Social Distancing

For me 2020 will be known as the year of the Coronavirus pandemic in the United States. This was the year that everything changed in our society. A new term came into existence called "Social Distancing". With the virus killing thousands of people worldwide and no cure, non medical action was needed to slow down the spread of the disease. Things as simple as washing your hands 

regularly, not touching your face, sanitizing surfaces, and staying away from others.

With social distancing people are expected to stay indoors, and if they are out they should stay a distance of at least six feet from each other. No groups larger that five to ten are allowed to gather together. Also, wear a mask while out in public is recommended. Many feel that this is infringing on their democratic and god given rights. After all we are a "society" that is built on social interaction.

This had not been quite a dramatic change for me, particularly since I have had a six month preparation period. Last year in 2019 my wife and I sold our big home in Louisville, KY and move to Tampa, FL with no jobs (retired) , no family, and no friends living there. We downsized, went to one car, and had been living together since then. We went everywhere together and got accustomed to be inside together with just each other, similar to what the "stay at home" orders demand now. Yes, we did get out, go to festivals, museums , a restaurants, but basically we were socially distant. Seeing that my wife was a germaphobe before the outbreak has been a plus for us now. She is used to not shaking hands, not touching doors and banisters while out in public, and definitely keeping the house disinfected. 

It is hard on her to not be social. especially without her family here. She got into the habit of talking on the phone with her mother almost daily, as well as her daughters. Since she likes to talk this fills in time. She also enjoys cooking, so a lot of time is spent in the kitchen coming up with new dishes and trying recipes. Being together has also shown me that me attempts to help or do anything in the kitchen are usually rebuked. Therefore I have learned to stay out, since I can't even load the dishwasher to her standards, and I definitely don't put things away in their proper places. 

We have been married for over twenty years now and as soulmates I have learned to listen, while my wife is the conversationalist in this relationship.  We have our own little society going right now as we wait for the new world order to come.

Day to Day

    I consider myself a pretty organized individual. I have never been much for clutter. My mother never ever had to really tell me to clean up, and since we didn't have any sisters, my brothers and me had to do all the household chores. When I went into the Air Force these organizational traits were heightened. Even now I always make my bed in the mornings to get my day started.

With that as background my days and time have always had some type of structure. After the service I joined the workplace with an eight to five outside sales job. Monday thru Friday was established with a route itinerary each day. After five o'clock it was home or out with friends at the club, eat, sleep and do it again. The Saturdays were reserved for sports, either actual or on tv. Sundays were for church and professional sports watching. After getting married this stayed about the same with some adjustments as the family took priority after work hours. I also moved up into management with more time in an office environment with meetings, and less travel time.

Once I retired this whole routine changed. No longer did I have to get up at a set time in the mornings with a designated place to go, people to meet with, and things to be accomplished at the "job". However a new schedule developed. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings were designated as work out days at the gym. Tuesdays and Thursdays became household chores and activity days. Afternoons were filled with things such as book reading, music listening, and tv watching. Evenings again went to entertaining my wife's interests. Whatever she had in mind for us to do, and any grandkid after school activities.

The next change came with the downsizing and move to Florida. Now both myself and my wife Donna were retired and life was again unstructured. The first part of the transition we spent together making changes to the condo. Including new flooring, some new furniture, fixtures , etc. I continued with the Mon, Wed, Fri. daytime schedule at our complex's gym. However, I was getting up later, or should I say getting more and better sleep. Our weekly schedule now revolved around looking at the newspaper to determine what festivals, farm markets, museum exhibits, or events were occurring in the Tampa Bay area that week. There was "always" something going on and we filled our calendar accordingly. Evenings were reviewed as to whether to eat in or check out a new restaurant. There were many. Each night of the week there was at least one primetime tv show that we watched together.

Then came the coronavirus pandemic and time changed again. The new words for the day were social distancing. No more crowds, sports, restaurants. We stocked up on food and my wife jumped into her passion for cooking. At first we could get out to the park, and began walking one to two miles each morning during the week. All sports both college and professional were cancelled, even the NCAA Basketball Tournament. What is March without March Madness. All my sports channels went null and void as they began to show reruns of past events, which really were of no real interest to me. Businesses were shut down. No school, gyms, pools, or parks were open, and people were told to stay safe by staying at home.

