Summer is a Bummer

 

When I began a new job at the University of Akron TV Center in 1975, I first encountered the phrase “…summer is a bummer.” The staff and students used this phrase a lot when I started there in August of that year.

 

I found out the meaning of that phrase when I looked at the weekly production schedule. There was studio shoot almost every day for the first three weeks of August. At that time UA was offering most of its General Education courses on a closed circuit video system that transmitted the videotaped lectures to large lecture halls throughout campus.

 

For the TV Center staff and students, summer was the busiest time. Each professor who taught one of these courses worked with a staff producer-director to record more than a dozen 40-to-45-minute course lectures between mid-May when the spring semester ended and early August. These lectures were fully produced TV shows with visuals, charts, graphs and some film clips to support the subject matter. The idea was to complete the lectures a couple of weeks before the fall semester so each faculty member would have a couple of weeks off before fall classes started.

 

UA’s enrollment was exploding in the mid-1970s as the former municipal college grew from about 10,000 students in the mid-60s to about 23,000 students in 1975. In 1967, UA became a full-fledged state-supported university and that fueled the tremendous growth.

 

The point is that the first few years I worked at UA Pam and I didn’t take long summer vacations, but would schedule them for other breaks in the year. Because, Brian hadn’t been born yet, we didn’t have to consider his school schedule in our vacation plans.

 

What I’m trying to say now is: “…this summer is a bummer…” because of the things we’ve missed due to the COVID-19 pandemic: a planned European or Asian trip for our 50^th Anniversary, a 50-year class reunion at Miami University, Cleveland Orchestra concerts at Blossom Music Center, Akron Rubberducks baseball games with my season ticket group and our monthly poker games, have all been cancelled.

 

Because most of my friends are 70-ish and some of us have other health problems, we are leery about going where there are crowds. So, I spend most of my time at home.

 

So, how do I keep occupied? I do have occasional freelance writing assignment and I have a personal goal of posting a blog at least once a month. I begin each morning perusing the local newspaper (yes, I still read the Akron Beacon Journal every day!) and then looking at news, email, Facebook and Linked-In on my phone while I finish breakfast and have a second cup of coffee.

 

Then depending on which day it is, and that takes some thought sometimes, I decide on other things I want to do. Twice a week, I visit Akron General Lifestyles for strength training on the machines. On other days, I use the exercycle in our basement while listening to classic rock on Amazon Prime. Two or three days a week after lunch, I get in my car and go for a drive through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park or some other area nearby. Occasionally, I will take my laptop along and stop and do some writing. I have met friends for coffee a few times, but always outside at a safe distance.

 

Two things I wanted to do this year were make my debut as a standup comic and complete a book project I started last year while I was in El Paso.

 

Last fall, I took a basic acting class and an improvisational acting class at the Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood to prepare for this. I have written three five-minute monologs for my debut. While I was in Las Vegas, I scouted a couple of places that had amateur nights and was close to getting up the courage to perform at one of them when the news of the pandemic made things more urgent and I decided to return home a couple of weeks early.

 

Now, even though a local comedy club that has an amateur night is open again, I consider going to a bar too dangerous. I am considering video recording these monologs and posting them online and I will be sure to let you know when I do that.

 

The book is pretty much written, but I am looking for a professional editor to correct errors in grammar, punctuation and syntax before it it published. It is a work of historical fiction and I hope I can get it done by the end of the year. I’ve had a couple of relatives and one former coworker read it and they gave mostly positive reviews and some good suggestions. But, I still want a dispassionate, professional editor to evaluate it.

 

I know a lot of people have suffered a great deal and 175,000 people have lost their lives because of COVID-19, so my issues during the last few months are pretty trivial. But still, the lost opportunities of this summer are disappointing. However, Pam, Brian and I have all remained healthy and that’s the most important thing.

 

Stay safe and I hope the rest of your summer is a good one, not a bummer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reflections on a Coronavirus Summer

Today I am sitting by a pond at Longwood Park in Macedonia, Ohio. The park is about 20 minutes by car from my house in Stow. The centerpiece of the park is a pond that is two to three acres in area and is surrounded by a wooded area with picnic tables and a fishing dock.

 

It’s a spacious park with several baseball and softball fields, the pond and the city’s recreation center. On this warm July Saturday afternoon, the park is not particularly crowded and seems to be a very laid back place.

 

This summer, I’ve been exploring parks like this around the area as I attempt to escape boredom of staying mostly at home because of COVID-19. Frankly, it’s not like I have anything else to do. I discovered this park several weeks ago when I took 10 bags of papers to one of the monthly free paper shredding drop-offs provided by the county at various parks during spring and summer months.

 

Thankfully, the gym I belong to, Akron General Lifestyles in Stow, recently reopened with pretty strict safety protocols. Everyone wears a mask—staff and those working out—and the machines have been spread out so there is about six feet of separation between them. There a plenty of bottles of hand sanitizer and cleaning solution for wiping down the machines after use.  It will probably take another two weeks, but I am gradually working my way up to the workout I did before the gym shut down in mid-March.

 

I try to keep engaged by calling family and friends and I’ve had a couple of coffee dates meeting outside with former co-workers. A group of couples we know has been gathering every couple of weeks in a park for a group picnic where everyone brings their own food. The first one was okay, but during the second one, people started chatting with each other without masks at less than six feet of separation. We were invited to another one last week, but I declined. Pam went and told the others I didn’t feel safe meeting in such a large group where people got too close together.

 

As I look around Longwood park, I see several people with fishing poles trying their luck in the pond. On the other side of the pond, I see a couple of groups in picnic shelters and a few hikers on a short trail.

 

No one is sure of the lasting social effects of this pandemic. This week, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine instituted a state-wide order for people to wear masks in public. Both college and high school sports are in doubt as several major college conferences have either sharply curtailed or canceled fall sports completely.

