It is Saturday, and I know so because I looked at my calendar. Rain is promised, throughout the day and evening and tomorrow morning. The weather is a bit like our pandemic. It is not over. I would not have believed that I could ever receive so much comfort from the modern invention of the computer. What we, until recently, damned as the bane of true social contact…has become the primary means of achieving connection with the outside world. We are all still here…we are simply in seclusion. Mom quoted the famous actress, Greta Garbo, many times. Ms. Garbo said, ‘I want to be alone.’ But, Greta was not saying this during a pandemic.
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‘After subsiding over the summer, a second, more powerful wave of influenza swept across the United States after two sailors in Boston contracted the illness. The flu quickly reached nearby military installations such as Camp Devens before spreading to civilian populations across the country.’
‘In some cases, more concerned about the spread of panic than the flu itself, public health authorities downplayed the risks. ‘There is no cause for alarm if precautions are observed,’ proclaimed U.S. Surgeon General Rupert Blue. Not wanting to run afoul of censorship laws that called for up to 20 years in prison for printing anything the government deemed detrimental to the war effort, newspapers under-reported the rapid spread of the pandemic.’
‘While news of the influenza was suppressed in the United States, France and Great Britain, that was not the case in Spain, which remained neutral in World War I. Wire service reports of a flu outbreak in Madrid in the spring of 1918 led to the pandemic being called the ‘Spanish Flu,’ even though it originated elsewhere.’ Christopher Klein, History
The American Humorist, Erma Bombeck, wrote a book entitled, ‘If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits.’ I think that one of the saving graces of my journey has been my refusal to give up. If you live but a short while…you have experienced reversals of fortune. I used to say to MJ, when disappointments confronted us and roadblocks caused us to have to turn around and find a new route…that I was not going to be beaten. During the over 25 years that I was a manager, at Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale, I refused to be deterred by budgets or bedlam! The future is wide open to possibilities. If plans have been changed because of the Coronavirus…make new plans while you are home…thinking. Although we are, universally, experiencing a tragedy that, prior to 2020, we only read about…the panacea to our mental and emotional wellbeing is to plan for our brighter futures!
Alejandra Ortez loads bags into a cart for a customer at Gelson’s Market in Santa Barbara.
Gelson’s cashier Roxana Catalan rings up a customer.
A Gelson’s cashier rings up a customer.
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The Jazz Man 
I have always been the greatest optimist in the world, I never waste energy on what has happened that I can not change, spilled milk, move on. I believe this pandemic however bad it has been will produce some silver linings. diminish the carnage of war in the Middle East and North Africa. an end to capitalism – capitalism only works by creating demand for goods, with so many unemployed around the world, there will be no disposable income so no demand for goods, we will not in future be able to fly around the world if and when we please. Communities will come closer together for survival, we see it already. We have a unique opportunity to make the changes you speak off, we cannot, we must not go back to business as usual – lessons taught – hopefully learned. Stay well, my friend.
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