Now each day seems like the previous one. We walk around the circular complex waving at neighbors who are home now with children, or working their jobs from home. The afternoons are spent reading or playing games on my cell phone, while sitting on my sun drenched balcony. There's the occasional ride in the car, just to get out some and Donna fills the time making meals and doing online shopping. Saturdays are like any other day, not the highly anticipated end of the week. Sundays can be identified by the gospel music being played through the sound bar and by watching our pastor, Kevin Cosby, preaching live over the internet on our big screen tv. All in all we are handling our self imposed isolation pretty well. Since the move I am spending all my time with someone who I love and care about, without the stress that comes with other family members and their problems. We stay in contact with them via telephone, Facetime, and social media which helps keep us from being completely disconnected from family.

Hopefully the pandemic will eventually come to an end and be under control. The world can go back to being connected again and people and business can get back to living. While it will not be the same world we had before the pandemic in many ways, we can be optimistic that we will have learned things that will make it better.

Times, They Are A Changing

     Now that I have reached my seventies I can reflect on some of the events of my past. I can first remember people saying "I Like Ike" , talking about President Eisenhower running for election. As I went through school I remember the inauguration of JFK and his assassination. I lived through the cold war with the USSR, the Vietnam war, and the civil rights movement. Two more assassinations , including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy.

 Then, there was Watergate where we had a sitting president resign in the face of scandal. Spent four years in the Air Force as the Vietnam war wound down. Constant wars in the Middle East kept the world on edge. The worst attack on America since Pearl Harbor, came 9/11 2001 with the attack on the World Trade Center. While George Bush was not my popular favorite the country came together against a common enemy. Wars escalated including one still going on today in Afghanistan.  I've seen three recessions  including the latest in 2008, climate change demonstrated throughout the world with major weather disasters. Last but not least, the election of a black man to the highest office in the land Barrack Obama, with the promise of change  and a better America.

 I watched politics torn apart by this and the death of political compromise. Then the soap opera drama that ended in the election of our current president Donald Trump. The greatest con of all time on the American public. A egomaniac who has never served anyone but himself, with no empathy for the plight of the common man, since he has no idea of that life, used America's fears and racism to secure the Presidency.

 I have survived several epidemic threats, including, Swine Flu, SARS, Ebola, H1N1, and others. However, the current pandemic the Coronavirus is the most serious of all, and will have catastrophic consequences on America and the world. More people will die in America alone, than in all the wars mentioned above combined. The King is naked and has shown his incompetence in the face of this emergency. He claims no accountability for our slow response and indecisiveness. It is the broken system that he inherited, it will miraculously end on it own, he says "he" is doing a great job as people die in the thousands. He says "who knew". Everyone knew, and was trying to be prepared except him. He disbanded the agency responsible for addressing just this type of crisis, and then said he didn't do it, and we would have to find out who did it in his administration. I recall seeing a movie called Outbreak that showed this same happening. The task to try to contain the spread and the projections of massive deaths if an antidot was not found. Only in the movie they do find the antidote to make a serum, and worldwide devastation is averted. I hope that our real life story can end as promising. 

Making a Move

     I haven't written anything for a year now, basically because I didn't want to continue to always show my disdain for our current president and the activities surrounding his presidency, including a lengthy impeachment hearing and so called trial.

During this time a lot have changed in my life. We spent  several months including Christmas 2018, opening our home to our middle daughter and her three children, after they were evicted form their home. The first half of 2019 was spent coordinating getting the children to school and looking out for

everyone. We were finally able to secure housing for them in May as the school year was ending. After that, my wife and I decided that we needed a change in "our" lives. 

We put our house up for sale and began looking to downsize to a retirement home in Tampa. We finally agreed on Tampa because of its location, for the next stage of our lives. I worked to get our finances in order, sold the house much faster than we anticipated, found a condo in Tampa, and completed the move by July 1st.

The move did not go smoothly. We were taken advantage of by some unscrupulous movers, who did not deliver our items as promised. Instead of moving directly to Tampa, they were taken to a warehouse on the southside of Chicago. After consistent phone calls and request, we eventually had to travel there and get our things, and had them shipped from there to Tampa. We reported this to the Department of Transportation and the local police, however nothing was ever really done and we were out several thousand dollars. Eventually we got our things and got settled in by the end of July.

It was a blazing hot summer but we have enjoyed our change of scenery and lifestyle. Particularly the fact that we could still go to festivals and beaches during the winter months. we did have a hurricane scare, but we were spared in the end, as it turned north up the coast and missed us completel

My youngest son remarried in October, and we traveled to the wedding in California. It was a wonderful trip and wedding. After that our oldest son and his wife visited in November on their way to a wedding in Miami. It was great getting out with them to restaurants and the beach. At Christmas our youngest daughter, her boyfriend and her three children came down to visit and stayed till New Years. We took the kids everywhere and they loved their trip to Legoland.