 

I see more and more articles about workers enjoying working from home and that their companies are satisfied with the arrangement. There is a lot of debate between parents, administrators and teachers about how K-12 schools will meet safely and most universities are grappling with the same problem as we are about a month or less away from the start of the new school year.

 

If this pandemic upsets most of the next school year, we may see an accelerated and permanent shift towards online instruction even after COVID-19 runs its course. If I were looking to invest now, I would not invest in commercial real estate because significant numbers of workers won’t want to return to the office full time if it isn’t necessary even after the pandemic ends.

 

If workers don’t have to commute on a daily basis, this will lead to increased demand for housing in suburbs and diminished demand for close-in housing near the center of the city. Many sit-down restaurants and bars will go out of business and will not return.

 

The original projections were that a vaccine might be ready in the first couple of months of 2021. If there is a delay much beyond that, the changes to work and society will be even more profound and things won’t return to the way they were.

 

It’s difficult to predict the future, but I think things could be different once the COVID-19 pandemic ends, a lot different.

College Football and COVID-19 and the MAC

As we approach the middle of the summer, in most years I would begin to pay more attention to college football. It is my second favorite sport, after college basketball, and I love its pageantry and intensity. As the cool fall weather moves in, it seems the perfect sport with helmeted, and armor-clad (of sorts) gladiators clashing in front of thousands of excited fans.

I really enjoy watching the big boys of the sport battle it out in packed stadiums in places like Columbus and Tuscaloosa. I also enjoy the spectacle of the marching bands, cheerleaders and the crazed fans dressed in the colors of their school.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I fear there will not be any college football this year. The so-called “Power Five” schools in the major conferences (Big Ten, Atlantic Coast, Big 12, Southeast and Pac-12) will lose millions in revenue because of empty stadiums and cancelled lucrative television contracts. It will hurt, but most of them are large enough to absorb the losses for a single season. The schools that will really suffer if the season is cancelled are the so-called “Group of Five” schools that make up the bottom tier of Division I college football.

One of the five conferences in the Group of Five is the Mid-American Conference (MAC) which includes my alma mater, Miami University and the school where I worked and taught for 30 years, the University of Akron. While MAC schools play in the FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision) of the NCAA’s Division I along with the Power Five schools, most MAC schools don’t compare in terms of revenue, fan base and attendance with the big schools.

Ohio State routinely draws over 100,000 fans to each game to the “Horseshoe” on the banks of the Olentangy River in Columbus. In contrast, most MAC schools don’t draw that many fans in a home season of six games. OSU’s annual athletic budget of $205 million in 2018 was six times greater than the annual athletic budget of about $35 million for UA.

Licensing of merchandise, ticket sales and income from television of Ohio State’s football games provides enough money to support the university’s entire athletic program. About two-thirds of the University of Akron’s annual athletic budget comes from campus activity fees that each UA student pays every semester—the rest coming from ticket sales, licensing of merchandise, concessions, parking fees and broadcast rights.

In order to remain in Division I-FBS, member schools need have an average “attendance” of at least 15,000 per home game at least once every two years. Actually, the requirement is for tickets sold and at some MAC schools, the university further subsidizes the football program by purchasing additional tickets to make the limit and then gives them away in the community. Many MAC schools miss the actual 15,000 attendance mark for most home games.

Also, every MAC school schedules two or three “money” games each season against Power Five schools that provide a six- or seven-figure paycheck. The MAC’s Kent State football team is scheduled to play three games at Penn State, Kentucky and Alabama in 2020 and will receive $4.5 million in guaranteed income. This amounts to more than 15 percent of the school’s total athletic budget for the year. According to Crain’s Cleveland Business, the 12 MAC schools receive about 68 percent of their athletic budgets from student fees.

In the MAC and many of the other Group of Six schools, football is a money loser that needs additional funding from the school to continue—mostly in the form of student fees and tickets purchased. NCAA rules also stipulate that schools may offer up to 85 full scholarships for football but they can’t be divided among more than one athlete. Schools routinely give partial scholarships to athletes in other sports like track and field, baseball, volleyball, softball and so on.

So, what’s the point here? The point is that the COVID-19 pandemic will deal a serious blow to MAC schools that will have to pay the scholarships for the football players and other athletes even if the season is cancelled. Also, nine of the 12 members of the MAC are located in Ohio and Michigan, two states with stagnant population growth and less than stellar economies. These state-supported schools are facing declining enrollments due to a drop in the number of high school graduates and their budgets are being rocked by the effects of the pandemic.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has ordered state-supported schools to cut their budgets by 20 percent for the upcoming school year. If the pandemic lasts into 2021, then there will be more budget cuts for the next school year.

I think it is time for the members of the MAC to consider moving their football programs to the Football Championship Series of Division I. The savings would be significant. First, FCS programs are limited to 63 football scholarships and have no minimum attendance requirement. Also, there are smaller coaching staffs and lower travel costs with fewer athletes. Such a move would save the University of Akron over $2 million per year in scholarship costs alone. There also would be other savings by not buying “phantom” tickets to meet the attendance requirement. And there could be savings by reductions in athletic department staffs.

It would also reduce the some of the embarrassing losses that MAC teams suffer at the hands of Power Five schools in the first two or three weeks of the season. While there are always a few signature wins over big schools by MAC football teams in these “money” games, the majority of the time, the only consolation for MAC schools is the size of the check they bring home after being blown out.

On Oct. 20, 1990, the UA Zips football team travelled to Gainesville, FL, to play the Florida Gators of the Southeastern Conference. Akron lost 59-0 and reportedly six players suffered season-ending injuries in that game. These money games are often a travesty and some season ticket holders for major college programs wonder why they should pay for these games.

