Years ago I got the camera bug in a photojournalism class—I shot with department-issued cameras, spent hours in the J-school darkroom, and eventually bought my own SLR camera. I take snaps with my iPhone, but every once in awhile, the phone just falls short. It was a hobby that eventually fell by the wayside.

A longtime neighborhood friend, Anthony, whom we met at Hackney’s way back when, is, among many other things, an excellent and knowledgeable photographer. I started picking his gigantic brain (he’s a linguist, a computer programmer, and lots of other brainy things) about cameras back when we could still chat on barstools. He generously offered to loan me one of his cameras and a fantastic lens—I was a little nervous about taking possession of such a nice outfit. But when he showed up at Half Sour, our local haunt, one evening and handed me a nifty canvas bag containing the camera and necessary accessories, I couldn’t say no.

Well, a lot’s changed since I shot black-and-white Kodak Tri-X Pan and dodged and burned in the darkroom. Yeesh, the features on these things. They’re like Transformers. The lockdown started shortly after Anthony lended me the camera, and I’ve entertained myself by reading endless online reviews cameras, poring over the owner’s manual for Anthony’s camera, trying to fathom everything these new-fangled machines can do.

Over these past weeks, I’ve pestered Anthony with email questions that I would’ve normally asked in person before the shutdown—and he’s patiently answered all of them. Then last week he suggested that I shoot with a different focal length lens to experience the difference. He outlined a precisely choreographed plan for exchanging lenses while maintaining social distancing. (Wouldn’t George Carlin have a good time with that term? Or “shelter in place”?)

Yesterday, on a lovely, mostly sunny spring day, we executed the plan.

“I’m at Dearborn Park,” read his email.

“I’ll be there in minutes,” I replied.

Anthony has become a friend of the squirrels at Dearborn Park, a lovely little verdant oasis in the middle of our concrete jungle. He feeds them hazelnuts, which he buys in bulk just for this purpose, he photographs them, he tells stories about them. He’s like the squirrel whisperer.

And holy cow, as I approached, squirrels were everywhere! None wore masks but all were well behaved.

We stood strides apart, he in a patterned fabric mask, me in one of the masks I’d been sent home with from the hospital after my Covid19 scare. He took his current camera out of his bag. He demonstrated how to remove the lens—noting that it worked the exact same way on my loaner.

He put the lens caps on front and back.

“Your turn,” he said.

I took out my camera, pressed the release button on the front of the camera, just as Anthony had on his. I twisted off the lens, and attached the caps.

Anthony placed his lens on a nearby concrete table.

I retrieved the lens and left my lens on the table.

Anthony retrieved that lens.

We bundled up our bags and said adieu to one another and to the squirrels.

Interesting times.

José with his wife, Kate .

I am pleased to introduce José DiMauro as our featured “Saturdays with Seniors” blogger today. Born in Argentina, José graduated from medical school at Univ De Buenos Aires and left home in 1963 to start his medical career at Chicago’s Mercy Hospital., From there he became a board certified pathologist at University of Illinois in Chicago, and after retiring, Dr. DiMauro moved with his wife Kate to Admiral at the Lake, where I lead a weekly memoir-writing class. While we all shelter in place, that class is meeting virtually, assigning prompts on their own and meeting and sharing their work via Zoom. Here’s what José came up with earlier this month when the prompt was “Locked In.”

by José DeMauro

The year 2020 started well for us. Winter had been relatively mild in Chicago, and in mid-January, Kate and I were still exulting from our recent vacation to Belize. It was the end of January before I first heard the word “Wuhan.”

That word made me think of a silk-road tale, but to figure out where Whuhan was, I had to search Google Maps. A novel flu-like disease was a growing concern there, but that was at the other side of the world! I didn’t pay much attention.

