Small blessings in a big year

 

   A nurse has been coming every day to give me a shot of an antibiotic.  It is for an urinary tract infection – either a new one or an old one that came back or keeps coming back.  I keep having uti’s lately, and I guess this is a bad one, bad enough that pills won’t do.  I don’t know.  When I texted my doctor last week saying that my urine looked bad, he didn’t answer.  Someone from the lab came and took a sample, and then someone from a pharmacy called and asked when the shots could be delivered. 

   As much as feel like an invalid with a nurse coming to the house, like when I came home after my spinal surgery almost four years ago, at least I’m not in the hospital.  Yay!  I was in the hospital for five days in October with, yes, an uti and wasn’t allowed to have my attendants with me to help with communication – a horrendous, torturous experience.  When I texted my doctor, I told him that I did not want to be in the hospital, all the more so with Christmas and New Year’s coming up and with the hospitals here in Southern California now full of COVID patients. 

   Yes.  You bet I’m grateful I’m not in the hospital.  And that I’ve only gone to the hospital twice since March – once just in the E.R – when COVID became an issue after going there once a month last year.  Yay, indeed! 

   It seems to me that this is a good metaphor as this year ends. This year which – I’ll just say it – has been pretty awful, no doubt the worse year of our lives, at least collectively.  After all, the last really bad pandemic was the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918, just over 100 years ago – and at least we now have Zoom and streaming movies and shows, let alone television, thank God! 

   In such a year, I’m finding that I’m grateful for the smallest or most mundane things, like my doctor giving me antibiotics, even in shots, for an urinary tract infection so I don’t have to go to the hospital (and also find it ironic, if not funny, that I’m more afraid of getting an urinary tract infection than I am of getting COVID). I suspect we all are.  Hell, thank God indeed for television and Zoom and streaming movies!  We won’t be taking them for granted anytime soon – will we?       

   And thank God that 2020 is just about over.  Good riddance! 

Blind faith

 

   “You can’t see God, but he exists.”

   This quote, recently in the Los Angeles Times, is from a woman in Georgia who voted for Donald Trump, explaining her strong belief that Trump, not Joe Biden, won the election early this month.  Never mind that it was finally “ascertained” a couple days ago that Biden was indeed that winner and can have access to funds, information, office space, etc, to ensure a smooth transition, that may in fact save lives given the pandemic and national security, despite Trump’s continued grumbling that he won the election. 

   Yes, it’s definitely worth cheering Biden’s victory and that we won’t have another four years of Trump – at least until 2024 – but Biden is likely in for some tough sledding, with 71 million people having voted for Trump and a good number of them with this adamant belief, this adamant faith that Trump won and so Biden is an illegitimate president – not just “not my president” but not the president. 

·             *     *

 

   After starting off with two episodes dealing with COVID, the new season of The Good Doctor is back to business as usual, in a world without COVID.  This is just weird – and not just because COVID suddenly went away.  Television may be an escape for lots of people, but a show set in a hospital, of all places, not dealing with COVID, as depressing as those two episodes were, is...just weird. 

   Then there are all those commercials showing holiday gatherings…   

Desperate for their good ol' days

 

   It occurred to me recently that the people who like and are for President Trump, who now insist that the election was stolen from Trump and that he, not Joe Biden, will be inaugurated to a second term on January 20, are not unlike those who carried out or applauded the 9/11 attacks. 

   Stay with me here.  I know this sounds like an outrageous claim. I’m certainly not saying that the Trump backers are mass murderers – although some appear ready to commit violence if they don’t get their way.  And it does feel like they, along with Trump, are holding the nation hostage, in limbo, at this time. 

   But think about what both groups want – or don’t want. They don’t want to hear from those who don’t have the same beliefs, values or thinking that they do.  They don’t want to see and hear women who are liberated and in power or who have what they think is too much power or license.  They don’t want to see or hear gay and transgender or any queer people, and they certainly don’t want to see them getting rights and getting married.    

   Both the Trump supporters and the radical Islamists want things to be the way they used to be.  They want, desperately want to go back to a time, to a world where people who were different didn’t have rights or didn’t exist.  They are desperate to go back to when things were “simpler.”