On Sept. 20, 1966, Miami University defeated Indiana of the Big Ten by a score of 20-10 on the road. I was a freshman at MU and had finished my second week of class. That sunny Saturday afternoon, I was hanging out with new acquaintances in the East Quad. We played some touch football and mostly enjoyed the beautiful weather and attempted to de-stress from our first semester in college.

Suddenly, word began to spread that Miami’s football team was leading Indiana in the second half. One student moved his radio next to an open window and dozens of us listened as Miami’s announcers described the end of the game. Dozens of us headed for nearby Miami Field to try to take down the goal posts and march uptown with them. When we arrived, the Miami Police department had opened the gates of the stadium and one officer on a bullhorn was giving instructions on how to lift the goal posts out or the ground to minimize damage.

Hundreds of students marched up High Street carrying the goal posts to the center of Oxford. I helped lean one of the goal posts against the front of the Purity, then the most popular bar in town. At four in the afternoon, the bars lining High Street were packed and the party went on late into the evening. It was a great display of school spirit.

Fast forward more that 50 years, and most MAC teams are no longer competitive with Power Five teams. And most MAC members are in states with diminished numbers of high school students and poor economic prospects for the next couple of years. When schools are being forced to cut academic programs and reduce faculty and staff, a voluntary reduction to step down to the FCS division for football would be a good political and economic move on most campuses. It’s time for the MAC schools to consider it.

The Beautiful Day

“It's a beautiful day

Don't let it get away

It's a beautiful day”

--from the song by U2

It was a beautiful day—the best day I’ve had in about three months. On March 16, I returned from my winter sabbatical in Henderson, NV. I have been self-quarantined at home with only an occasional drive through the farm lands of western Portage County or the nearby Cuyahoga Valley National Park to break the monotony. I also make an occasional trip to a nearby state-licensed liquor store to get another bottle of bourbon.

But, this day was different. The weather forecast predicted a sunny, warm day with virtually no chance of rain. So, Pam and I decided to go to our favorite beach in Vermilion, OH, on the south shore of Lake Erie. It takes a little over an hour for us to drive to this quaint beach town that is about 35 miles west of Cleveland.

Vermilion was founded in 1837 and has become a summer resort town of about 11,000 with numerous boat docks and condos lining the lagoon where the Vermilion River empties into Lake Erie. It has a quaint park in the center of town and if you follow Main Street about three blocks north you arrive at the Main Street Beach on Lake Erie.

It’s not a large beach, the public part is only a few hundred yards wide, but there is free parking along Main Street. There is a small replica of a lighthouse at the west end of the beach in front of a building that used to house a museum about the Great Lakes that has since moved to Toledo.

The day we arrived, the beach was fairly crowded with mostly families and a few younger couples. Fortunately, we were able to find a spot that allowed us to keep more than six feet of separation. I set up our beach umbrella and we unfolded our beach chairs and settled in.

The sky was nearly cloudless and gentle waves lapped up on the beach. Because it was mid-week, there wasn’t a great amount of boat traffic, but I did notice several boats enter and exit the lagoon harbor entrance about a half mile east of the beach.

There were a few people on kayaks a couple of hundred yards from shore and a rider on a jet-ski whizzed by during our two hours on the beach. Near the water a few kids played with toy buckets and shovels digging holes in the sand and making sand castles. One teenaged boy came out of the water holding a three-foot wide inflatable raft that looked like the face of a cat.

I always enjoy this beach because of the laid-back atmosphere. I enjoy just relaxing, reading a book, listening to music in my iPod and soaking up the atmosphere. This beach is the exact opposite of the crowded resort area beaches I have visited on the east coast and Gulf of Mexico.

Towards the end of our stay, about a dozen high school kids showed up to join several girls who were already there. The noise level increased markedly as the group talked and laughed close to where we were sitting. They decided to go further down the beach and we packed up our stuff for the ride home. In these tense times, it was great to see a group of kids having fun. It was normal.

We have visited this beach at least a couple of times during the last several summers, but this visit was particularly enjoyable. I realized how much I had missed just being around people. Because we were outside, there was a gentle breeze and people were not getting too close to each other, I didn’t feel concerned about being exposed to the COVID-19 virus.

As we rode home with the sunroof and windows open, we both remarked what a great day this had been. Yes, it was a beautiful day.

The Cruel, Cruel Summer

“It's a cruel, (cruel), cruel summer

(Leaving me) leaving me here on my own

It's a cruel, (it's a cruel), cruel summer

Now you're gone…”

--recorded by Bananarama, 1983

This is shaping up to be once of the cruelest summers I have every experienced and a lot of you can probably say the same thing. Thankfully, so far our family has avoided the cruelest fate of all this year, the COVID-19 pandemic. Ever since mid-March, we have been sheltering in place at our house.

Because I am over 70 and have a history of asthma and pneumonia, I am in the high-risk category. So, the only times I have gone out have been to take a short drive and stop occasionally at a drive through to pick up something to eat. Pam and I are fortunate that our son Brian is available to run errands for us and we purchase most of our groceries online using curbside pickup.

But, last Friday was “Black Friday” for a couple of reasons that made me even more depressed about the upcoming summer. First of all, we had several snow squalls on Thursday including one that left about a one-inch layer of wet, slushy snow on the ground on Friday morning. Not a big deal for us during the winter, by this is May! This snowfall tied the all-time record in Akron for the latest measurable snowfall.

Since I moved to Northeast Ohio in 1975, this is the first time I can remember we had a measurable snowfall in May. So that means, I’ve seen measurable snow here in eight of the 12 months of the year. Only June through September have been spared.

It has been much cooler and wetter than average from mid-April until nearly mid-May and the lack of good weather is contributing to my worsening case of cabin fever. It seems as if the clock has turned backwards and we are moving through March not May.

