It being the end of the year, I thought I might write one of those year-end recaps. But as I cataloged things, I thought, nah.

I’ll just say this: When I got sprung from the City COVID quarantine hotel last April, I had no idea that Beth and I would look back and say we got off easy.

But we did.

And we’re grateful. And we think about those who have not gotten off as easy. Y’all know who you are. We’re with you and always will be.

Then I thought, well, it wasn’t all bad. Surely there have been bright spots, yes?

Well, not so much. But in our personal lives, there has been some goodness.

This affordable housing development in Cambridge, Massachusetts, won best overall passive project in this year’s PHIUS Design Competition.

The non-profit I work for (PHIUS) has thrived—we’ve hired four people since the lockdown. For reference, that increased our headcount by nearly 50 percent. We promote design and construction that results in buildings that use 40-60 percent less energy and produce less carbon. And it’s very clear that gradually, we’ll reduce our carbon footprint.

I’ve talked to architects and builders who also have thrived—and a common problem is finding skilled labor. One of our constituents is on a personal crusade to bring back technical education to high schools. He thinks, and I agree, that we’ve placed too much emphasis on four-year degrees and not enough on trades and technical skills. Here’s hoping that the Green New Deal offers training—there is a need for skilled tradesman who understand high-performance building.

After initial skepticism, Beth has built up a portfolio of Zoom memoir classes. It’s not the same, it’s not a one for one substitute, but it works. Beth’s new dog, and my new favorite, Luna, has, against all odds, performed magnificently. Think about it: within two weeks of coming home with Beth, Beth broke her wrist, limiting how much work they could do together to acclimate. Then the lockdown. Luna hasn’t missed a beat. Thank you Seeing Eye!

I can say without question that this year’s hardships have deepened friendships, as well as the love we feel for friends and family.

Perhaps best of all, this news: Red wine and cheese help fight dementia. I’m not making this up.

Everything in moderation. Well, most of the time.

From a Science Daily summary of the research:

1. Cheese, by far, was shown to be the most protective food against age-related cognitive problems, even late into life;
2. The daily consumption of alcohol, particularly red wine, was related to improvements in cognitive function;
3. Weekly consumption of lamb, but not other red meats, was shown to improve long-term cognitive prowess; and
4. Excessive consumption of salt is bad, but only individuals already at risk for Alzheimer’s Disease may need to watch their intake to avoid cognitive problems over time.

So on January 20, there’ll be red wine, there’ll be cheese, and they’ll be lamb chops. Can’t come soon enough.

I am pleased to introduce Mel Washburn as our Saturdays with Seniors guest blogger today. Mel grew up in Kentucky in the 1950s and graduated from Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he met his wife Pam. He worked as a firefighter/paramedic in Wisconsin for ten years, taught English in various Midwestern colleges, graduated from law school, and then settled in Chicago.

My assignment asking writers to describe where they were fifty years ago prompted Mel to come up with this wonderful piece starring their bulldog Ambrose and their daughter Kristen.

Half a Century Ago

by Mel Washburn

Kristen the gingerbread eater.

In December 1970 Pam and I were living at the corner of 61st and Ingleside, which is one block south of the University of Chicago campus. Our apartment was a third-floor walkup in a decrepit old building. The windows were so loose that during the winter a border of ice collected inside on the windowsill. The washing machines in the basement were always coated with coal dust. Because we were south of the campus, cabs wouldn’t come to our address and the Hyde Park Co-op wouldn’t deliver food there.

Our car was a 1961 Chevy Bel Air that we’d bought third-hand from our friends, the Waggoners. During the two summers before we bought it, they had driven it to Mexico where John, an anthropologist, was doing field work in Yucatan.

Those trips had been rough on the car. It was scarred with bumps and dents and rust. And the clutch was very sensitive. If you didn’t feather it exactly right, it would stall on you.

One evening shortly after we moved into our apartment, Pam and I were sitting in our front room when we heard the whine and chug of a car starting up, then dying, starting up, then dying. I said to Pam, “Sounds like he has the same problem we have.” After half a beat, we both went to the window and looked down at the street.

Someone was trying to steal our car, but it died each time he tried to pull away from the curb.

At the time we owned a bulldog named Ambrose. I shouted out the window at the young man in our car and went running down the stairs. Pam was right behind me with Ambrose. As soon as we came out the front door, the young man jumped out of the car and ran away.