   They see that the world is changing, see the writing on the wall, and they will do anything to stop this from happening, to go back to when everything was simpler. They will bomb buildings and even fly planes into buildings, killing thousands of people. They will vote for a millionaire, who clearly doesn’t have their interests at heart but who says what they want to hear.  They will say that an election is rigged or fraudulent when it clearly wasn’t if their candidate didn’t win, perhaps putting democracy itself at risk and certainly giving the world a horrible model. 

   I understand that my argument here is very broad.  For example, many, including a fair number of Blacks and Latinos, who voted for Trump liked the way he handled the economy, at least pre-COVID, and felt he would be better than Biden at handling it.  Not all who voted for Trump were white gun-toting people who think that wearing a mask is an intrusion on liberty, who tend to be racist if not white supremacists and who want to go back to the 1950’s when women stayed at home and gay people weren’t seen, but it has become clear that enough, more than enough, are.

T.V in a pandemic

 

   It is interesting to see how several television shows are incorporating the pandemic into their story-lines. I wonder how this will go over. 

   “The Connors” and “Black-ish” are dealing with the pandemic with humor, finding funny, cleve, refreshing ways to reinforce proper COVID etiquette.  “This is Us” incorporates it in a very straight-forward, non-intrusive ways, with characters simply wearing masks when out among others. On the other hand, at least in the first two episodes this season which deal explicitly with the pandemic, “The Good Doctor,” because it takes place in a hospital, is a sad slog, like watching a Frontline documentary, with patient after patient dying and the doctors, whether suited up like astronauts or at home in despair, exhausted and frustrated.    

   It’s tricky.  On the one hand, showing the pandemic makes sense, and not showing it would be weird.  It can also model ways to deal with it, like wearing masks and finding other ways to do things like celebrate holidays.  On the other hand, television provides an escape, which would indicate that things on television shows should go on with life as normal, without COVID.  Or would this just be depressing, a reminder of what we’re missing?

Treats amid the tricks

 

   Below, just in time for the aftermath of Halloween and for tomorrow’s dramatic, hopefully not traumatic, election, is my latest Claremont Courier column, seeing some treats amid all the tricks, hope in the hopeless. 

   Meanwhile, a week before Halloween, I had my own horror story when I went to the E.R and ended up in the hospital for 4 days with a bad urinary tract infection.  This was bad enough (these urinary tract infections will be the death of me, I swear!). What was worse, way worse, is that, because of COVID, my attendants weren’t allowed to stay with me.  This means that it was extremely difficult to make myself understood, that I couldn’t reach the call button most of the time, etc.  Some of the staff were kind and really tried to understand my speech and accommodate my needs.  Others ignored me for hours, because they couldn’t understand my speech, despite my crying out for help.  I went home with my right shoulder hurting, because I was left on my side for too long. 

   This was terribly upsetting, traumatic, a real nightmare.  After I came home on Tuesday evening, I learned that my rights were violated, and I’m filing a complaint and writing a letter to the hospital. 

   This is a time to not just sit there but to take action.  Not just me, but all of us. 

 

READING THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES ON CLAREMONT STREETS

   Josue Barnes was walking home from school one day.  He was a student at Claremont High School, where he played on the football team and earned good grades – good enough to get into college and then go onto a prestigious medical school back east, where he is currently a student. 

   On that day, he was walking along the sidewalk, heading home as usual.  Except on this day, he noticed a white man walking on the sidewalk towards him, carrying a briefcase. 

   Why did it matter that the man was white?  Because Josue Barnes is Black, and, apparently, that mattered to the man. 

   The man didn’t know that Josue Barnes was a student at Claremont High School, a student on the football team, a student earning good, college-worthy grades who would eventually attend medical school.  All the man knew was that the young man, the kid, walking up the sidewalk towards him was Black. Apparently, that mattered.  Big time. 

   It mattered enough, it mattered so much, that the man crossed the street to walk on the other side. 

   “And, remember, this was Indian Hill Boulevard,” said Mr. Barnes when he spoke in September as that month’s guest in Claremont Speaks Black, the local Bahai community’s monthly series on Zoom featuring Black residents of Claremont speaking on what it’s like to be Black in Claremont. “And you know how wide and busy Indian Hill Boulevard is.”