The other depressing thing is that the Cleveland Orchestra announced on Friday, May 9, that it is cancelling the summer season at Blossom Music Center. This world-class orchestra and concert venue has provided me with some of the best concerts I’ve ever attended. I was eagerly awaiting the opportunity to have a picnic dinner with Pam and friends on the lawn before hearing some great music.

Blossom is only about a 15-minute drive from our house and we have usually attended four or five concerts there each summer for the last 20 years or so. But, this summer the stage will be dark and the only sounds will be the birds chirping and the wind whistling through the trees and the empty pavilion.

Also, I usually attend about a half-dozen Akron Rubberducks baseball games each season in downtown Akron with a group of friends. We buy a couple of books of ticket vouchers and pick games as the season goes along. Our favorite night is “Thirsty Thursday” with two-dollar beers.  It’s a lot of fun to hang out with a bunch of friends on a warm summer evening sipping a cold brew and enjoying baseball. Although the season hasn’t been cancelled yet, my money says it will be.

At this writing, nearly every summer event in Northeast Ohio including concerts, festivals and the like, has been cancelled. As the weather improves, I’m hoping to be able to meet friends outside where we can practice social distancing.

Because this summer is our 50^th anniversary, Pam and I were planning a major trip to to Europe or possibly Asia to celebrate. Those plans are now in the dumpster. I didn’t want to risk flying home from Las Vegas in March, so I definitely won’t risk spending twice as much time in an airplane to travel overseas.

I hope we can take some short day trips later this summer if conditions improve, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, stay well and best wishes to all of you.   

Covid-19 Quarantine Top Ten

The first coronavirus stay-at-home order in Ohio was issued about five weeks ago and it has changed a lot of things. From the home office in Stow, Ohio, here are the top ten things I’ve experienced because of the quarantine:

10. Did I take a shower yesterday? Or was it the day before? Or was it even longer?

9. I have forgotten how to button a shirt.

8. “Social Distancing” also could refer to my high school years.

7. Hair, hair, hair!!!

6. Need to recharge my phone battery twice a day because I’m using it so much.

5. “TGIF” has been replaced by “TGFN”…Thank God for Netflix.

4. Discovered that I don’t need to wear pants when “Zooming” with my relatives

3. Once this is over, I’m going to need to “flatten the curve” on my gut.

2. I’m spending so much time on my front porch, I’m thinking of taking up whittling. (If you live in the South, you know what that means.)

1. My new best friend is Evan Williams (Bourbon!)

Notes from Quarantine

Like much of the country, Pam, Brian and I are under a stay at home order issued by our state’s governor. As I write this, Ohio’s current order is scheduled to expire on May 1 and Governor Mike DeWine will be announcing new regulations early next week. I have been home for about six weeks since my truncated winter sabbatical in Henderson, NV, and I have been pretty much housebound since then.

I have experience with a health-related quarantine. During the summer of 1952 when I was four years old, our family was quarantined for about a month when I contracted Pertussis, a.k.a., Whooping Cough. I had been vaccinated for this disease, but it was only about 60-70 percent effective back then and I was one of those for whom the vaccine did not work.

In June, my family was spending the day at the swimming pool at the Officers Club at the Army’s Defense Supply Center in Columbus, Ohio. My dad served in the Army during World War II and continued in the reserves after that. So, we could use the facilities at the base that included the club, a golf course and the swimming pool.

I was playing in the pool that day when a kid next to me vomited on me. My mom ordered me out of the pool and my dad took me into the locker room to take a hot, soapy shower.

A few days later, I developed a fever and a horrible cough. The diagnosis of our family doctor was Whooping Cough and my family and I spent the next month in quarantine. I still remember the red notice from the city health department taped to our front door and having to spend the summer inside our non-air conditioned house on the east side of Columbus.

More than 30 years later when Pam and I adopted our son Brian in Honduras, he got sick a couple of days before we were scheduled to bring him home with us. He spent four days in the La Policlinica Hospital in Tegucigalpa before he was well enough to travel home. We had him examined by an infectious disease specialist at Akron Children’s Hospital. Ironically, his diagnosis was Whooping Cough.

This particular stay at home order doesn’t bother me too much. I only leave the house for an occasional drive through the nearby Cuyahoga Valley National Park or a walk on the bike-hike trail that runs behind our house. Because I am at high risk due to my age and chronic asthma, we are lucky that Brian can run errands for us.

This morning, I attended a wedding. Not in person, of course, but I watched a former co-worker of mine get married in a service that was streamed online. The current quarantine regulations limit to 10 the number of people at an event, so the church was pretty empty. I was able to see the wedding online from my favorite living room chair dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants and sipping a cup of coffee. I must admit it was much more comfortable than dressing up and going to a church and then a reception. Although, it could have been more fun if there was an open bar at the reception!

Another unusual event occurred about two weeks ago on the Saturday before Easter. I heard a siren coming down our street and I looked out the window to see a police cruiser followed by a fire chief’s SUV with a person wearing an Easter Bunny costume sticking out of the sunroof and waving. Then came a Jeep with the Bulldog Mascot of Stow High School in the back waving and another city vehicle with lights flashing at the end of this makeshift parade. It wasn’t the Tournament of Roses parade, but it added a light moment to the day.

My final observation about the coronavirus quarantine is about groceries. When the stay-at-home order first took effect, we sent Brian to the store with a detailed list and he came home with most of what we wanted. Since then, Pam has ordered groceries online for curbside pickup.

The first time a local grocery chain botched our order big time and when Pam and Brian got home from picking up the groceries, she discovered that about half the items were totally wrong. She called the store and they told her to keep the wrong items and she and Brian went back and picked up most of the items that were missing.

The next time, she ordered a long list of items from a larger regional grocery chain and we ended up getting most of what we ordered. Last night, we ordered carryout from a local restaurant and they got the order right and the food was very good.

