A crater in the heart of the neighborhood

 

     It was a long walk through Chinatown. Our little umbrellas barely holding off the cheerless drizzle. But that's where our oldest said to meet him, between taking one class and teaching another, so that's where we've went. One of the benefits of having children get past the look-up-to-you phase is the birddog-great-restaurants phase.

     Besides, we told each other. We're working up an appetite. And we're in New York City. Just walking down the street is fun.
     We weren't particularly surprised to find the place almost completely empty. A few diners scattered in the vastness, who promptly fled when we arrived, leaving the place to ourselves. It was, after all 3 p.m. Neither late lunch nor early dinner, and who goes to a Chinese restaurant for a snack? Still, there was an eerie, after-hours, depopulated quality. We couldn't help wonder if this was due to tourists avoiding Chinatown because of that new virus from China. As if residents here would have that virus, because of their ethnicity. People are the worst.

     He arrived.  We scanned the menu, ordered plate after plate—who doesn't love dim sum? 
     We didn't rush to leave. Actually, we slipped into a mode I think of as "setting up base camp," consulting our phones, sipping our tea, plotting our next step—tickets to the Tenement Museum.  Not too far. One tour available. I always wanted to go to the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side. My father's mother lived in a tenement and made paper flowers as a young woman. Then reservations for late dinner. We hit the street. A light rain. My son was off to teach his class, and my wife and I headed to the museum, and life rolled on.  

     I didn't think about Jing Fong again until this week, when the largest restaurant in New York's Chinatown closed forever last Sunday. There was a big tribute in the Times, "Closing of Beloved Dim Sum Hall Leaves a ‘Crater’ in Reeling Chinatown:
      It's the second restaurant we went to that weekend to go belly up due to COVID. The splendid one Michelin star Thai place, Uncle Boon's, was the first.
     Honestly? With 527,000 Americans dead, at first it seems squishy to mourn a restaurant, like raising a monument to the pets lost in World War II. Though it too is a loss, and no need to weigh each against the other. It's certainly a calamity for restaurant workers and owners, and to the community who celebrated their birthdays and wedding there, not to forget the precious fabric of ordinary daily life. As the Times put it, "The loss of Jing Fong hurts." Having only gone once, I couldn't develop too much of an attachment, and am more grateful I got there than sad it's gone, which is probably the best way to approach all loss.

Texas notes: Still here

William Schadow (Met)

     Austin Bureau Chief Caren Jeskey had the good sense to use the Plague Year to get outside more.

     This time last year the rug was pulled out from under us. As we heard about a deadly virus already in our midst, our President told us that COVID was nothing to worry about. He’d close the borders to certain people and the “China Flu” would stay away. He swaggered and droned on (and on and on and, well, this is the most apropos use of ad nauseam I can think of). His swaggering, pompous tone spat out the farthest thing from reassuring that a sane and helpful leader might be counted on to provide.
     We quickly tuned him out and increased the volume of a the much more useful voice of Dr. Fauci. Just saying his name seems to activate my vagus nerve, which is often referred to as the wandering nerve. This little powerhouse releases “‘inhibitory neurotransmitters’ such as gamma-aminobutyric acid, norepinephrine, and serotonin” (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7115576). 

     I am a big fan of serotonin, our natural mood regulator. If one’s vagus nerve is under- stimulated there are ways to get it going, and I suggest giving it a Google. Exercise can help.
     My COVID walkabouts commenced— upwards of 10, 12, 15 miles or more per day— always distanced and masked. I became immersed in the minutia of the world around me. I have always found solace in nature, and now it was amplified. I started living outside almost all day, every day. Each step brought me closer to a sense of feeling grounded and well. I could tune out the world and just be. I was not in denial of the situation; I was simply in training. It was time to get my body and mind strong and focused as I planned my entry back into the workforce after abruptly losing most of my employment due to virus restrictions.
     Over the past year I’ve come to feel closer to other women of the road. Mildred Norman finished the 2,000+ mile Appalachian Trail in one season. It is said that for the next 28 years she wore the same clothes every day and carried only a few possessions in her pockets as she traversed the United States. She was also know as the Peace Pilgrim (https://www.peacepilgrim.org/).
     “Grandma Gatewood” also hiked the Appalachian Trail alone in one season. This was back in 1955 and she was 67. I recall reading a quote of hers once, something to the effect “hey y’all, just do it. Grab some Keds and plastic bags to use as tarps and get out there.” She did not have expensive gear, she just set out and walked. I learned recently that her only training was walking 10 miles a day to build up her leg muscles (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/obituaries/grandma-emma-gatewood-overlooked.html). Perhaps I am on my way?
     Then there’s Sarah Marquis who walked from the American-Canadian border all the way south to Mexico, over 2500 miles. Several years later she trekked across the Andes mountains from Chile to Peru.
     There are too many of these women to name. I get it. Once my shoes hit the pavement and I decide to go left or right from my front door, the rest is a mystery and a journey ensues. I’ll look around sometimes and choose the path that seems the brightest and most inviting. This is how I happened upon the Elisabet Ney museum last year, and learning about Ms. Ney has made me feel stronger as a woman. In 1892 she build a castle-like home in Austin with money she earned creating sculptures. I am not sure how much time she had for walking, but I have a feeling Grandma Gatewood, the Peace Pilgrim, Sarah and I would have quite enough to talk about, or would enjoy silent company together for thousand mile treks, if such a thing were possible.
     Keeping active and finding beauty every day has taken the place of endless social interactions, movies, theatre, live music, coffee shops and near-constant stimulation. I don't think I’ll ever go back to that lifestyle of going going going, at least I hope not. Life seems shorter than ever and I feel that the past year has been a much needed reset. The tragedy of so many lives lost makes it feel like a battle unfairly won, though. It will be years before we truly grasp and start to recover from this tragic time, and I am well aware we are not out of the woods yet.