   Mr. Barnes is the co-founder, with Noah Winnick, a white C.H.S alum, of Claremont Change (Claremontchange.org), advocating racial equality and justice in Claremont, in the wake of the George Floyd killing. During the Claremont Speaks Black session, he spoke of being shocked that a white man, especially one who appeared intelligent, would go out of his way to avoid him, a hard-working student, because he is Black.  He said that this incident was a turning point in becoming aware that being Black makes him different and treated differently. 

   Later, when I told some friends here in town about this incident, they gasped, shook their head, rolled their eyes. 

   This really happened in Claremont?  Really? 

   Really. 

   It was definitely eye-opening to me. It’s one thing to hear talk of Black people being treated differently, treated unjustly, treated inhumanely in Claremont – one needs only mention Irwin Landrum, killed by Claremont police – but it’s something else entirely to hear a Black person talk about being subjected to the different treatment.

   Thanks to the local Bahais for giving us this opportunity. (The Claremont Speaks Black series is also a response to the sustained protests this summer after the Floyd murder in Minneapolis against police brutality and racial injustice.) 

   I am also grateful to my friends’ gasping, head-shaking and eye-rolling – shame, shame! – when I told them what Mr.  Barnes had experienced here in Claremont.  I wasn’t alone in being shocked, embarrassed, outraged, ashamed, hurt. 

   There have also been other signs, literal and otherwise, that I have been grateful for in my limited outings around my neighborhood and around town in recent weeks. 

   For one thing, there have been all the yard signs. I have seen a few Claremont Change yard signs, speaking of Mr. Barnes, here and there.  The message for equality and justice is getting out there.  I have also seen Claremont Cares yard signs, encouraging mask-wearing to slow the spread of COVID-19. It’s nice to see these signs, but it would also be nice if they were universally followed.  (For every day I’m encouraged by people out wearing masks, there are days when I’m disappointed – no, horrified – to see people, lots of people, not wearing masks.  And don’t get me started on the people eating at restaurants, even outside.)

   There are also the Black Lives Matter signs popping up in front yards. It’s great to see this support, although this is only a tiny step and will not end racial injustice.  Then again, it says something when one is the only one on the block to have a BLM sign.

   These signs join those saying, “We believe Black lives matter…love is love…no person is illegal…science is real…” – a simple proclamation as protest.   

   Then, with the election, there have been the candidate signs proliferating on front lawns and various other strips of land, vying for attention, like the candidates themselves.  I have seen signs for the presidential candidates – Biden much more than Trump in the area I frequent – but, perhaps appropriately and definitely to my relief – the vast majority have been for City Council candidates. 

   Maybe because, for the first time, the election is for districts rather than city-wide, the signs seem more personal, like a neighbor calling for our support.  There is a small-town charm to this, without the irritating clamor of the hand-painted signs for student council candidates plastering the walls and every other surface on campus (nothing charming about that).

   Even more charming – and poignant – were the signs seen on many front yards beginning in the late Spring congratulating graduates, primarily from Claremont High School but also from El Roble and even elementary schools.  This was one sweet way of making up, or trying to make up, for graduations and other recognition ceremonies squashed by the pandemic. 

   Another sign of the times, perhaps inspired by the pandemic, is furniture, toys and other items being left on the sidewalk for others to take for free. I see this as people reaching out and helping one another, in a safe way, during this difficult time.

   Finally, there are the Halloween decorations.  I have seen more and more of these in recent years but nothing like this.  It could be despite the pandemic putting a damper on trick-or-treating and other celebrations, or it could be because of it, especially with the City, encouraging safe ways of celebrating, sponsoring a decorating contest. 

Or it could be both. 

   Whatever the reason, it has been, from what I’ve seen on my limited outings, definitely a treat, a sight to see.  There have been the usual pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns, along with skulls, skeletons and spider webs, along with ghosts hanging from trees, here and there.  There have been plenty of scarecrows lounging on front porches and in front yards, some doing things, like the one reading a book next to a little library.  Some yard displays have been incredibly creative, involving quite a bit of work, like the two scarecrows on Mountain Avenue playing badminton or the party on West Point with dancing skeletons, accompanied by two seated, banjo-playing, pumpkin-headed scarecrows.       

   In all of these, I’ve seen signs, encouraging signs, of community

 

at a time when there hasn’t been much.