Meanwhile, my package of six reusable face masks arrived and I am hoping to be able to use them to go a few places when the governor’s revised coronavirus orders take effect next week. I miss spending a couple of hours in a coffee shop with my computer and researching and writing about whatever I want. I’m also look forward to meeting friends for coffee at a restaurant with outside seating or at a park and keeping acceptable social distance while we talk.

Pam and I have agreed that a trip to a vacation spot is probably out of the question this summer, but I hope we can take some interesting day trips where it isn’t too crowded. However, I won’t feel really safe until the scientists develop a vaccine and a treatment to effectively mitigate COVID-19. In the meantime, we’ll have to wait for the next set of directives and see whether officials think the coronavirus numbers are trending downward enough to ease the lockdown.

Even with the inconvenience of the quarantine, we are doing much better than people who who are battling this dreaded disease or have lost their jobs. I think about them and pray for them every day.

I wish all of you good health and hope you can keep your spirits up during these trying times.

We’ll see you next time.

The Lost Summer

As I write this, there are still almost two weeks left in April, but it looks like the summer of 2020 could very well be a lost summer because of the coronavirus pandemic. In 2016, I wrote about nostalgia because I attended the 50-year reunion of my high school graduation class that summer and I experienced a couple of other events that evoked strong memories of my earlier days: https://ccollin48.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-nostalgic-summer.html

My wife Pam and I are conscientiously observing the stay at home directive issued by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine because of our age and my susceptibility to COVID-19 because I have moderate to severe asthma. So, it looks like our special summer could be much less than I expected.

Governor DeWine says some things may open up around May 1, but other things may not open up until later this year or early 2021. As for now, many stores and restaurants are closed with only what the state deems as essential businesses allowed to remain open. And, as the economy reopens, nearly every expert agrees that the last things to reopen will be events that draw large crowds like sporting events and concerts.

For me, this means that it it unlikely that our local baseball team the Akron Rubberducks will play this season. For the last several seasons, a group of friends and I have purchased ticket vouchers for the Double-A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians. Our group attended about a half dozen games each year at Canal Park in downtown Akron.

We had a lot of fun on these warm summer nights enjoying baseball and each others company. We usually meet for dinner beforehand and then go to the game. The team has a promotion called “Thirsty Thursdays” and 20-ounce draft beers go for $2, so that’s a favorite night for us.

This is the same group of guys that I’ve played poker with once a month for the last 15 years or so and we’ve shelved that too. Most of us are around 70 years old and a couple of the guys also have some health issues, so we are all currently staying home and not gathering together.

The other thing that I will miss is the concerts at Blossom Music Center, the summer home of the world-famous Cleveland Orchestra. For the last 20 years of so, Pam and I have bought season tickets and been to some amazing concerts. Blossom is only about 15 minutes from our house and we enjoy getting carryout food and enjoying it on the lawn before the concerts.

Last summer we enjoyed a concert version of the rock opera “Tommy” featuring the Who’s Roger Daltrey. The season closed with the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus performing “Carmina Burana” and I will never forget the prolonged standing ovation at the end of that performance by the crowd of 15,000 spectators.

This summer also was supposed to be full of nostalgia as Pam and I celebrated two milestone events.

This summer is our 50^th wedding anniversary as we were married on August 8, 1970, in North Canton, Ohio. Late last fall and early this year we talked about taking a trip this summer to celebrate to either Europe or the Far East including Japan, China and Thailand. Then, in late February, the emergence of the coronavirus made us temper out plans. Now, the possibility of a major trip this year is extremely remote.

Pam pointed out that if we take this trip in the spring of 2021, that will still be in the 50^th year of our marriage and I hope the coronavirus will be under control by then.

The other major event we looked forward to was Alumni Weekend at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Each year in mid-June Miami invites alumni to return to campus for a weekend of fun events. As graduates of the class of 1970, Pam and I would have been part the 50-year reunion class that is specially honored each year. We were looking forward to seeing some long-time friends from our college days. Miami is a special place for Pam and I because we met there at the end of sophomore year and became what the school calls a “Miami Merger.”

However, we received an email several weeks ago saying that Alumni Weekend has been cancelled this year because of the pandemic.

So, it seems like everything is on hold. Because of our age and my health condition, we don’t want to take any chances. So, we will likely stay very close to home this summer, unless there is a radical change in the threat of the coronavirus pandemic. As the weather improves, I hope we can take some short trips to enjoy the summer weather, but that will depend on the perceived threat of COVID-19.

In the meantime, I hope you stay healthy and stay tuned for more…

The COVID-19 Conundrum

The last few weeks have been among the strangest of my life and I’m sure I’m not alone. As the Coronavirus ravages the health of the world and gazillions of words have been written about it, I thought it might be therapeutic to write about my experiences of the last few weeks. So, to paraphrase the Grateful Dead song, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”

When I last wrote, I had just returned home from my winter sabbatical in Henderson, NV, a suburb of Las Vegas. The first few weeks of my visit were pretty good as I checked out some spectacular sites like Hoover Dam, Red Rock Canyon and Death Valley. I started taking some non-credit classes at UNLV and getting to know the city.

By late February, I began to get more concerned about the news reports concerning the spread of the Coronavirus throughout the US and the world. After all, Las Vegas is a major tourist destination and an estimated 40 million people from all over the US and many from other countries visit each year. Vegas also hosts hundreds of conventions and trade shows every year.

I was concerned about going out to places that were crowded and getting ill while I was away from home. I decided to leave 17 days early and drive home, even though I had a return flight reservation on Southwest. I figured that between the $450 extra it cost to change my car rental so I could drive it to Ohio and three nights in motels, meals and gas the total would be close to $1,000 and it was. But, I would be alone during the trip avoiding a crowded airplane, airports and restaurants.

The week I got home, Ohio was one of the first states go on virtual lockdown as Governor Mike DeWine ordered schools, restaurants, bars and sporting events to shut down as well as nearly any other activity that would draw more than 10 people at one time.

