We had a great Thanksgiving, entertaining a neigborhood friend with several lamb chops, Greek smashed potatoes, and green beans.

Speaking of Greek: omicron. It’s worrisome. Or it’s not worrisome. It’s tiresome, for sure. And covid’s not going anywhere.

At least we don’t have a dickhead president calling it the African virus. Thank goodness for small favors.

As readers know, I got real sick in 2020. I’ve had two shots and a booster. I’m living my life with the idea that I’m not bulletproof, but close. I’m pretty sure the spiky little bastard has no chance with me. But no one can know. We’re all doing our best.

Except for the selfish, self-centered assholes who don’t get vaccinated. Getting the vaccine is the one solid thing we can do for ourselves and for people we care about. You might feel bad for a day. I did with each of two shots. But I had no effects from the booster. Doing it makes a difference. I had four uncles that served in WWII. This is small.

And you don’t get it just for you. Or your family (though you should). Or your friends (though you should). You do it for your country. Not doing so is unpatriotic. You do it for humankind. It’s not about you. It has nothing to do with rights. It has to do with responsibility.

Here’s something I learned: Lots of people have been on the rolls to receive lung and other organ transplants. Cystic fibrosis, and more. Many of these people need organ transplants for reasons entirely outside of their control. But now they’re competing with people who had a choice and didn’t get vaccinated and ended up needing organs.

For good reason, there are no moral judgments about who gets organs—it’s about medical need..

Good reasons that are enforced by better people than me.

Heidi Stevens, a Chicago Tribune Columnist (among other things) had this to say on Facebook about last week’s Rittenhouse verdict: “This country keeps finding new and endless ways to break your heart.”

Ain’t it the sad truth. I have nothing to say about that matter that hasn’t been written. Like everything in today’s United States, the verdict and Rittenhouse’s actions are starkly polarizing.

I don’t have anything against responsible gun owners, or responsible gun ownership. But a dumbshit, barely pubescent kid shouldn’t be able to even pick up an assault weapon, let alone parade around an inflamed situation with one. That he could do so is symbolic of how ridiculously stupid this country has gotten about firearms.

This has all happened in my lifetime—it wasn’t always this way. I still have hope that we can get back to sanity, largely because of sentiments expressed by a couple of lifelong gun enthusiasts who feel like I do about America’s gun insanity, and who are trying to do something about it.

One is a Montana resident named Ryan Busse. He’s written a book called “Gunfight, My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America.” Full disclosure: I haven’t read it yet but I intend to after hearing him interviewed on today’s edition of “Fresh Air.”

In truth, Busse had me at the title. Because the current state of non-regulation does represent the victory of a radicalized minority.

Busse grew up loving guns, and that led him to become a very successful executive at a firearms manufacturer. He was present when things went haywire. When the NRA morphed into a hate and fear vendor, and funder of campaigns. It wasn’t always thus.

Anyway, whether or not you read the book, I urge you—however you feel about the 2^nd Amendment and guns in general—to listen to the interview.

I also recommend visiting the Gun Owners for Responsible Ownership website. From the Who we Are section at the site:

We are gun owners, outdoor enthusiasts, and veterans who seek reasonable and responsible solutions to preventing gun violence.

We envision an America where all are safe from gun violence, and where responsible gun owners take the lead to promote safe gun ownership and sensible laws and regulations.

Our commitment to change arose from the December 2012 shooting at the Clackamas Town Center in suburban Portland, Oregon. Two people were killed and a third wounded. All were strangers to the shooter, but to us they were family, friends, and neighbors.

We believe our Second Amendment rights come with responsibilities. We also believe in common-sense efforts to reduce gun violence and promote gun safety across the country, including background checks on all gun sales, and safe and secure storage of firearms to prevent access by children or any unauthorized individuals.

The site is chockfull of solid data and information about advocacy. There are tons of seemingly smallish measures that are doable, and have been proven to make a difference.

God knows we need something different than we have.

I am pleased to feature Karen Fontaine as our Senior Class guest blogger today. A Professor emeritus in the College of Nursing and Psychiatric Nursing at Purdue University Northwest, Karen has retired after a long successful career as a nurse, scholar, therapist, author, lecturer and educator. She maintains her private practice in counseling, and somehow finds the time and energy to participate in the memoir-writing class I lead at Admiral-at-the Lake on Wednesday afternoons, too. The essay she wrote when I assigned “Rules I was Supposed to Follow as a Kid” helps explain her lifelong interest in all these fields, and I was delighted when she agreed to let me share her “rules” essay here with you Safe & Sound blog readers.

Today’s guest blogger Karen with her daughter Simone.

Rules I Was Supposed to Follow

by Karen Fontaine, RN, MSN

Sex: not to be talked about, not to be done.

At 4 years of age I awakened from my afternoon nap and decided to put lots of scotch tape on my genitals. When my mother walked into my bedroom, she freaked out. “No, no, no, no, no!” I didn’t know what was wrong, but I knew it was serious. “We don’t do that kind of thing!”

What kind of thing? Was scotch tape only to be used on paper? What’s wrong here?

About the same age, I walked in on my father as he was putting on his underwear. When he saw me, he leaped into the walk-in closet. “He has cow udders!” I thought. Growing up in Wisconsin, I’d seen lots of those. “BUT why is he jumping in the closet? How strange.” I wish now that I could tell the confused child that she’s okay.

These incidents illustrate my family’s pejorative approach to sexuality. Don’t look, don’t touch, don’t call it by name.

Sex education in my family was negative and shame-based. The rule was no sex until you are married. But they certainly never said or implied anything positive about enjoying sex in marriage. So, the question became, “If it’s so awful, why would I save it for the person I loved?” I decided to find out for myself: I became sexually active when I was 16. Sex was okay, just okay.