But then, news of the virus started to multiply…and it was moving west, fast,…Iran…Italy…. As the novel flu-like disease started taking more space on the front-page news, it also started mutating names: coronavirus, CODV-19, SARS-CoV-2. At our safe abode, the Admiral at the Lake, March brought a different sort of “Madness.” On the 5th of March we had an instructive presentation of what still seemed to be at a relatively safe distance. But then, things accelerated, and we had to learn a new vocabulary fast:

• On the 9th of March, we went into “Soft Shutdown”
• On the 12th of March, we “Hardened the shutdown process”
• On the 16th of March we were locked in our apartments for “Prevention and protection”
• On the 18th of March we started to “Shelter in place”
• Finally, on the 21st of March, at the illogical hour for “seniors” of 6 AM, we rushed to Mariano’s across the street for supplies..but no toilet paper
• On Wednesday the 25th, the weather brought one of its rare gifts to Chicago: a temperature of 60 º. Kate and I ventured for a walk along a rapidly-crowding Chicago lakefront, trying to keep our six-foot distance from others. On our return walk, we noticed a helicopter hovering in place and a sudden proliferation of police squad cars. That day Mayor Lightfoot threatened to shut down the lakefront due to overcrowding there. She did just that the next day, and we felt guilty, as if we had caused it just by being outside taking a walk.

Being introverted, I don’t mind being locked-in, I cherish free time to catch-up with my readings. Truth is, I like to be alone.

But in a rapidly interconnected world, we’re in this together. When the virus hit Italy and Spain, the calls began. My parents were born and raised in Italy, then emigrated to Argentina in search of better opportunities. I grew up in Buenos Aires, became a U.S. citizen in 1971, I still have cousins in Rome and Southern Italy, and one of my nephews lives in Valencia, Spain. With many relatives in those hard-hit areas, my cell phone WhatsApp was lightning fast and furious. Fortunately, all my relatives were well, and I really enjoyed getting back in touch with them.

I then took refuge at my computer. The monitor soon filled with well-intentioned friends who decided that I was bored and needed entertainment. What was this? Had my computer been hijacked by a virus, too?!

Now, our lives have settled around waiting for the morning ring alerting us to check our temperature, and the 4 PM ring that announces dinner is at the door. Going down four floors to pick up the mail has become the walk of the day, and once we return, we wash our hands…again. More than ever, we are grateful for our east-looking full wall windows. They bring the light and lake to us. Early on this month, however, we noticed something amiss. Here it was, rush-hour, and Lake Shore Drive, the drive along the lake, was eerily empty. We felt desolate.

But then, we noticed something else. The tree foliage was already turning a timid green. April was starting to creep in, although, we suspected, it didn’t know where it was going yet.

That’s Wanda, modeling her 1960 Easter bonnet for her home health care worker a few weeks ago.

If you’ve followed this Safe & Sound blog for a while, you know who Wanda Bridgeforth is: she’s witty, she’s talented, she’s 98 years old, she’s been attending the memoir-writing class I lead in downtown Chicago for over a decade now, and guess what? She’s in the news again. This time, it’s the front page!

Early this week, Wanda was profiled in a column in the Chicago Tribune written by Heidi Stevens. Here’s a snippet:

Bridgeforth lives alone in a Hyde Park condo, not far from Lake Michigan. “I am the vice president in charge of looking out the window,” she said. “My job is practicing the lively art of doing nothing. And that takes some doing!
It might be a form of meditation, I don’t know.”

Heidi’s work is syndicated all over the country — my sister Bev called to let me know the column about Wanda was in her local newspaper in Grand Haven, Michigan, and when I talked to Wanda over the phone Wednesday she said her phone hadn’t stopped ringing. “A cousin from Baltimore called,” she marveled. “She saw it out there!”

For me, the excitement started last week when a simple message from Heidi called out to me from my talking iPhone:

“Hi Beth. It’s Heidi. How are you feeling? I have a favor to ask. Do you think Wanda would be willing to talk with me for a column? I’m trying to find someone who’s lived through a lot to offer some perspective on this time in history. She popped in my mind because of some of what you told me about her life and her willingness to record it in memoir form.”