Because I am over 70 and have a history of asthma and respiratory issues, I am considered to be in the high-risk category for contracting the disease. So, I am spending nearly all of my time at home and missing out on my weekly workouts at my fitness center, coffee or lunches with friends and my monthly poker sessions. I also miss friends I see each week at church.

What’s my daily schedule like now? When I first get up, I make sure to get the coffee pot going or heat up coffee from the previous day. Since neither Pam nor Brian drink it, a pot lasts me two days. Then I go out to the mailbox to get the Akron Beacon Journal. A confession here, first, I still read an old-fashioned newspaper and, second, I usually go out to the mailbox out at the curb in pajama bottoms and a coat.

After my first cup of java (I wonder why that’s a nickname for coffee), I make some breakfast and a second cup of coffee and look at the web and messages on my phone. Then, I try to think about the rest of my day. I might go down to the basement and use my exercycle or do some work with a set of weight bands I own.

In normal times, I would head over to Akron General Lifestyles to work out a couple of days a week, but that facility is closed for who knows how long. On days I don’t exercise, I surf the web on my laptop to get more news or checkup on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. or do some reading.

Right now I am reading “Douglas MacArthur, American Warrior” by Arthur Herman published in 2016. I like historical biographies and this one is an interesting profile that mixes personal details about his life and great details about his wartime actions.

If the weather is nice, I may go for a short walk after lunch or take a drive. My two favorite routes are through the Cuyahoga National Recreation Area or travel east from my house through the farmland in Portage County. Then, it’s time for my afternoon nap of 15-30 minutes—one of the perks of being retired.

A lot of people are binge-watching on Netflix or one of the other streaming services. While I was in Vegas I started watching “Peaky Blinders” on Netflix, the story of gang warfare in Birmingham, England after World War I and into the 1920s. “Peaky Blinders” is extremely violent and contains a lot of references to the Irish and Gypsy origins of the gang in the title. The story follows their battles with other gangs of various ethnic origins and the rise of the Communists in 1920s England.

As a counter point, I started to watch “Cheers” the hit sitcom of the early 1990s and the antithesis of “Peaky.” After I got home, I watched the third season of “Ozark” on Netflix and continued to watch “Cheers.”

When late afternoon approaches, it’s Happy Hour and my current drink of choice is Evan Williams Kentucky bourbon. Occasionally, I’ll have rum and Coke, but “Evan” has become my real Coronavirus friend. In March, according to the Ohio Department of Liquor Control, sales of hard liquor in the state were 50-percent more than for March, 2019. So, a lot of other Ohioans have new “friends” too.

After dinner, Pam and I search for a movie to watch on Netflix or Amazon Prime. She is continuing to teach a beginning accounting course online at the University of Akron, so she sometimes has to work on her class. Like most colleges and universities, UA has gone almost completely online and that has been an adjustment for her.

Fortunately, the textbook she is using is online and it has a lot of tools for assignments and tests. Also, to keep her connected, she went to training with the people I used to work with at UA and learned how to record lectures online that include her voice and her PowerPoint slides.

Meanwhile, I have cleaned up my home office a bit and am contemplating other tasks to use time at home. I want to take another Improvisational acting class, but that will have to wait awhile like a lot of other things. Mostly, I am looking forward to better weather so I can spend more time outside on our deck.

Here’s hoping you stay healthy and safe until we meet again.

Las Vegas Adventure—The Final Chapter

After discussing my concern about my return trip home by air with my physician cousin Kevin, I decided to drive home because of my age, medical history and the enhanced threat of being exposed to Covid-19 in a crowded airplane. I booked a car on Priceline.com for a one-way rental from Las Vegas for about $670.

I was already renting a car from Budget for the duration of my Las Vegas stay, and I checked to see what their deal was. It turned out they would charge me an additional $450 to convert my rental from a same location return to a one-way. But, because I planned to return the car two weeks early, I would recoup much of that fee. So, I decided to take Budget’s deal.

My last week in Vegas, I went to two of my three OLLI classes and began to strategize my trip home. I still wanted to see the Grand Canyon, but that the would take more than half a day and make my other travelling days longer. I had driven across the country last year from El Paso to Ohio and found that the fourth day driving was when the fatigue really set in. I wanted to avoid any extremely long days on the road.

Also, I planned to visit my brother Tim in western Illinois and calculated a route that wouldn’t affect the total time and distance of my route.

Another factor was the weather. While Las Vegas had high temperatures in the 70s for the first week in March, it turned cooler and cloudier the last week I was there. It even rained pretty steadily two of the evenings and early mornings. Also, the national news about the coronavirus was not good and it was causing many cancellations and business closings. I began to get concerned about the availability of food, fuel and lodging on my trip home.

So, I decided to leave on Friday, March 13. I texted my Airbnb hosts Lori and Ernie about my plans to check out early and I said good bye to Ernie and hit the road. The weather was cloudy and cool with an occasional sprinkle of rain. I headed southeast out of Henderson and took US 93 towards Kingman, AZ, and then picked up I-40 heading east.

I still had the Grand Canyon visit in the back of my mind, but the weather convinced me otherwise. As I passed Williams, AZ, the exit for the primary approach road to the Grand Canyon from the south, it was snowing and the cloud ceiling was hiding the tops of nearby mountains. It was only in the upper 30s, so it was not good weather for sightseeing.

So, I pressed on with my original plan and continued on to Santa Rosa, NM. As I passed through Flagstaff, AZ, with an altitude of 7.325 feet the temperature was only 33 degrees and it was snowing. Fortunately, it wasn’t sticking to the road surface and I continued across northern Arizona and New Mexico. I crossed the Continental Divide, altitude 7,800 feet and then got stuck an hour-long traffic jam near Joseph, NM.