Now 2020 has come and along with it a pandemic which threatens us all. Right now we are living under a Stay Home order, with business coming to a halt, beaches, parks, and all gatherings shut down. We get out when we can, to walk around and get some exercise and sunshine, but the world has been turned upside down and the future is unknown. Fortunately my faith sustains me and still see that everyday is a blessing and we should rejoice in it. My wife is the best of companions and the love of my life, which makes going through these trying times tolerable. Stay safe and with plenty of time on my hands I guess I'll be writing more in the days to come.

Hail the King

I have tried to stay away from political post, but I felt in the mood today. The Mueller Report is out and per the Attorney General's summary, after almost two years there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Let me first say that I never believed they would find or be able to prove any collusion, since I don't believe that Trump, his family, or campaign personnel were smart enough or dumb enough to do something like that. Anyway, now our reality show president can get on with his quest to become King. 

Throughout his life, Trump has been a bully and a malcontent over his station in society. Developed an organization with him being at the head, and anyone not getting on the train would be destroyed. He considers himself the ultimate winner, even when he or others lose big time. Almost all his ventures have been grand gestures which have either ended in bankruptcy or failure. However, he typically comes out on the plus due to the way he wheels and deals, and destroying those that played the game with him.

However, you have to admire him for being able to sale his game to America. Even though Obama dis not have a scandal before , during , or after his presidency, everything he did was wrong for the country according to Trump and his backers. Time to make America great again by isolationism, breaking trade agreements, penalizing immigrants, building a wall around us, where he is King and in control of his own private country.  A man who has never served, been a working class stiff, been in any political office now claims to know more than our generals, intelligence agency, and all members of congress. This was a massive feat to accomplish and he pulled it off with ease.

Mexico didn't pay for the wall, health care was not repealed and replace (and not even fixed), tax cut (mostly for the wealthy) and deficits soaring (a major problem when talking about Obama), and N. Korea still has nuclear weapons. America at some point in time the chickens will come home to roast and at my age I probably won't live to see the worst of it, but my children and grandkids probably will.  There is an old saying, 'be careful for what you ask for, you just might get it". Based on the trajectory of state of America we will probably have another term for King Trump, and then he will leave as he always have, leaving us holding the bag.

Homeless

Lil Duval and Snoop Dogg have a song out entitled "Smile". The lyrics go something like this: "I'm living my best life, ain't going back and forth with you. You've got a lot to be smiling for, so what are you wowing for? If you breathing, you achieving. We having fun this evening believing." This has kind of been my motto since I retired a few years ago. All was going well until my middle step daughters problems became mine.

I always wondered about homeless people and how they ended up in their situation. Some I can understand as just plan unfortunate, while others were caused by the systems we live in, and still could be the result of addiction or criminal activity. I always wondered if they had any family that could help them. For the sake of our daughters three young children, my wife was faced with the obligation of taking  them in ,along with their mother, once they became homeless.

Her path to homelessness could have been predictable and has been building for years. As a senior in high school, she became pregnant and moved out of the house on her own. We tried to support in those early days, providing her with a car for transportation. Supporting her to get her GED. She was never an early riser, which made maintaining a job difficult. She entered the system to get housing assistance and food stamps.  After a few years of struggling she made the common mistake of young people and tried to make easy money. She was caught passing bad checks and incarcerated. We took her little girl during that time. When she was released, as most people do, she said she had learned her lesson and was going to get her act together. However, it was six month later that she was pregnant again, by another man, who turned out to be a criminal and ended up in jail.

Now with two small children and not fathers around, we continued to try and support her with more vehicles (she is very hard on car, and destroyed more that I can remember), leasing her apartments, and buying things for the girls. We got her into a program call Youth Build, where she could learn a trade. However after she graduated she didn't follow up and with her criminal record she could get a job to support the family. She neglected the girls and turned to drugs which resulted in us taking the two girls in this time. She eventually cleaned up enough to get them back.

She got approved for Section 8 housing and was able to move into a low income home. In the meantime she had another child, with another person, who eventually ended up in jail for a short period of time. This time it was a little boy. She worked sporadically during this time, living on state assistance and some child support from her first little girls father. All the while hustling on the street. She went back to school for medical coding, but has never used it. She worked at a nursing home but had a poor attendance record and couldn't pass the certification test. 

