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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: General Interest
- Published: 06/04/2021
(Approx. 1,300 wd.)
THE VIEW FROM 90: EPILOGUE
Author’s note: My memoir, “The View From 90,” covered the 15 months from January 2020 through April 2021. I decided to end it after April because my wife and I had received the vaccine (Pfizer), had waited two weeks as we were told to do, and had started to venture into the outside world. The virus and its effects would go on and on, as would all the other concerns we had to deal with, so I thought this was as good a time as any to stop. There remained only to write an Epilogue to summarize, from the vantage point of a 90-year-old, what had taken place since the pandemic had taken over our lives. Here it is.
On the surface, the onset of the pandemic didn’t affect the lives of my wife Beverly and myself all that much. This was because Beverly was 85 years old and I was 90. Had the pandemic come a few years earlier it would have had a much greater effect. I read somewhere there were four stages of travel: when you were young you tossed a few things in a suitcase and took off; when you were a little older you went on bus tours; when still older, you went on cruises; finally, the last stage, you stayed home. A few years ago we were still traveling, in the cruise stage. In 2019, the year before the pandemic, we went on a cruise along the western coast. We were also still taking a couple of short trips by air, to Las Vegas and to Edmonds, Washington, to visit Beverly’s brother and his wife. By 2020, we had reached that last stage; we would be staying home. One other thing, despite our advanced ages we were still driving and we had two cars, mine the new one, a 2016 Corolla, and Beverly, the old one (but with low mileage), a 2004 Corolla.
What most immediately affected our lives was when we were told, as the headline in our Sacramento Bee put it, to “Stay Home.” This meant that instead of going out to places like the supermarket, the pharmacy, the bank and restaurants, we had to learn how to order things online from our iPads. Since, being oldsters, we’d already started ordering things online instead of going out shopping, this was no great hardship, although it did take some getting used to.
I read an article by someone who wrote that his biggest hardship was not going out to lunch with friends. I’d agreed with him. Beverly and I were in a group called LEO, for “Let’s Eat Out,” that went out to lunch once a month. We also usually had a monthly lunch with another couple. We both had lunches with friends. Finally, we met our sons, the two who lived nearby, and their families for lunch on such occasions as birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. The last such occasion, as it turned out, was my 90th birthday the first week of January 2020.
What about all of those mental problems resulting from prolonged isolation---loneliness, stress, depression, boredom? At the onset of the pandemic my primary emotion was anger because here was a nasty bug that was out to get old guys like me. Any yes, I was also scared, because the effects of getting the virus were so horrible. And of course it could, and probably would, kill you. Two things that the pandemic probably made worse. Like many oldsters I suffer from insomnia. I think that the added stress of being under attack by this bug made getting a good night’s sleep, not easy to begin with, even harder. Also, like many oldsters, my memory isn’t what it used to be and with every day being pretty much like another while we stayed home it was easy to forget things, even what day it was.
Physically, after a year-plus of inactivity, I think I’m pretty much the same, except that as time goes on things keep getting a little harder to do---like getting out of bed in the morning, getting out of a chair, getting in and out of the car, walking for any distance over ten or so feet, and, oh, yes, getting dressed, especially fiddling with those buttons.
Then there was the matter of the car, or cars. Since we weren’t going anywhere, we made it a practice of taking each of our two cars out for a little drive once a week. This seemed to keep them going. I’d gotten to the point of wondering, at age 90, if I wanted to keep driving at all. I kept extending the lease on my 2016 Corolla, originally three years, telling Toyota I didn’t know how long I’d be driving. Finally, Toyota told me no more extensions (I still don’t see why not) so I decided the simplest thing was to buy it. At the same time, Beverly and I decided one car would do and we gave her 2004 Corolla to our grandson who’d just gotten his driver’s license.
I should mention one more thing: health experts recommended keeping a journal to get through the pandemic. Being already a writer I was keeping a journal in preparation of writing my View From 90 memoir. I was also writing my one column for a monthly senior paper (down from two as with restaurants closed my “Favorite Restaurants” column was discontinued) and other pieces as I routinely did. So I was ahead of the game. And like most writers I’d always been a reader and, during a pandemic, as in ordinary times, reading is a good thing.
