Pen-demic

  Bethlehem Steel While it might not be easy to think of positives that have come from the pandemic, I have one I’d like to share that may be useful to others. It was July of 2020 and we were tired of jigsaw puzzles, having the every 10-day trip to the grocery store be the highlight of the week, and frankly, each other’s exclusive company. But what could we do? The enforced inactivity was harder on Mitch, who thrives on travel. Rather than giving up, however, he started looking for interesting places we could safely drive to and explore, even if the actual destinations were still locked down. Through internet research, he found many relatively unknown, interesting and historical places within a half-day’s drive from our home. Needing something to which we could anchor time, and the traditional designation of “hump-day,” he chose Wednesday as the day for us to venture out. That’s how “Wandering Wednesday” was born. The first WW was a drive along Great Bay Boulevard, a little-used, s...

Nearly everyone who was around on September 11, 2001, has a picture in their mind that represents what they experienced the day of the terrorist attacks. It might be the firefighters raising the flag on the rubble of the World Trade Center, the image of the towers crumbling to the ground, or the faces of people running to escape the clouds of smoke and ash that blew through the streets of lower Manhattan when the towers fell. While I can bring up those images in my mind, the one that haunts me is the sight of a signboard on an exit from the New York State Thruway that said, “ALL ENTRANCES AND EXITS TO NEW YOUR CITY ARE CLOSED.” And behind the sign in the distance hung a huge plum of white smoke. At the time, I was working for the American Cancer Society in New York and New Jersey. I supported staff and volunteers in both states and happened to have two meetings I was asked to attend on September 11. For no particular reason that I can remember, I chose the meeting being held in Albany ...

  Who would have thought that the COVID pandemic, ongoing lockdowns and forced solitude would give me the chance to learn more about my family than I had known before? I’ve been told that there is almost always something good that can come out of bad, and I this case I can say it was true. Time was hanging heavy and even the company of my husband needed occasional time-outs. Cleaning and decluttering were activities I could do by myself, and I did try. But I admit I am quite easily distracted. As I was looking through things stored in the basement, I came across scrapbooks that had belonged to my Mother. Before she was taken by breast cancer, the same illness that had taken Mama, my sister-in-law, Marie, had packaged up the scrapbooks and other memorabilia and sent it to me with the note, “Now you’re the keeper of the archives.” I’d always known that the scrapbooks existed. Mama had kept them in the bottom drawer of the dresser in the spare bedroom. After Daddy died, and “The Homes...