We all remember the fuss over Melania Trump’s green $39 Zara jacket that she wore on her visit to the New Hope Children’s Shelter in McAllen, Texas, on June 21, 2018. On the back, easily captured by photographers as she boarded Air Force One, it read, “I don’t really care, do you?” She was going to visit children, including some separated from their parents by her husband’s zero-tolerance policy towards illegal immigration. When asked why she wore it, she declared it was “just a jacket.” So much for Melania’s “Be Best” campaign. …
Today was the first time I felt lucky to be 75 (aside from the joke my friends and I make to consider the alternative). I received my first COVID-19 shot in the gym of the Levy Senior Center in my hometown of Evanston, Illinois. 65 years ago, I remember lining up in the school gym for the polio vaccine. It was strange to think about the similarities and differences of those experiences.
Polio epidemics struck in the warm summer months. In the early 1950s, outbreaks became more wide spread. I remember being forbidden to go to a swimming pool, the…
I didn’t expect to weep. I know I’ve been stressed, mostly due to the pandemic, I thought. But watching the inauguration, I started to cry and realized that four years of Trump had taken its toll on my soul. The chaos, cruelty, greed, and lack of basic decency and empathy made every day, every tweet, every anxious checking of the day’s news an agony. It was a burden to which I had become so accustomed that its weight and the pain it caused became part of my life.
Even after the Capitol was overrun by domestic terrorists attacking the police, whose job it was to protect you. Even out of sight of cameras and your dear leader, Trump. Even as you spent hours locked in a secure room with fellow members of Congress. Even after your Congressional colleagues begged you. Even after masks were offered to you by Representative Lisa Blunt Coleman of Delaware. Even after all of this, you brave Republicans refused to wear masks.
Now three of your colleagues who sheltered with you in that crowded room have tested positive foe COVID-19. They are Representative Pramila…
January 6, 2021. Remember that date. Like December 7, 1941 (Pearl Harbor Day that brought us into WWII). Like September 11, 2001 — this is “a day that will live in infamy.”
My father was a great history buff, so FDR’s quote about the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan was one I heard often growing up. For him, this started the greatest upheaval of his life. 2,403 Americans died in the attack. Luckily, his beloved cousin survived. 291,557 U.S. soldiers died fighting the war.
Most of us remember where we were on 9/11. Nearly 3,000 people died that day…
No, that is not a spelling error. I am literally wringing my hands over what January 2021 will bring my way. 2020 started with some promise. We rang in the new year with our dear friends, having our customary early dinner, movie, champagne toast, and pie à la mode. I think we even made it to midnight. The number, 2020, seemed like it might be lucky. Hah!
Little did I know what was lurking in Wuhan, China when my husband and I went to Florida in January. We had a wonderful time staying with friends in Bonita Springs and then…
The pandemic makes me lose my sense of calendar, so I missed a very important date. Last night marked the 40th anniversary of John Lennon’s death. On December 8, 1980, he was murdered by Mark David Chapman, who was inspired by Lennon’s statement that The Beatles were “more popular than Jesus,” the book Catcher in the Rye, and by the lyrics to Imagine.
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today
Imagine there’s no countries It isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill or…
Thoughts About Thanksgiving
When my grandkids were little, they loved to blow bubbles. Whenever we visited the three Indiana grandchildren, weather permitting, we brought bubbles for them to play with on their back deck. The combination of excitement and sibling rivalry often resulted in their bubble streams crashing into each other, some bubbles merging with others to create very large bubbles or bubble clusters while other bubbles burst under the onslaught.
The notion of Covid bubbles strikes me as similar. The members of your bubble of safe people also include all of the people they have in their bubble. The…
Every day for the past year, I received 150–200 emails begging me for money to support election-related causes and candidates. Most of these were frightening and negative, claiming if I didn’t sign a petition and donate immediately, all would be lost. For me, these pleas came from the left, but I suspect those of you on the other end of the political spectrum received similar emails.
But here’s the thing — no one needed to scare me into making donations. Between the pandemic and the chaos of the election, I was frightened enough. There was almost nothing positive in these…
One of my grandchildren, whose school is fully virtual, attends a dance program that adheres to strict pandemic safety guidelines. All dancers wear masks at all times. They sanitize their hands before entering a room. They socially distance while dancing. This means that if there are more than ten dancers signed up for a given class, half attend in person and half virtually on a given week. No one other than the dancers may come into the building, which was retrofitted with an air purifying system. No one eats in the building or uses the dressing rooms or water fountains.
…
Laurie Levy
Boomer. Educator. Advocate. Eclectic topics: grandkids, special needs, values, aging, loss, & whatever. Author: Terribly Strange and Wonderfully Real.