In the outside world as well as in our private lives the pandemic, for most of the time, was the dominant concern, and also the number one news item. We wanted to know the numbers---how many cases, how many hospitalizations, how many deaths. Where was it worst? Where were things getting better? What should we do? When, if ever, would it all end? As with all other things in American life, the pandemic was immediately polarized. In the Lefty universe President Trump was late in telling people how bad it was and then downplayed its seriousness. On the other hand, Trump did stop people coming in from China, a move his detractors said was racist. He also said the virus might have come from a lab in Wuhan, China. This was derided as nonsense. We are just now giving credence to this possibility.
And so it has gone. Red (Republican) states want to open up while Blue (Democratic) states want to stay in lockdown; schools should be open, or not; incredibly, wearing of masks is still a controversy. In the meantime, Trump lost the election, one of the chief reasons, I think, being that he was so inept at communicating about the virus. In mid-year, the pandemic was supplanted as front=page news when a white cop in Minneapolis killed a black man named George Floyd. This set off a wave of demonstrations that often devolved into riots, an epidemic of statue toppling and an argument over whether we are a systemically racist country or not. All of these things will keep going on while the country, and people like me, try to come out from under the shadow of the pandemic. I’ve given my views on some of these issues in the body of the memoir so won’t bother to repeat them here, especially since millions of words have been written (and spoken) about them elsewhere. I’ll just say that from my 90-year-old view things don’t look very promising. As far as I can tell, the Lefties (Dems) will try to push forward their agenda no matter what and the Righties (Reps) will keep being opposed.
The one thing about being so old is that I’ve seen most of these things before and somehow we’ve survived. I’ve also written elsewhere that every pandemic in history has eventually ended. I’ll close by saying I hope this holds for this time.
###
The View From 90: Epilogue(Martin Green)
(Approx. 1,300 wd.)
THE VIEW FROM 90: EPILOGUE
Author’s note: My memoir, “The View From 90,” covered the 15 months from January 2020 through April 2021. I decided to end it after April because my wife and I had received the vaccine (Pfizer), had waited two weeks as we were told to do, and had started to venture into the outside world. The virus and its effects would go on and on, as would all the other concerns we had to deal with, so I thought this was as good a time as any to stop. There remained only to write an Epilogue to summarize, from the vantage point of a 90-year-old, what had taken place since the pandemic had taken over our lives. Here it is.
On the surface, the onset of the pandemic didn’t affect the lives of my wife Beverly and myself all that much. This was because Beverly was 85 years old and I was 90. Had the pandemic come a few years earlier it would have had a much greater effect. I read somewhere there were four stages of travel: when you were young you tossed a few things in a suitcase and took off; when you were a little older you went on bus tours; when still older, you went on cruises; finally, the last stage, you stayed home. A few years ago we were still traveling, in the cruise stage. In 2019, the year before the pandemic, we went on a cruise along the western coast. We were also still taking a couple of short trips by air, to Las Vegas and to Edmonds, Washington, to visit Beverly’s brother and his wife. By 2020, we had reached that last stage; we would be staying home. One other thing, despite our advanced ages we were still driving and we had two cars, mine the new one, a 2016 Corolla, and Beverly, the old one (but with low mileage), a 2004 Corolla.
What most immediately affected our lives was when we were told, as the headline in our Sacramento Bee put it, to “Stay Home.” This meant that instead of going out to places like the supermarket, the pharmacy, the bank and restaurants, we had to learn how to order things online from our iPads. Since, being oldsters, we’d already started ordering things online instead of going out shopping, this was no great hardship, although it did take some getting used to.
I read an article by someone who wrote that his biggest hardship was not going out to lunch with friends. I’d agreed with him. Beverly and I were in a group called LEO, for “Let’s Eat Out,” that went out to lunch once a month. We also usually had a monthly lunch with another couple. We both had lunches with friends. Finally, we met our sons, the two who lived nearby, and their families for lunch on such occasions as birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. The last such occasion, as it turned out, was my 90th birthday the first week of January 2020.