As it got dark, there was a 20-mile stretch of highway where it was pretty foggy. I finally reached Santa Rosa at about 9:30PM and the only restaurant nearby that was still open was a McDonald’s. So, I feasted on a Chicken sandwich combo including diet Coke laced with bourbon once I got back to the motel. The Best Western motel was full, so I was glad I booked a room beforehand.

The next morning was sunny and cool, and it was back on i-40 heading for Oklahoma City. The weather was much better, partly sunny with temperatures in the 40s and 50s. As I approached Oklahoma City, it turned cloudy but it was still dry. After 11.5 hours on the road, I arrived in Joplin, MO, my second night’s stop.

I was ready for a more substantial meal, so I had dinner at a nearby Cracker Barrel. Fortunately, it wasn’t very crowded and I was able to avoid close contact with a lot of people. When I got back to the room I went online and found out that my niece Angela and her husband in Washington state might have Covid-19.

Her husband Kevin works in IT for Boeing but he also officiates high school basketball and football games. The previous weekend he attended the Washington high school boys’ basketball state championships in Tacoma. He didn’t officiate any of the games, but helped coordinate the activities at the scorer’s table and worked closely with another good friend and longtime official named Steve.

After the tournament ended Saturday night, Kevin went back home to Chelan, WA, and his friend Steve left for Palm Springs, CA, to visit his son. On Monday, Steve became ill and was hospitalized in intensive care with Covid-19. Steve Colby fought the disease for nearly a week, but passed away on March 16. He was 72 and had a history of heart problems.

My niece Angela and Kevin have quarantined themselves at home in Chelan, WA, and were tested for Covid-19 over the weekend, but the test results still hadn’t come back as I write this.

On day three of the trip, I went to get breakfast at the hotel at about 7:45AM and there was no one else there. The hotel parking lot was not that crowded and only three other people eventually showed up while I was eating. I was on the road by about 8:15AM.

Central Missouri is not unlike Ohio, rolling farm land that was beginning to turn green as spring was arriving. It looks like the number one farm product there is beef cattle, as I saw thousands of them in fields in both Oklahoma and Missouri. I proceeded northeast across Missouri and crossed the Mississippi River at Hannibal, MO, the birthplace and boyhood home of Mark Twain.

After a couple of more hours, I arrived in Macomb, IL. My brother Tim, his wife Shannon and I went to a bar restaurant on the central square in Macomb. We had a nice dinner and discussed how the Covid-19 situation was affecting the country and our families. It bothered me a little bit that the restaurant was very crowded, but it appeared to be the only business still open in central Macomb. After dinner, we went back to my motel and talked some more before they left. The only person I saw at this motel while I was there was the front desk clerk who checked me in and the one who checked me out. There were only four cars in the parking lot when we went back there after dinner.

Macomb is the site of Western Illinois University, and it had closed earlier that week. There was a surreal aspect to my evening and next morning there as I saw very few people out and about. After getting breakfast in a bag at the hotel, I hit the road at about 8:15AM. It rained steadily at times for the first two hours of the trip, but the rain eventually stopped by the time I crossed into Indiana. As I drove through Indianapolis, the traffic seemed very light for a Monday. After another five hours on the road, I arrived home in Stow, Ohio.

It was a long four days that had a bizarre feeling because of the impending health crisis and the way it seemed to be affecting travelers. For the most part, traffic seemed lighter than I would have expected and the motels I stayed in were virtually deserted, except for Friday night in Santa Rosa, NM.

These are indeed strange times and, although it was tiring and costly to drive home, I’m glad I cut my Las Vegas vacation short. In times of trouble, it’s much better to be home.

Las Vegas Adventure—Week Seven or “Coronavirus Interruptus”

As the week began, I was becoming more concerned about the coronavirus or Covid-19, but I’ll talk about that in a moment. First, I want to tell you about Las Vegas as a booming market for major league sports.

Right now, the local sports coverage is dominated by stories about the Las Vegas Knights hockey team and its quest for the playoffs in the National Hockey League. This is only the third season for the franchise and the team has garnered rabid support here. There are people wearing team jerseys and other clothes with logos all over the place. And it seems like about a quarter of the cars I see have either a Golden Knights decal or license plate frame.

A lot of that support is the result of the Cinderella first season for the team. The Golden Knights won their division and made in all the way to the Stanley Cup finals before losing 4 games to one. Not bad for an expansion team!

The other major sports story is the arrival of the former Oakland Raiders to play in a brand new 65,000-seat stadium in downtown Las Vegas this fall. The outside of the stadium is clad in dark glass with a giant video board on the side that faces the Las Vegas strip. The official opening of the stadium in August will feature a concert by country music superstar Garth Brooks.

Henderson, the Vegas suburb where I am staying, is building a 6,500-seat arena in the center of town and it will host a minor-league hockey team that will be affiliated with the Golden Knights.

The other big story for me here is the threat of the coronavirus. Because I am over 70 and was a smoker for about 30 years (more if you count secondhand smoke while growing up because both my parents were heavy smokers) I am very concerned about this disease.

At the end of the week, I drove across the desert to Palm Springs, CA to meet with one my cousins. Kevin Patrick is a physician who taught at the medical school at the University of California in San Diego. His specialty was and is public health and we talked over lunch at a Mexican restaurant about coronavirus.

He advised me find a different way to get back to Ohio than flying. He said my age and asthma condition made it dangerous for me to be exposed to this disease. And spending several hours in a sealed environment with people very close make the situation favorable for spreading illnesses. We talked about how both of us had become sick after flying in the past and now it could be dangerous.

After I returned to Henderson, I contacted Budget and changed my rental car to a one-way rental and I will return it in Ohio when I get home.

Kevin and I had a very nice lunch and discussed our families and the pleasant things about being retired.