“What’s the big deal about sex”, I wondered. Of course, I wasn’t orgasmic in my teens. After that scotch tape episode, I was convinced it was bad to explore my own body.

Fast forward to my 24th year of life. I am in the basement of the church getting dressed for my wedding. Minutes prior to walking down the aisle, my father turns to me and says: “I guess I don’t have to tell you about sex, since you are a nurse.” I was stunned. “My father said the word ‘“sex?”” I thought. “My father thinks I am a virgin? This is a hell of a time to be trying to do sex education.” I muttered something and tried to smother my look of shock.

So no wonder I spent 40 years as a sex therapist trying to help others cope with destructive family, religious, and social messages about sex. Over the years I have also become an advocate for positive sex education — for people of all ages.

Karen Fontaine is a certified sex therapist and has served on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy since 2000. Her private practice in Chicago specializes in Sex Therapy, Relationship Therapy, and Individual Therapy.</p

Tomorrow night, Thursday, November 18, 2021, I will be one of four women with disabilities on an hourlong free Zoom panel sponsored by the Skokie Public Library:

Self Advocacy and the ADA–Online Event: Personal Perspectives, Challenges, and Success Stories
Thursday, November 18, 2021
7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Zoom Event

What does self-advocacy look like when navigating the world with a disability? Four panelists from different fields share stories of how they’ve advocated for reasonable accommodations.

Panelists will share lessons learned and provide tips on fighting for more fair and just treatment in the workplace and beyond.

The three panelists with me are Deirdre Keane, a teacher/librarian who was born with a hearing loss and got a cochlear implant during her freshman year in college; Michele Lee, an experienced finance professional who uses a wheelchair; and Tina Childress, a late-deafened adult with bilateral cochlear implants., The four of us will each be given 10 minutes to tell a few personal stories of advocating for ourselves, leaving time afterwards for discussion and questions. . My plan is to talk fast and describe three experiences, one a success, another a collaboration, and the third a failure:

1. Appearing at a Chicago city court after a cab driver refused me a ride with my Seeing eye dog.
2. Graduating from training to volunteer with hospice and never being paired with a patient
3. Challenges I faced when the health club I’d been swimming at closed due to COVID and no other indoor pool facility would allow my Seeing Eye dog to lead me poolside to swim laps.

The hourlong panel is free, it will be hosted on Zoom on Thursday, November 18 at 7pm cst, and you can register for it here. There’s a spot on the registration form to enter a library card #, but a library card number is NOT required to register. You can attend free of charge even if you are not a member of the Skokie Public Library. Questions? Call the library at 847-673-7774.”

After Gus was born back in 1986, Beth was at sea. (I was hanging onto a life preserver.) Barely a year after learning her sight loss was permanent, she was faced with helping to raise a newborn with an extremely rare genetic condition. Gus was a complete enigma, with little data about life expectancy or developmental advances. What data existed was not optimistic.

One of Charlie’s loves was woodworking. And he was good.

Beth did what she has always done: That is, do something. That’s when we met Charlie Sweitzer. We had received advice from another parent of a developmentally disabled child: find a church. The advice did not come from one’s own social and spiritual needs: The mother just told Beth that through regular attendance other churchgoers would pick up on Gus’ incremental developmental advances that we might not recognize on a day-to-day basis.

Beth remembered reading and hearing about the McKinley Presbyterian Church when she was still in College. McKinley is in Champaign in the heart of the University of Illinois Campus. The Church was known (and in some circles, reviled) for taking  stands on some very controversial issues and for taking action to help those who need it. One of the pastors, Charlie Sweitzer, was the force behind it all.

And what a force. He helped found the Men’s Emergency Shelter (a refuge for the homeless men housed in the McKinley Church/Foundation basemen)t. McKinley hosted space for the Gay Community AIDS Project, a health support system started during the beginning of the AIDS crisis. He was actively involved with the local PFLAG — Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

Charlie performed same-sex marriages (civil unions back then) long before Illinois state law recognized the unions, and many of the couples were of faiths where their union was not sanctioned.

He and McKinley embodied true Christian values: Acceptance and support. That’s what Beth and we needed. And we got it. Beth started attending regularly, and even I, a lifetime eschewer of churches, attended semi-regularly. Charlie challenged all of us to help people in the ways we can. To put our efforts and our money where our mouths and sanctimony were. He also provided a space where we could think idealistically without apology.

Charlie taught Beth to bake bread. Good bread. He and she improvised techniques that enable her, to this day, to bake a nice baguette and a great Challah. He eventually hired her as a volunteer coordinator, her first paid employment after she lost her sight. He encouraged her to come on a work project and Mexico—helping to add on to a Downs Syndrome institute.

It was not saccharine. It was not condescending. It was, “You can do this.” And it was also, “You better do your best.”

You all know Beth. She’s intrepid. She’s courageous. She’s resourceful. But after a double body blow, she was none of those things.

I’d say that Charlie’s care helped her become her old self. But helping her succeed at doing things she had not done before she lost her sight—it’s not an exaggeration to say that that his good faith helped lead her to her new self. The one you and I know today.

I told that to his son when we attended a gathering for Charlie and his wife Phyllis at their home in Champaign. Charlie died about a month ago, exactly 13 months after Phyllis passed away. In the middle of the Covid shutdown, Phyllis’ passing couldn’t be a public observation.

On Saturday, we celebrated them both. I could go on about them, but you best read Charlie’s obituary. It closes this way:

Charlie was a rebel and a legend, and to all of those in his wide circle of family, friends, colleagues and casual acquaintances, 86 years were not nearly enough.