Even medical staff worry about taking vaccine

    Ashley Thornton can get the COVID vaccine any time she wants it. But she doesn’t want it, at least not yet.
     “I’m apprehensive to get the vaccine,” she said. Why? Bad experience with vaccines, for starters.
     “Out of everyone, I’m the person who gets the flu from the flu shot,” said Thornton, staffing coordinator for the emergency department at Roseland Community Hospital, where more than half of the staff — 57% — have declined the vaccine that many nationwide are clamoring for.
     This is not uncommon, but repeated at hospitals and medical facilities; only 56% of staff at Mount Sinai have gotten a vaccine shot. A Centers for Disease Control study found 77.8% of residents in nursing homes took the vaccine, while the proportion of vaccinated staff is less than half that — 37.5%.
     Thornton is troubled by how quickly the vaccines were developed.
     “I just think it hasn’t been out long enough for the proper tests and protocols to be done before I inject that into my body,” she said.
     And there is another reason.
     “Honestly, people of color are more apprehensive because of the Tuskegee experiment,” she said.

To continue reading, click here.

The only Roger Mudd story I've got.

     "Roger Mudd died," my wife said, looking at her phone. "He was 93."
     "I met him!" I said, stupidly, then instantly regretted it. The distortion field of self, making everything about me. A tick I've come to notice and despise, more and more, in myself, even as I notice and despise it more in others. 
     Is that fair? We construct mental universes with ourselves at the center, as George Saunders says in his excellent book on Russian short stories and writing, "A Swim in a Pond in the Rain." In our minds, existence is a story starring us. Why should the death of Roger Mudd be any different?
     I figured I had already told the tale, slight though it is. In this job you end up telling just about everything, sooner or later. Yup, 24 years ago. The original title was: "Celebs in Our Midst: Try to Relax, Folks." The only salient detail I left off was the press bus was in the short-lived presidential campaign of Al Haig, which meant it happened some time in 1988.

     When I was in college, a young lady of my acquaintance asked me to stop by her apartment so she could show me her etchings. I didn't go, not for many months. But she persisted, and eventually I paid her a visit. Late that evening, she asked me why I had waited so long. I propped myself up on one elbow and said, "I thought you etched."

     What I'm trying to say is that I can be thick about certain aspects of life. What is plain to everybody else is often a mystery to me.