A few weeks later, we sent Ambrose to live with Pam’s sister in Indiana. City life simply did not suit him. Nevertheless, his aura continued to protect our home. For example, in the months after Ambrose’s departure, every apartment on our stairwell was burglarized — every apartment except ours.

Amidst these hazards, we were very happy. My schoolwork was going well. I’d been given a full scholarship and was teaching in the college as a “Danforth Tutor.” Pam worked part-time in the library at the medical school. Our daughter Kristen was healthy and happy, the joy of our lives. Pam and I took turns cooking dinner and doing the laundry. In the evenings we read The Complete Sherlock Holmes in six paperback volumes.

In December 1970, Kristen was a year and a half old. We put up a small Christmas tree. Pam baked gingerbread men and women, which we hung on the tree. Soon some of the gingerbread people were missing their feet. Then their legs. Then their hands. And arms. Some small person was snacking on them.

We never said a word to her about it. To this day, it’s our dearest Christmas memory.

Mel and his wife Pam now live in a 1920s high rise in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. Kristen lives with her family in Berkeley, California.

Today’s guest blogger, Cynthia Jones.

I am pleased to introduce Cynthia Jones as our Saturdays with Seniors guest blogger today. After a long career in nursing and social work, Cynthia officially retired in 2013 and, until this past March, had been working part-time at City of Chicago senior centers and a residential facility for people with chronic mental illness. With so many Americans wondering how on earth they’ll celebrate the holidays without big gatherings this year, it was refreshing to hear from a caregiver who never liked big family parties in the first place – here’s Cynthia’s 2020 holiday essay:

by Cynthia Jones

I’ve never liked Thanksgiving. Actually, I’m not a big fan of holidays. As a kid, Thanksgiving meant having to dress up in “church” clothes and sit at dinner and be seen and not heard with a bunch of adults who ignored me after a few inane comments about how big I was getting.

They talked of weird things like who died or had surgery, the high cost of everything, the evils of Russia and communism and reminisced about the glory days of WWI and II.

As I got older, younger cousins joined the family. I was expected to sit at the “kids table” with them, cut up their food, clean up anything spilled, and entertain them so they wouldn’t interrupt the fascinating conversation the adults were having.

As a teen and young adult, I longed to spend the holiday with my friends, but they, too, were condemned to spend the day with older and younger relatives who we felt superior to. As a single young adult, I was tasked with driving three elderly grandparents to the dinner. This wouldn’t have been such an aggravation if they hadn’t started asking when I would be taking them home a half hour after we had arrived.

After I started working as a nurse, I discovered an awesome fringe benefit of the job: someone had to work on Thanksgiving!! I was always the first to volunteer. I felt so righteous telling my mom or grandmother, whoever was hosting dinner, how sorry I was to miss the family celebration. “Oh, you know,” I’d say with a sigh. “The patients in the ER need me.” How could they argue with that?

After I had a family of my own, I continued to work on Thanksgiving. That way I could be off on Christmas. It felt deliciously irreverent to order pizza or binge on White Castle sliders with my husband and children after working my Thanksgiving shift.

As years went by, I moved from working in hospitals to social service agencies and often had the day off. By this time my mother was widowed and said she could no longer entertain a large group.

So I became the reluctant Thanksgiving hostess for the extended family. I found I actually enjoyed the cooking — it kept me from having to participate in the same recurring conversation about the evils of communism and glory of World Wars.

As my kids became teens and young adults, I vowed not to make them hate Thanksgiving as I had. I encouraged them to invite friends for dinner, or leave to be with friends right after the meal. Having a different group each year was so enjoyable that I started inviting random friends myself.

With my children married now, sharing the holiday in recent years with in-laws has been fun…and interesting. This year, with COVID-19 rampant and dire warnings about holiday gatherings being super spreader events, my daughter and I cooked a big dinner together with the help of my three-year-old granddaughter. The only other guest? My son in law. It was an amazing day.

In the midst of despair and divisiveness, there’s one thing we can agree on: the COVID vaccines represent a remarkable accomplishment. Like every medical/technical achievement, the vaccines were enabled by earlier breakthroughs. Moderna’s, for example, relied on a new messenger RNA technique. Expect advances to keep coming. For example, using CRISPR technology, a COVID test that uses a cell phone camera to detect COVID and produce a result with 30 minutes.

As remarkably fast as it’s all coming, it all can’t come fast enough. Meantime, I’m hearing and reading one thing again and again from the health experts I’ve come to trust: As tempting as it is, we better not let our guard down. (Any more than we unfortunately have already.)

Let’s be safe nerds.

