoned. When my coworkers Jim and Sharon picked me up at  6:45 a.m., a smoke cloud greeted me when I opened the car door. When we abandoned the car for work ten minutes later, the cloud followed us inside. It's a wonder we never were caught. We tried to cover up our shenanigans with after-shave and perfume. One day I heard a nurse proclaim that she always liked Jim to work at her station because he always smelled so good. A blend of Jamaican herb and Hai Karate. I can still smell it 49 years later.

My youthful indiscretions faded at my next job as orderly. I worked the graveyard shift at Shriners' Burns Institute in Boston. It was a serious place. All patients were children under 18 who had sustained bad burns. House fires, electrocutions, accidents, and, yes, child abuse. The staff of nurses and nursing assistants were all young and energetic even at 3 a.m. Some of the NAs were enrolled in nursing school. My girlfriend Sharon (the same Sharon) was making plans to return to school, this time for a nursing degree. I was thrilled when the nursing supervisor brought me into her office one day and offered me a nursing school scholarship paid for by the hospital. I was doing good work, she said. I thanked her and said I would think about it. It felt good to be noticed. I talked about it with Sharon and on long-distance calls with Mom from the corner pizza parlor (we didn't have a phone). But I already knew my answer. My practical side urged me to do it. But I was just beginning to explore my creative side.

I blame it on the Boston Phoenix and The Real Paper. Both were distributed weekly on Boston streets I always snagged both of them and read them from cover to cover before I settled into my daytime sleep. The writing, at turns, was spectacular and sloppy. The subjects tended to revolve around the counterculture which is where I placed myself. Music, books, politics, wacko cults and conspiracy theories. I also liked reading Boston's daily papers. They were in their heyday in 1972 and 1973. Dynamic political coverage and great sports sections. But they ignored most of the topics the Phoenix reveled in.

The alternative press ruined me. I wanted to be a writer. Nursing was a great calling and would provide a steady income. Maybe my girlfriend and I could attend the same nursing school and work at the same Boston hospital..

But I wanted something else. I quit my job, returned to Florida, and went back to school as an English major. Write and teach, teach and write. That was what I wanted to do and that is mainly what I did.

Mom is just one generation of nurses in the family. My grandmother, Florence Green Shay, was an army nurse in World War I and two of my sisters are nurses. Another sister works at a Florida hospice center. I am so glad that nurses are getting their due during this plague. Let's keep them safe and pay them what they deserve. .

In the spring of 2020, we live in an absurdist novel

People are struggling. They are sick and dying; their businesses are shuttered or they are unemployed, either for the duration or for good. Many are caught in a virus hot zone such as New York City or New Orleans. Health workers battle it out with an invisible enemy every day. Sometimes, the enemy wins.

Sometimes you eat the bear and, sometimes, well, he eats you.

As in The Big Lebowski, the world is, at turns, hilarious and deadly serious. Creative types take to Zoom and Instagram to sing, dance, and read poetry. Poetry, especially, is a balm for hard times. I've been reading a lot of it. It's also a counterweight to the heavy and feckless hand of Trump. Whenever he weighs in, I feel like Atlas with the weight of the celestial heavens on my shoulders. Trump should be like Roosevelt or Churchill, sharing the weight with regular folks and, sometimes, removing it altogether. But he lacks all empathy and compassion and leadership skills.

For now, we're stuck with him. His minions, too, like Turtle-face McConnell and the right-wing wing of the Supreme Court and the knuckleheads with guns who barge into state capitol buildings. All this repulses me. And, as a writer, it fascinates me. I am a big fan of absurdist lit with big themes: Catch-22, Slaughterhouse-Five, The Good Soldier Schweik, anything by Terry Southern (Dr. Strangelove, Candy, etc.), Fran Liebowitz, National Lampoon writers, Lewis Nordan and other writers whom I can't remember right now. As I said, though, I'm reading poetry which is more about feelings and images that ripping off the mask of contemporary society. It's about that, too, but primarily the power of words. So much great poetry is short.

"The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" by Randall Jarrell:

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

"The Pool Players: Seven at the Golden Shovel" by Gwendolyn Brooks. 

Sylvia Plath wrote "Poppies in October" on her last birthday following several suicide attempts. Her next attempt would be fatal.

Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts.
Nor the woman in the ambulance
Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly – 

A gift, a love gift
Utterly unasked for
By a sky  

Palely and flamily
Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes
Dulled to a halt under bowlers.  

Oh my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frosts, in a dawn of cornflowers.

Not many of us could write so movingly of deep depression. And we can forgive her for palely and flamily, her turning strong adjectives into pale adverbs. But they work with carbon monoxides and eyes dulled to a halt under bowlers. She wrote this while living in London in the 1950s when men wore bowler hats. It invokes a grey day in London, crowds of faceless men wearing bowler hats.

You could say that these are depressing poems, and you would be right. But life is not a sitcom or a stand-up comedy routine. I take that back -- it is those and a thousand other things. Plath's last stanza echoes what happens to most of us if we live long enough and experience enough horror. Late-blooming poppies that "cry open" amidst the frost while dawn brings beautiful cornflowers.

I leave you with a Dad joke. These are the dumb jokes Dads tell which elicit groans and may be remembered fondly by their kids. The joke, as always, is on us.

Helvetica and Times Roman walk into a bar.
"Get out," shouts the bartender. "We don't serve your type here."