EIGHTY-NINE YEARS ON THIS PLANET (Biographical)

Today April 24th is my 89th birthday which means that I have been out of my mother's womb for 89 yrs., so I have begun my 90th year of living.  How is it?

As for me, I'm doing all right.  I say I am still kicking, just not very high.  Though I might walk around my apartment at Penick Village continuing care facility, I am spending more and more time in an electric wheelchair as a result of arthritis in my spine and always in it if I leave the apartment.  The wheelchair gives me great mobility, and I can tour the halls of my large apartment building without a problem to see the art on the hall walls (Note: This does not count as exercise.).  I do have some problems with concentration and sometimes I have to go back and reread a passage or wind back the TV program to clarify things, other times I just move on.  I do some simple cooking such as bacon, sausage, toast, and egg breakfast.  In addition, I have a lady who comes in to help me twice a week for 2 hrs each and sometimes does some shopping.

The biggest news every day regards what is called novel coronavirus or COVAD-19 that is in the 2003 SARS family and is very contagious.  Often the coronavirus will consume an entire news program.  In the United States, there are 822,000 official cases of infection and 45,494 official deaths (From February 29 through April 22nd).  Both of these numbers are actually minimums as they are for hospitalization only and do not include estimates of those who stay at home and die at home or at retirement centers.  The figures could easily be double those reported.  We are not getting our weekly house cleaning so a couple of weeks ago, I bought a vacuum cleaner.

In North Carolina where I live, the number of cases of the novel coronavirus cases has topped 7,000 (7,220), and the number of deaths is 242 and counting, of course.

We have been confined to our apartments for about a month  We walk outside and can go to patios outside the building in small groups if we stay 6 ft apart and wear masks.  In reality, most of us drink wine while visiting which is difficult to do while wearing a mask.  Last Sunday I joined two different groups by invitation so I had a lot of social life for me.  And two days later I visited the Christensens.

In the outside world, everything is locked down right now to prevent virus infections from getting any worse.  All professional sports have been canceled for the year or delayed. No restaurants are open or barbershops and beauty salons, or movie theaters.  With me, the lack of beauty shops will become a problem at some point.  Because I have rods in my back, I cannot trim my own toenails so I will need a Pedicure.  I had a dentist's appointment in mid-May [Cancelled for a second time.] and a Doctor's appointment at the end of May.

President Trump has said we are at war, though he will take no responsibility for anything.  It does feel like war because the store shelves carrying toilet paper are empty and you can't buy any hand sanitizer (alcoholic), among other things. [Note added May 8th:  You still cannot buy these things.]

Many but not all Republicans have become tired of the lockdown and have taken to demonstrations to open things up and they are supported by the President.  The Attorney General is getting into the act as mandatory lockdown is in opposition to freedom as mentioned in the constitution so they would like to just let the virus rip through the populace and open businesses.  They also point out that the number of expected deaths is not that different from automobile deaths, and we tolerate those.  I could add death from guns that are about 30,000 per year.  But since these comments, the coronavirus deaths have blown by these other figures.  [Added May 8th, 2020: minimum deaths are now 76,020 for the U.S. and counting so you can see how rapidly things are adding up.]

There are some things I feel are strange.  I think this period would be a great opportunity for terrorists to attack, but they seem to be quiet.  Maybe terrorists feel the coronavirus is terror enough.  In the previous administration (Obama) there was an Ebola outbreak.  The American public went bonkers and sure they were going to die, but there is an Ebola outbreak of more than 2,000 infections going on in the Democratic Republic of The Congo in Africa at this time, and it barely gets mentioned.  I haven't heard of any cases getting to the U.S., however.