It’s going to be dicey as more and more of us start thinking about venturing out and into indoor spaces. I don’t know that there’s going to be a “coast clear” announcement that we can trust.

As part of my work at PHIUS (Passive House Institute US), I did come across some information that may help people decide whether a space they’re in is safe.  Buildings that meet our performance standard employ constant, low level ventilation. Equal amounts of air exit and enter at the same rate, constantly. There is no kicking on and off. Ingeniously, the exhaust air and intake air pass by a heat exchanger without mixing, allowing the outdoor air to scavenge heat energy from the exhaust air.

That ventilation is a good way to prevent COVID loads amassing to dangerous levels. During a recent webinar for our constituents, a manufacturer rep from a ventilation equipment company showed a way, if and when the time comes when people must or want to be indoors at establishments, to determine if the space is safe.

You need a carbon dioxide meter (not a carbon monoxide detector). It works like this: CO2 is a kind of proxy for COVID build up. The greater the CO2 level in a room, the worse the ventilation. That CO2 is the product of people breathing, and so, if there are lots of CO2 particles in a space, then there are lots of other particles that are products of breathing.  I’ve done some research and the following guidelines seem very solid.

• Outdoor air has 400 ppm (parts per millions) CO2 levels
• A well-ventilated room will have 800 ppm or less.
• Anything more than 800? Run away.

I think well-ventilated businesses should install these things so people can assure themselves (or not) that it’s safe.

I’m hoping I find one under the tree this year, but I think I’ll be gifting it to myself.

Today’s guest blogger Nancy Lerman (and Lana the dog).

I am pleased to introduce Nancy Lerman as our Saturdays with Seniors guest blogger today. Nancy has been in the Monday class I lead for The Village Chicago since it started in 2013 and has participated in a writing Program at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre for six years as well. That’s a lot of writing!

Several of the stories she’s written over the years have been about her fear of water., After conquering that fear two years ago, she now says swimming is one of her favorite relaxing activities.

It Started with a Book

by Nancy Lerman

The Pandemic has been a productive time for many. My husband Michael has reorganized the basement. Moved everything around in the garage. Labeled all the spices in my kitchen cabinet with purchase dates. Brilliant, right? Or is he playing the long game so that five years from now when he wants to throw bottles out, I can’t protest.

I, on the other hand, have closets of 20-year-old garments screaming to be sorted through and shipped off to Goodwill. The “Build Better Feet in 8 weeks” on-line program I purchased? You know, the one that promises to strengthen feet and leg muscles so I won’t need orthotics or have chronic foot pain? It remains untouched. And Beth’s writing prompt for last week, the one where we’re suppose to select an object in our house and write about it? Have you read anything in depth about an item in my house here? Well, here goes. The object I chose is a book.

An ever-growing stack of books sits on my bedside table. A dogged-eared copy of Conquer Your Fear of Water, A Self-Discovery Course in Swimming by Melon Dash tops the pile. I bought Melon’s book 15 years ago and spent several summers working through all the water exercises without much success. My fear of water ran deep.

I held onto the book hoping one day for a breakthrough. The breakthrough came when I mustered the courage to take a class in Sarasota, Florida taught by the author herself. With Melon’s help, I conquered a 40-plus-year fear of water and learned to swim.

But there’s always more fear around the corner.

This fall Chicago’s Goodman Theatre offered a class called Solo Voice through its popular GeNarrations program. The class targets folks wanting to write and eventually perform a 45-90 minute solo piece.

Having honed my craft on Beth’s five minute essays, the thought of a solo show is terrifying. Curiosity got the better of me, though, and I signed up.

What an excellent opportunity to expand some of my 500-word essays! But which ones? I plowed through years of Beth assignments. Whether it be a single story screaming for more airtime, or several stories to string together with a common theme, I wanted a topic that would have meaning for both the audience and for me. Swimming fit the bill.

Most people wrestle with anxiety and fear at some point. Flying. Driving. Public Speaking. Snakes. No one’s immune. Conquering my fear of water would be relatable. I came up with two goals:

1. Show how learning to slow down and stay present can allow a person to move from panic to safety
2. Demonstrate how water panic prevention skills can apply to everyday life

I’m still writing the first draft. Melon’s book provides inspiration.

Performing a solo show on stage for 45 minutes opens a floodgate of fears. But that’s fodder for another day. Right now getting all the ideas swimming around in my head down on a pool of paper is plenty.

Funny, how a book bought fifteen years ago continues to coax me to conquer new challenges.