I found the masks I am using now in the Walgreen’s drugstore about a year ago, and now this new variant Coronavirus threatens to make the N95 surgical mask a necessity.  This is some pandemic.  Our responses are going to be tested.

I have always sought refuge in the light from above, at least when I was consciously involved, and I will say, I was never turned down.  The habit of prayer grows with the difficulty of the situation, and makes for a good learning lesson.

But, alas, the light cannot help my self-inflicted aging, for I forget people I seldom meet, and forget to send cards at Christmas.  My friends have to remember, “…as we forgive those….”

When we lived in Elmhurst, I found employment one summer as waterfront director (I’d had experience in scout camp administration) for the Brooklyn CYO camp.  They’d had a drowning the previous year.  I was humble in my position, but before the season was over I’d fired two or three life guards.  There were no drownings the year I was there.

But my changes were sweeping.  When the units of campers came to the pools, the counselors who did not take a swim had to stand on the edge of the pool with a long, ten-foot carpet pole in hand, to reach a camper who had to grab hold of something.  This was standing operating procedure at the scout camp.  Moreover, life guards had to be dressed to go in, no sneakers or such.

They kept these changes after I left, and I heard no more reports of drownings.  It left a gut impression on me; that’s why I didn’t work a second year, though they were sorry to see me go.

She took the hypodermic and tapped me on my arm for the flu shot, and I hardly felt it at all.  My left shoulder seemed immune to hypodermics, because when the pharmacist in the Bronx gave me my Covid vaccination, I was willing to accuse him of not injecting it!

But why would I accuse this lovely professional of something like that?  True, she’d been accused by a member of our community of fraudulent billing, but then, I was good at bringing wayward women back to the fold.  I gave her a big smile and thank-you!  God forgive me for thinking that would do it, but hey, I’ve got to start somewhere.

As a teacher, I soon learned the ropes that set the course for a wayward ship, and now, all I have to do is remember them.

An idea that was characteristic of Albert Einstein has been advanced by Richard Feynman, also a physicist.  To learn something and remember it, simplify.  Make it so simple you can explain it to your grandchild (provided he has reached adolescence).

Simplicity seems to be the art of Creation.  The way to Heaven can be understood by a child of three, and the laws of survival, if not confused, by a child in her preteens.

Don’t dither over the meaning of life; it is apparent to most people your age.  That is people who really want to know, all obfuscation aside.

It is reported that North America is poorer by forty billion birds since 2005.  As an untrained observer, I say the starlings (a common, gray bird, native to England) are increasing on Long Island judging by the cloud-like flocks they form in the fall and winter.

So all is not dismal with the birds.  But I feel bad for the native North American and other birds I used to see, like the black-capped chickadee, the robin, the common wren, and one I haven’t seen in years, the blue bird.  Could our use of pesticides be making that large a dent?

We do need to leave more habitat for lovely birds like the bobolink, the blue Jay, the mourning dove.  And does the lawn need all that grub control, surface bug killer?  A lawn does not have to be perfect to make an aesthetic impact.  We’ve got to share planet Earth, lest it die.