     Celebrity news, for instance. This week, a rental car with two strange men was parked in front of my building for three days. I noticed the car, and the men, but didn't think anything of it. Realtors, perhaps, waiting to show a house.
     Then I bumped into my neighbor, one of those keen-eyed moms who is up on everything. "Did you notice the car?" she said. "Paparazzi. They were camped out waiting for Smith. I had the police chase them away."
     Smith? The name didn't ring a bell. Then I realized she meant William Kennedy Smith, the member of the Kennedy clan who got in trouble a few years back and is now practicing medicine in Chicago. He lives across the street.
     Now, I have no desire to intrude on Mr. Smith's privacy and hope he doesn't mind me bringing him up. Frankly, I'm astounded that anybody would care what he does, never mind camp out in front of his house for three days to get a picture of him doing it.
     Yes, he is related to the Kennedy clan. And yes, he was involved in a trial some years ago. But he was exonerated, was he not? And he dutifully proceeded with his medical training, and seems to keep his nose clean. Why annoy him?
     The answer, of course, is our current fixation on celebrities, any celebrity, based on anything. There are so many Hard Copy-esque shows that Madonna and Michael Jordan aren't enough anymore. This week "American Journal" ran a segment on Sherman Helmsley's bankruptcy that I swear could not have been more lengthy or involved had he bounced back from "The Jeffersons" to win the Nobel Prize in Physics.
     Don't get me wrong. I'm as interested as the next guy should Princess Di be found selling heroin or Clint Eastwood start wearing a dress. But that type of really meaty news is rare. Most of it is on the "Bill Cosby ate a hot dog at Gold Coast" level and is sort of boring. Isn't it?
     I mean, say those two guys snapped a picture of Smith, walking his dog. (He has a dog—now I'm dishing the dirt!) No offense to Smith—he's a nice-looking man, blue eyes, dimple in his chin. But is there anything interesting in such a picture?
     I admit, I am curious about the dog. Everybody in my neighborhood has a dog, and they're always walking them, and I've started playing a game where I guess the breed, then ask and see whether I'm right. I have no problem asking most anybody, and they seem to enjoy telling me.
     But I have too much pride to ask Smith. Because I know he'll assume that I don't really care about the dog, but only want to have some sort of personal exchange with him, so I can tell my grandchildren about it, or something.
     I think the dog is a black lab. (More dirt! Exclusively here!)
     The highest compliment you can pay a prominent person, after all, is leaving them alone. Which is why the press of celebrity journalism is such a paradox to me: If you like Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, then you don't want to see them plagued by prying photographers. And if you don't like them, then who cares what their new baby looks like?
     Ignoring celebrities should, if nothing else, be a point of civic pride. Aren't New Yorkers always bragging how big stars can wander unaccosted (with the exception of John Lennon) through their streets? Why should Chicago be any different?
     Think—you never see Michael Jordan on the street, because if he showed his face on Michigan Avenue, he'd be torn apart. But if only people were cool, and respectful, then we'd have all sorts of stars wandering around. Oprah Winfrey could be spied smelling the flowers in front of the Wrigley Building. Cindy Crawford could sun herself on Daley Plaza. It would be great. But no.
     I can't think of a famous person I've spoken to in public and didn't immediately regret it. I once passed Studs Terkel, striding through the Illinois Center, and said hello, only because I was once a guest on his radio show and figured that made us pals. Wrong. He gave me that "hello young fan" wave and never broke stride. Ouch.
     I blew it even worse with Roger Mudd, the former CBS newsman. Not a big star, true, but big enough. We were on the press bus, I was sitting next to him. Time passed, and eventually a comment came to me that seemed worth expressing. "My mother thinks you're great!" I said. He took my attempted compliment with great style, however. Later, while the press corps was waiting in a bar for the bus, Mudd went up to collect a round of drinks for the table. I tried to give him money, but he refused. "Tell your mother," he said, "that Roger Mudd bought you a drink."
     Only much later did I realize I had insulted him, implying he was old. As I said, I can be thick that way.
                  —Originally published in the Sun-Times, March 24, 1996

Don’t dodge COVID only to get hit by guilt

     Bill Mauldin was haunted by World War II.
     Not in the usual way, by traumatic memories of horror and battle. At 122 pounds, Mauldin was assigned to an Army motor pool. But he was a lousy driver, and by 1943 he was drawing for the Mediterranean edition for Stars & Stripes.
     Sgt. Mauldin created a pair of classic cartoon characters, Willie & Joe, whose wise-cracking, unshaven slouch toward victory was contrary to well-scrubbed military propaganda. Soldiers loved them. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1945, at age 23, and his book of wartime drawings sold 3 million copies. It even worked to his advantage when he was wounded — slightly, a mortar fragment. He walked to an aide station to be treated, leading to a memorable cartoon: Joe approaches a medic, sitting at a table piled with Purple Hearts. “Just gimme th’ aspirin,” he mumbles. “I already got a Purple Heart.”
     But after the war, his good fortune gnawed at Mauldin. He had trouble dealing with the fact that he benefited from such tragedy.
     ”I never quite could shake off the guilt feeling that I had made something good out of the war,” said Mauldin. “It wasn’t a nice feeling.”
     No, it isn’t. And there has to be a lot of it going around, with this week being the first anniversary of the COVID epidemic seizing America, the mid-March 2020 pivot from ordinary, busy, crowded, life to isolation, hand sanitizer, masks and worries about toilet paper.
      While the past year has been one of deepening national crisis and loss — millions sick, 525,000 Americans dead, countless jobs lost and businesses wrecked — for my family, personally, it’s been, well, nice. The boys came back from law school and studied at home. They baked bread. My job hummed along, even better, since I never have to go into the office. My wife and I go for long walks. If I had to describe my pandemic experience in one word, the word I’d choose is “blessed.”

To continue reading, click here.

Royal unwelcome.

