Coronavirus

    “It has a very nice floral bouquet.  I detect lilac, hydrangea, tulips,” Governor Andrew Cuomo (below), unveiling NYS Clean, a hand sanitizer produced by inmates at the Great Meadow maximum security prison.

No IU Northwest classes on campus for the next three weeks due to the coronavirus scare, although buildings, unless things change, will remain open, so, for the time being, I don’t have to scramble to borrow a laptop.  In Indianapolis a large crowd watched IU defeat Nebraska in the Big Ten tournament, but then the rest of the games were cancelled.  A Big East contest was terminated at halftime.  Ditto the NCAA playoffs.  The NBA has suspended its season.  Even Hoosier Hysteria bowed to reality, as the IHSAA suspended the basketball playoffs.  The last holdouts, NASCAR and the National Hockey League, reluctantly bowed to the inevitable. ESPN, which ends “Sports Center” with the top ten plays of the previous day, was reduced to showing high school basketball played in a mostly empty gym.

Trump gravitates between declaring that what the World Health Organization has called a pandemic will soon go away as if by magic and declaring the rapidly spreading disease a national emergency, blaming other countries (and who else? Obama).  He has absolutely no credibility.  His White House speech was a disaster.  As the Washington Post noted about his “ten minutes at the teleprompter,” Trump failed in his attempt to calm coronavirus fears. Critic Ben Rhodes said:

     I think we’ll look back on this as a defining moment of the Trump presidency because it speaks to larger concerns that people already had about Trump — that he can’t tell the truth, that he doesn’t value expertise, that he doesn’t take the presidency seriously enough.

     Trump’s speech contained at least two errors and a significant omission. He said the travel ban would apply to cargo; it did not. He said health insurance companies would waive patients’ co-payments for coronavirus testing and treatment; industry officials later clarified that they would waive payments for testing only. And he did not fully explain the details of his travel restrictions, leaving out the fact that U.S. citizens would be exempt.

 Josh and Alissa (middle) in Panama

Trump’s lack of leadership has raised anxieties rather than calm them.  Phil called to say that his PBS station in Grand Rapids, WVUE, was straining to keep up with breaking news and updates all day. He wanted to make sure Toni and I (of the age to be classified as elderlies) were tasking proper precautions.  Alissa and Josh, vacationing in Panama, were scheduled to stop in New Orleans on the way back; Phil hoped they’d revise their plans.

 Crystal Taliefero (who plays drums and banjo as well as sax)

Although IUN’s Women’s and Gender Studies Conference took place as scheduled, keynote speaker Crystal Taliefero was unable to attend.  A Gary Wirt grad, Crystal has toured with Bob Seger, Joe Cocker, John Mellencamp and Billy Joel; she had planned to talk on “Breaking and Entering the Male-Dominated World of Pop, Rock, and Blues.”  The conference proceeded without her although two other presentations I was looking forward to, Kaitlin Battista’s “Abuse of the Disables” and Kaitlyn Grubbe’s “Bill Clinton Sex Scandals,” were scratched.  Speaking at faculty sponsor Tanice Foltz’s session, Lani Eaton traced the history of abortion legislation and litigation, then expressed concern over the proliferation of recent Trump appointees to the bench signaling a possible Me Too backlash.

Brandon (left); Hilary, below

Speaker Michael Litke Adams reflected on Brandon Teena’s life and legacy.  Born a girl in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1972, Brandon transitioned into a man and was raped and murdered in 1993.  Growing up, Teena had been sexually abused by an uncle, was considered a tomboy, began identifying as a male as a teenager, and started dating girls.  “Boys Don’t Cry” (1999), based on Brandon’s life, starred Hilary Swank, who won an Academy Award for the performance. Adams criticized the choice of Swank, arguing that a trans actor should have had the part, but I thought Swank was a perfect choice.  Perhaps I’d feel differently if it were being made today or if I were trans, like Adams. In 2005, when she won a second Oscar for playing a female boxer in “Million Dollar Baby,” Swank said, “I don’t know what I did in this life to deserve this.  I’m just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream.”   

In place of Crystal Taliefero’s keynote speech was a discussion of Jessica Valenti’s recent column in Medium titled “Coronavirus Is Having an Outsized Impact on Working Woman.”  Noting that she was writing while three little girls were playing nearby, with school having been cancelled, Valenti called for authorities to pay attention to how women’s caretaking might spread the disease.  She concluded:

    Ironically, while women perform this extra work around preparing for and dealing with the consequences of coronavirus, the White House’s coronavirus task force, a Mike Pence-led coalition focusing on preventing the spread of COVID-19, is entirely male. That lack of representation means less understanding of how coronavirus will impact women and the way women’s invisible labor could impact the spread of the virus. This isn’t just a feminist issue — it’s a health issue.