What about all of those mental problems resulting from prolonged isolation---loneliness, stress, depression, boredom? At the onset of the pandemic my primary emotion was anger because here was a nasty bug that was out to get old guys like me. Any yes, I was also scared, because the effects of getting the virus were so horrible. And of course it could, and probably would, kill you. Two things that the pandemic probably made worse. Like many oldsters I suffer from insomnia. I think that the added stress of being under attack by this bug made getting a good night’s sleep, not easy to begin with, even harder. Also, like many oldsters, my memory isn’t what it used to be and with every day being pretty much like another while we stayed home it was easy to forget things, even what day it was.
Physically, after a year-plus of inactivity, I think I’m pretty much the same, except that as time goes on things keep getting a little harder to do---like getting out of bed in the morning, getting out of a chair, getting in and out of the car, walking for any distance over ten or so feet, and, oh, yes, getting dressed, especially fiddling with those buttons.
Then there was the matter of the car, or cars. Since we weren’t going anywhere, we made it a practice of taking each of our two cars out for a little drive once a week. This seemed to keep them going. I’d gotten to the point of wondering, at age 90, if I wanted to keep driving at all. I kept extending the lease on my 2016 Corolla, originally three years, telling Toyota I didn’t know how long I’d be driving. Finally, Toyota told me no more extensions (I still don’t see why not) so I decided the simplest thing was to buy it. At the same time, Beverly and I decided one car would do and we gave her 2004 Corolla to our grandson who’d just gotten his driver’s license.
I should mention one more thing: health experts recommended keeping a journal to get through the pandemic. Being already a writer I was keeping a journal in preparation of writing my View From 90 memoir. I was also writing my one column for a monthly senior paper (down from two as with restaurants closed my “Favorite Restaurants” column was discontinued) and other pieces as I routinely did. So I was ahead of the game. And like most writers I’d always been a reader and, during a pandemic, as in ordinary times, reading is a good thing.
In the outside world as well as in our private lives the pandemic, for most of the time, was the dominant concern, and also the number one news item. We wanted to know the numbers---how many cases, how many hospitalizations, how many deaths. Where was it worst? Where were things getting better? What should we do? When, if ever, would it all end? As with all other things in American life, the pandemic was immediately polarized. In the Lefty universe President Trump was late in telling people how bad it was and then downplayed its seriousness. On the other hand, Trump did stop people coming in from China, a move his detractors said was racist. He also said the virus might have come from a lab in Wuhan, China. This was derided as nonsense. We are just now giving credence to this possibility.
And so it has gone. Red (Republican) states want to open up while Blue (Democratic) states want to stay in lockdown; schools should be open, or not; incredibly, wearing of masks is still a controversy. In the meantime, Trump lost the election, one of the chief reasons, I think, being that he was so inept at communicating about the virus. In mid-year, the pandemic was supplanted as front=page news when a white cop in Minneapolis killed a black man named George Floyd. This set off a wave of demonstrations that often devolved into riots, an epidemic of statue toppling and an argument over whether we are a systemically racist country or not. All of these things will keep going on while the country, and people like me, try to come out from under the shadow of the pandemic. I’ve given my views on some of these issues in the body of the memoir so won’t bother to repeat them here, especially since millions of words have been written (and spoken) about them elsewhere. I’ll just say that from my 90-year-old view things don’t look very promising. As far as I can tell, the Lefties (Dems) will try to push forward their agenda no matter what and the Righties (Reps) will keep being opposed.
The one thing about being so old is that I’ve seen most of these things before and somehow we’ve survived. I’ve also written elsewhere that every pandemic in history has eventually ended. I’ll close by saying I hope this holds for this time.
###
Hem Bhandari
06/19/2021Thats great Martin , I appreciate your optimism & zeal for living your life, engaging yourself in the current affairs.
Wish you & Beverly sound health to enjoy your lives to come. Happy Father's Day & Happy Story star of the week.
Cheers
Hem Bhandari
COMMENTS (2)