Later that afternoon, he returned home to the San Diego area and I checked into my motel. With temperatures in the mid-80s, I headed to the swimming pool and had a nice dip and rest after what had been a tiring 4 and-a-half-hour drive earlier. Later that evening, I cruised down the city’s main street on my way to dinner.

Palm Canyon Drive was lined with stately, lighted palm trees and sidewalks were packed as people made their way to the many restaurants, bars and shops. This Friday night it was pretty warm and that added to the festive mood.

The next morning, I drove around Palm Springs and nearby Indio to check out the area. The desert climate makes this area a candidate for a future winter sabbatical. Palm Springs has nicely laid out neighborhoods and lots of amenities for a resort community of 45,000. Nearby Indio is different, with lower-priced housing and more Mexican shops and businesses. North and west of the city, I saw several large farm areas.

While driving around Indio, I also saw a large fenced-in, flat area west of the center of the city that is the site of the Coachella Music Festival that attracts a couple of hundred thousand people to this relatively small city. When I returned to Henderson on Saturday night, I heard on a newscast that this year’s festival was being cancelled because of the threat of the coronavirus.

So, I have decided to head home early after taking a couple of more classes at OLLI at UNLV. On the way home, I plan to stop and see the Grand Canyon and then visit my brother in western Illinois. I’m not looking forward to four days on the road to cover the 2,100 miles between Las Vegas and Stow. But, I think the health risk to me of air travel makes the decision to drive home a wise one.

Tune in next time for my account of the journey home.

Las Vegas Adventure-Week 6

This particular week was dominated by two news events that overshadowed things that I did. First, the Democratic Presidential Nominating Caucus for Nevada took place on Feb. 22 and it dominated the airwaves here for a least a couple of weeks beforehand. Local newscasts were full of coverage of visits by the candidates and a plethora of political commercials. Some station breaks between programs consisted entirely of ads for one of the several candidates still in the race. Once, the caucus was over, the regular mix of commercials returned. Thank goodness for Netflix, that allowed me to escape the political ads on TV.

The other event is the Coronavirus illness that is getting worldwide attention. As I write this, there haven’t been any reported cases in Nevada or the Las Vegas area. However, local news media report that several conventions have been cancelled and this is sure to hurt the local economy dependent on tourism and conventions.

Because of my age and my history of asthma and pneumonia, I am becoming increasingly concerned about this. My biggest concern is about flying home and spending several hours sitting with 150 or more people in a pressurized, sealed tube breathing recirculated air. I am continuing to monitor local news reports and considering going home early. If I do get sick, I would rather be quarantined at home or in an Akron hospital than here for obvious reasons.

Getting back to the election, the day of the caucus, it rained heavily at times in the morning and let up by afternoon. I worked out in the morning at the Black Mountain Rec Center and then came home to watch some basketball.  Because Las Vegas is in the Pacific Time Zone, the games are on TV earlier in the day and that’s still an adjustment for me. By mid-afternoon I was able to see Kansas beat Baylor and my Kentucky Wildcats beat Florida.

After dinner, the Nevada Caucus results were coming in so I spent the rest of the evening watching coverage of that event.

Sunday the sun returned and I tried out another new church, an ELCA Lutheran church in the Green Valley area. The pastor greeted me wearing a shirt decorated with guitars and he was also wearing sandals. He played guitar and sang as part of a five-piece band that provided music during the service. His wife is co-pastor of the church and the service was really enjoyable.

That afternoon, I went hiking on a trail near the entrance to the Lake Mead National Recreation area. Then it was back home for dinner and some TV free of candidate ads.

One problem I am having here is I keep getting up earlier than I want. The sunrise here is pretty early, a little after 6AM because we are on the very eastern edge of the time zone. So, I tend to wake up by seven, something that hardly ever happens at home. Also, the house across the street has two large dogs that stay outside and bark at anything all hours of the day and night.

In fact, I saw two police officers visit another house nearby one afternoon and I’m pretty sure it was about the dogs. That’s because, the amount of time they are outside now has decreased considerably.

My “big” excursion this week was to drive about 45 minutes on I-15 towards LA and get off at the town of Primm, NV. This enclave is located on the border between Nevada and California and is surrounded by miles and miles of desert on all sides. It consists of three large casinos, a truck stop, an outlet mall and several restaurants. The three casinos are the first that travelers from California see as they cross the border.

I went to see a display at Whiskey Pete’s Casino that is reputed to be the car that legendary robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were using when they were ambushed by police and both killed in 1934 in Louisiana. For more than two years they had terrorized the Midwest and South with a string of robberies and murders that gave the duo national notoriety at the time.

Director Arthur Penn’s 1967 film “Bonnie and Clyde” starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway ends with a very violent and graphic scene of the death of these fugitives in a hail of machine gun and rifle fire. Here’s the clip and viewer discretion is advised because it is very gory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwPrX8e5xd4

Anyway, the display seems authentic and has loads of documentation. There were copies of news articles, police reports and the like on display. The local coroner reported that each of them had more than 50 bullet wounds, so many he couldn’t get an accurate count. The car itself is riddled with bullet holes. Here’s the car.

Also on display is the car driven by gangster Dutch Schultz that features bullet-proof glass and armor plating. After Schultz was jailed for a variety of offenses, gangster Al Capone allegedly used the car until he too was imprisoned.

I walked around the casino for a bit, but there was a heavy odor of cigarettes in the air so I decided to leave. I had a delightful gyro at a restaurant called the Mad Greek, drove by the other casinos and went back to Vegas.

That evening I went grocery shopping at Smith’s, which has several stores in the Las Vegas area, and discovered that it has Kroger store brand products. A reminder of Ohio out here in the West.

I spent the rest of the weekend enjoying sunny weather on the patio and watching some basketball on TV. Sunday was March 1 and that means March Madness, my favorite sporting event of the year, is just around the corner.

So, until next time…