  Sherry VerWey

During a break I chatted with faculty sponsors Jacqui Huey, whom I met at the same conference last year, and Bill Allegrezza, whose student Sherry VerWey, I know as secretary for IUN’s School of the Arts and who read original poems to close the conference, save for final remarks by program director Tanice Foltz.  Sherry VerWey, in her introduction of “Ghost,” about an adoptee, mentioned that approximately 135,000 children are adopted annually but only 10 states grant adult adoptees access to birth records.  An organization called Bastard Nation has been fighting for adoptee rights. Here’s Sherry’s incredibly moving poem “Ghost”:

this isn’t some representation of the “miracle of life”

it isn’t some “beautiful little blessing”…

YOU DIDN’T CHOOSE ME

…any baby would do

you will erase my name

rewrite my ethnicity

my history

my DNA

and replace it all with your fantasy

i already know i’m lost…stolen

a primal wound

my eyes may not be open

but i morn just the same

a shroud of shame surrounds me now

shhhhhhh….(your dirty little secret)

when i look in the mirror, it’s a stranger i see

these hands, these eyes

no resemblance, no memory

you’re painted as a saint, a savior…mother

but no one thinks of the woman (child) left behind

what of her grief

her emptiness

confusion

an eternal question

permanently sealed

the ghost of my identity

Next day, I asked Sherry, in her 40s and herself adopted, if she’d been writing poems for a long time.  Not until I took professor Allegrezza’s class, she replied, except for some rants during her Gothic phase.

Patricia Gonzales thanked me for the latest Steel Shavings and wrote: “All the history you have given us in these volumes read like a conversation and are a gift to read now and especially in the future.”  Steve Gwizdalski noted: “Always enjoy Steel Shavings; looking forward to the next issue. I hope you keep going for many more years...I know this is a labor of love for you. Always great to read about the 'Region' and how the events of the times shaped us, and to read much of it as seen through the eyes of students with a fresh look. I grew up in Burnham and Cal City, retired from two area steel mills - Inland and US - so I've been around awhile. I always thought it was a pretty good place to grow up in. Through Steel Shavings. I can stay in touch with the new stuff (kind of), yet read many stories that bring back countless memories. Thanks again for what you do, and for keeping me in the loop.”

Jon Hamm, whom I came to admire in the TV series “Mad Men,” is a hoot in the latest “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode. Claiming he'll be playing a role based on Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, he tags along with David, and they quickly bond. Hamm mimics Larry’s mannerisms and expressions so well while Larry is being obnoxious that Susie kicks them both out of a dinner party. 

Jerry Pierce posted a drawing of daughter Heidi , along with this explanation: “Look, Daddy, it's you and me, and we're in the ocean. And I'm holding your hand because I was scared of the waves. But now I'm not.”  The first time we took Phil to the ocean was at Cape Hatteras on North Carolina’s outer banks, near Kitty Hawk. A toddler, he eagerly ran to water’s edge and got knocked down by a wave.  He didn’t want to go anywhere near the beach the rest of the day, so we hung out by the hotel pool.

Dottie Hart and I finished first in bridge with a 65 percent, with more than our share of luck.  One hand we underbid only discover that other pairs who went to game got set.  Another hand, Dottie and I were both bidding Diamonds, and our opponents Spades and Clubs.  Holding the top two Hearts, one stopper in Spades, and the Ace, Jack, spot of Clubs, I took a chance and bid 3 No-Trump.  Surveying Dottie’s hand, I realized it was necessary to lose a Diamond before I could run the suit. The player to my left led the King of Clubs, and I played low. Had he then led a small Spades, I would have been in trouble, but he followed with the Club Queen.  I took it and still had the Jack stopper as well as the Ace of Spades and could draw out the Diamond Ace without fear.  I made ten tricks for high board. During our sit-out round I learned that Dottie’s father had worked for Sinclair Oil as a distributor.   She was the youngest of five, all daughters, and he’d take her hunting but only to observe.  Dottie’s husband was a pressman at the Post-Tribune, and she worked for a mortgage company.

Frank and Joan Shufran in 2017; photo by Jeff Manes

At bowling Frank Shufran had scratch marks on his arm; one looked infected.  Every once in a while, he said, their three-year-old cat goes a little crazy.  Knowing he was devoted to an older dog, I asked whether the two pets got along.  “No way,” he replied.  Asked why they got a cat, Frank said that at the vet wife Joan spotted three homeless kittens in a cage and couldn’t resist bringing one home.  They had also rescued all their previous pets.

Toni found Jewel to be a madhouse, with sanitizer and toilet paper (???) gone from the shelves, as hoarders were panicking. Recently married Kody Amanda Marie posted: “What if the world reacted to climate change like it’s reacting to the coronavirus.”

              left, posted by Cindy Bean; right, Chelsea Sue and Kody Amanda