Wanda gushed when I called her to see if she was willing. “You know me!” she laughed. A slew of phone calls and text messages and questions about arrangements followed, and this long message Heidi left on her Balancing Act Facebook page afterwards tells the rest of the story:

Wanda Bridgeforth made it to the front page of the Chicago Tribune today, which made me so happy. I’ve been getting the loveliest emails from readers who are touched by her story. (And one from a man who says he used to be Ms. Bridgeforth’s doctor. “I think I got more out of her visits than she did,” he wrote.)

I want to share a tiny bit more background. First, we couldn’t send a photographer to shoot Ms. Bridgeforth’s portrait, since it didn’t feel safe, coronavirus-wise, to have someone new enter her condo, and she wasn’t able to walk outside or down to her lobby where we could shoot a photo of her through the glass, which Tribune photographers are doing a lot of these days. So her home healthcare worker used her own phone to shoot photos of photos that Wanda had in her condo and then texted them to me. How’s that for an essential worker going above and beyond? So wonderful.

Second, when Wanda let me know what times would be best for me to call and interview her, she offered a window from 3 p.m. to 2 a.m. When I called her (at 3:30 p.m., while she’s usually watching “Jeopardy,” but she taped it that day to watch later) I said, “So I could’ve called you at 1 in the morning and you would’ve answered?” And she said, “Oh, yes. I never get to bed before 2.”

I just adore her.

And me? I just adore both of them: Wanda Bridgeforth and Heidi Stevens. If you missed seeing the story on page one of the Chicago Tribune, don’t despair: you can read it online here.

Two days ago, I walked a mile. Without falling. Or wheezing. Yahoo!

Luna picked a tough time for her first job.

I did get a little dizzy early on, but took baby steps and pushed through it. The dizzy spells have been the most troubling leftovers from my time with COVID-19. No, that’s not true. The fatigue has been the worst. I tell Beth that the first thing I want to do when I wake up in the morning is go to sleep. The headaches and nausea spells have almost completely subsided. I finally have my appetite back. The foggy brain comes and goes, but it’s kind of terrifying when it comes. I’m told that’s OK, that if I know I’m foggy brained, that’s a good sign.

When I was 30, I smoked a pack of cigarettes a day and was under a lot of stress for a variety of reasons. I got the flu, which morphed into pneumonia, a case serious enough that back then in 1987, I started getting questions about my drug use and sex life. I had a temperature of 104 for three days, and the menu of antibiotics just bounced off me. Then one day, it broke. In all I was in the hospital seven days. Gus was a year old, and family members had, thank goodness, come down to help. It took some time to get back to speed.

This COVID 19 episode was worse. Much worse.

Reports from friends who also have had the virus, along with news pieces I’ve read, indicate that my long road back to wholeness is relatively common. But the menu of misery visited on the infected takes a demonic variety of forms.

Also clear is that we still don’t really know a lot about the virus, the likelihood of it mutating, if (likely) and how long (who knows?) I’ll have any immunity.

I’ve applied to be a plasma donor—scientists are experimenting with infusions of blood that have antibodies in sick people, plus they want blood from people who’ve been infected to study in general. Waiting to hear if I make the grade.

I’m also going to donate what money and time I can to critical political races.

If the verdict on immunity is I likely have it, I’ll be working the polls come November.

Meantime, I have a lot to live for. Being cooped up with Beth has been a joy after being cooped up in the hospital. We watch TCM and Two-and-a-Half-Men reruns and Trevor Noah and last night “Last Dance,” which was a helluva a lot of fun. I cooked for the first time in weeks and remembered why I love it. After years of not having a drop of any kind of soda, I’m ingesting full-sugar Coke like it’s…coke. (Don’t tell the president–he’ll start touting it as a cure.) There’s a 7-11 downstairs when I run out, and I have a lot of masks and gloves. Printers Row Wine Shop is open! And if smarter heads do prevail, we’ll eventually be able to visit our son Gus in his group home again, safely.