One year later and two more moves through section 8,  she has her fourth child. New father, who also doesn't work, and is receiving disability. Partners in crime as I call them. I helped her with a leased vehicle , which she destroyed in it's first year and exceed the mileage in two years, by twice as much as the lease agreement. It finally broke down and I had to take it back and work on getting it repaired. She lost her section 8 as her and her children destroyed the property and were evicted. There was property stolen from the housing unit which she was charged with and could not pay for. She then moved into another low income housing project and tried to work a deal with the manager to stay with assistance and pay a lower rate. I helped her with funds in both situations but it was only a matter of time, before she and the kids were evicted again.

This is where we came in, with them having no other options but the street. Our world is upside down trying to get them to different schools, meals, and just the constant commotion. The youngest little girl is in the fifth grade and cannot read. The little boy was just introduced into an alternative school for at risk boys, W.E.B. Dubois Academy. But he is already on probation for absenteeism and tardiness. The teenage daughter has missed school and is already repeating part of the ninth grade. She spends most of her time on social media and running around with a group of girls from the inner city. She has been to court for being in a stolen car . Much of her behavior though mirrors her mother, even though I believe she is a good kid. Mom can't get an apartment with no job, no credit, no car, and no possibilities. 

She is the stereotypical welfare mother who leaves her kids to get high or try to make money by selling drugs. She feels that as parents we should be there to help her and raise the kids. Well, I'm living my best life and I have helped her at every turn, but I ain't going back and forth with you. I will be selling the house and moving to Florida during the spring and I hope she has figured something out by then. God helps those who help themselves and listen when people  try to help them. He also says that sometimes you have to let people go, so they can finish his test. 

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Care Giving

My mother will reach the ripe old age of 92 this year. Up until the time she was 85 she stayed lived alone in our childhood home in St Louis independently. As her health began to fail it became apparent that she would need someone to help her with even the most basic of needs. My older brother who was retired from the military and living in Florida with his family came home to see if he could help take care of her. In his heart, as with many children, he had promised our mother that she could remain in her house until she died.

 

 We started with "chore help" at the house, where mom could get someone to come to the house during the day to help clean up, get her meals together, along with a physical therapist once a week. This helped but my brother still needed to stay at the house with her, so she would have assistance overnight and during the hours when no one was assigned. This took a great toll on him. His marriage which had already suffered considerably from internal problems went to shambles. He has been through two failed attempts for a divorce and his wife is still receiving all his money to pay for his house, expenses, car payments, insurance and anything else which comes up there. His health   has deteriorated. As an Army vet near 70 on disability, he   has his own medical issues. One time during this year both he and my mother were in the hospital at the same time.

 

Last year it became apparent that we would have to place mom in an assistant living facility. My brother could no longer take care of her adequately by himself. After one of her hospital visits she was placed in a rehab program and then we transitioned her to he hospitals extended care facility. One of the things that really makes me angry is to see the television commercials that advertise a place for mom and health care options for senior citizens. The commercials show individuals in homes which are nicer than my own, with ability to do things self sufficiently. They show retirement homes with activities such as members nicely dressed, playing cards, dancing, or receiving delicious meals at home prepared by a young well dressed care giver. This is not the real world unless you are white and have a substantial amount of money.

 

When I called "A Place For Mom" they told me they couldn't help me because my mother didn't have enough money and since she was on Medicare, she could go through Medicaid to try to get into a nursing home facility. When I looked into the facilities for Medicaid, the beds were all filled, or the facility had a very poor staffing or operational rating. They never discuss what a low income individual can do. Living in a home that was built in the 1940's in a neighborhood which has now run down and drug infested, my mother hadn't been outside , even to sit on her own front porch, for several years. My mother still asked every time we see her, when she is going home. It is heartbreaking. I try to go home at least once a month now to try and give my brother a break and support. His heart will not let him leave my mother, even while she is in the assisted living facility, because of the fact that  he is afraid of how she will be cared for. The stories are numerous and true about nursing home neglect and abuse.

 

Dealing with Medicaid has been a nightmare. They were suppose to take money from mom's bank account to supplement their payments to the nursing home. They allowed her tom stay six months before accurately placing her case in. The system. When we asked about what was going own the personnel at the state office had no clue, told us not to worry, and even gave us bad information on how it would be handled. At the end of the day, we were told we owed $5,400 for her stay and if we didn't pay we would be charged with Medicaid fraud. We had most of the money, but my brother had used some on mom's money to pay bills that were still coming in at our house, where he was staying.

 

While all of us may not end up with the situation o9f caring for older parents, many of us will. Family caregivers should receive compensation o9f some sort for all the give and the stress on their lives. Yes, it is an obligation to take care of a loved one, but it shouldn't be the end of two lives. I pray for all those who are going through this.