Oedipus cursing his son, Polynices, by Henry Fuseli (National Gallery of Art)

     Families can be hard on newcomers. And the media is often unkind.
     The British royal family brings an extra deep, particularly cold bath of frosty scorn and rejection. And the British media is a free-fire zone of compressed hysteria and anything-goes malice.
     Is any of this news? A mystery? I didn't watch Oprah Winfrey's interview Sunday night with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle because, well, who cares? I mean, I know people care, deeply, desperately, pantingly. I guess what I mean is, "I don't care." They got married spectacularly, not even three years ago. I didn't watch that either. He seems a fine young man, who took pains to put himself in harm's way during his military service. She, a dynamic, talented woman—a fellow Northwestern alum, hail to purple, hail to white. Good luck on your life's journey.
     The wheels of bliss came off quickly—turns out the Brits are racists, my God who could have imagined? The not-so-happy couple soon had buyer's remorse and, in the classic lovestruck royal move since 1936, abdicated and lit out for the territories. What could even a master locksmith like Oprah possibly pry out of them?
     Then social media started swooning, rhapsodizing the program, how this was a death blow to the monarchy, and isn't Oprah a master of the form, as if getting these folks to open up had been a challenge. While the newly cast American couple ascends even further into the firmament. What could the interview be? We came upon it, sniffing around Netflix Monday for something to watch. 
     "Let's join the zeitgeist!" I said, genuinely curious as to what fascinating tidbits would be shared.
     The institution of the monarchy are closet bigots who didn't accept Meghan because she's a person of color. Terrible, yes. But isn't that pretty much every family everywhere? And isn't the royal family just about where prejudice and imperialism come from? The motherlode of haughtiness and privilege? I'm not excusing them, but it can't exactly be a surprise. Meghan Markle started out explaining how she didn't do her due diligence and make any effort to find out what being a royal is like, which seems rather passive, if not lame; I mean, I wouldn't stay in a bed-and-breakfast for the weekend without reading the reviews. An overall strange selective passivity infused the whole thing—they took her car keys and passport and so she couldn't check herself into a hospital. But they could move to Canada.  
     The central theme was security—which is fitting for our age. The palace not protecting the baby, who I'd think pretty much goes where they go—though given their duties, and if the "The Crown" is any guide, maybe not. But they do live in a $15 million house. Pay for a few beefy ex-marines with earpieces and call it a day. Puff away the warm Santa Barbara mists, and you've got a pair of upper class young rich folks complaining about being denied their full measure of privilege. 
     I don't want to belabor the point. My wife is downstairs, watching the end of the show; I bailed out to write. And I'm not defending the monarchy—a miserable, sniveling, lot of self-absorbed prats with spit running through their veins if ever there were. Though it does keep Great Britain from being merely another once-mighty failed state that dropped out of the European Union because its people were terrified of a Turk moving in down the street. And griping about it on television seems perhaps the most royal thing the couple could do. I mean, if you're free, be free, and go about your business.
     And our watching it—well, that's just the old peasant adoration of kings in a new box. Living in a sour age where negativity is the coin of all realms, we can't just pant after the details of what the duchess had for lunch and what kind of roses are in the garden and just what the Queen keeps in her purse, the way they did in 1910. So we spray a mist of general disapproval on the institution, like film-makers fogging a nighttime street, pull the morsels out of the mouths of supposed victims, the spokespeople of our age, then soak it all up in unblinking fascination. That's nothing new either.

COVID grief: ‘Did he know I loved him?’

A piping plover.

     He liked cats and bullfights, served in the Illinois National Guard during the Vietnam War and once ran a goat farm in Arizona. He taught computer programming and worked in the reptile house at the Lincoln Park Zoo.
     He was varied and contradictory, as people often are, the good ones anyway, and after he died in January of COVID-19, his wife of 40 years grasped at the air where he had been. Part of that process was to write to me. There was guilt. For nearly a year, the couple lived like monks in a cell, going out only for doctors’ visits. She thinks that’s what killed him.
     “I am sure I was exposed in the waiting room of a medical office, and I brought it home,” she wrote.

Red-shouldered hawk

     Yes, he was high risk: overweight, diabetes, high blood pressure. Lots of people fit that description. It doesn’t mean you deserve to die.
     He went to the hospital, stayed two days, but was sent home over her objection.
   “I wanted him to stay,” she wrote. “Just over 24 hours later, I found him on the floor, nearly unconscious, and he was transported to the hospital by ambulance again. This time he had a pulmonary embolism and hypoxia. Three days later he was on a ventilator, and one system after another began to fail. He was removed from machines, and he died.”
     What was her husband like? He “made friends wherever he went. He was bright, funny, generous, caring and always interesting. His reserve of facts, especially about history, was amazing. He always supported me in everything I did.”
     He was many things, really. He collected first editions and stamps. He liked to take photographs of birds.
     “He loved birds and was constantly reading and learning about them and trying to add to his life list,” she wrote. “We spent a day recently at Machias Seal Island in Maine photographing puffins. His bird photography often won awards at the Crystal Lake Camera Club.”

To continue reading, click here.

Japanese white-eye.

Photos are by one of the 524,000 Americans lost to COVID-19 this year.