Most of all, I’m gonna live healthy. (Well, mostly.) I’ve got a lot to do.

Hey, if you missed hearing Red Sox organist Josh Kantor on NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me quiz show yesterday, don’t despair. You can hear him every day at 2 p.m. central time when he live streams “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and takes requests from baseball fans listening in. This all happens at 7th-Inning Stretch 2020 on Facebook, and donations from the requests are raising money for Boston area food banks.

Loyal Safe & Sound blog followers might recognize Josh Kantor’s name: I wrote a post back in 2016 about our friend retired White Sox baseball organist Nancy Faust donating her home practice organ to an auction benefiting Chicago White Sox Charities.

Boston Red Sox organist Josh Kantor placed the winning bid on the Hammond Elegante Model 340100, and a slew of his Chicago musician friends picked up a rental van in Chicago to deliver it to Kantor in Boston.

The organ juuusssst barely fit in the van.

The musicians took a pit stop at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown along the way, and a story in the Chicago Reader back then reported that the trip almost didn’t happen at all: They measured ahead of time, but when they got the rental van, the organ didn’t fit. “The crew managed to Tetris it inside,” the story said. Singer Kelly Hogan was on the moving crew and told the reporter that the musicians who drove the organ to Boston all have many, many miles in band vans between them, and that it was “pretty normal” to be resting her arm on an organ as they were traveling.

The story said Josh Kantor was overwhelmed by the scores of people who called and e-mailed and texted him asking what they could do to help get the organ to his home in Boston. “A friend sawed a metal railing off the entrance of Kantor’s house so the organ could be moved inside,” the story said. “Another donated a Nancy Faust bobblehead, which became a focal point of videos documenting the trek.”

Nancy emailed me a few times while the organ was in transit to send clips of stories and interviews with Josh Kantor about his new musical Instrument. “Here is a link to this morning’s interview on 670 the score with Josh Kantor who bought the organ,” one note read. “What a gracious guy. The ballpark has enabled me to meet the nicest people.”

Nancy sent me the Chicago Reader article I’ve been quoting in this blog post, too, along with another note. “Hi Beth, This is a rather long, very inclusive account from today’s Reader about my ‘organ transplant,’” she wrote. “Josh Kantor has been far too kind but hopefully gained the best memories, friendship bonds, and the Red Sox recognition from the whole adventure. Love, Nancy.”

Me and Mike with Nancy Faust at the Green Mill awhile back. Nancy showed Mike her World Series ring.

Josh Kantor was hired as Red Sox organist in 2003. After accepting the position, he flew to Chicago to see Nancy Faust, and the Nancy Faust-Josh Kantor mutual admiration society was formed. “He spent the day with me,” she said, and that story in the Chicago Reader quotes Kantor saying, “That was one of my favorite days ever!”

Kantor told the reporter that during that visit, among other things, Nancy urged him to keep updating his repertoire. “If you want to do this for a long time and not turn into a dinosaur like a lot of other organists have, keep learning new songs.” More from the Chicago Reader story:

His fascination with her process helps explain why he was so interested in purchasing this particular organ. “To me, the organ that was in her home for 35 years, that was her practice instrument, was as interesting—if not more interesting—because that was the lab instrument, basically. That was where she did all her homework,” he says, laughing. “That was where she concocted all her genius.”

Baseball organists are a dying breed – MLB reports fewer than a dozen ballparks still hire organists, and many of the musicians are only allowed to play a few times throughout the game and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” in the seventh inning. The Chicago Reader story called Kantor one of the “most vocal proponents of organ music and its role in baseball,” and it sounds to me like he’s doing a great job. He couldn’t help but notice how open and accessible Nancy Faust was to fans at White Sox Park, and he said he tries to do the same, with a modern twist: during home games, he takes song requests via Twitter (@jtkantor) at Fenway. And now, his music is helping with food banks in Boston and providing baseball fans sheltering in place with a little something to smile about every afternoon.