Author’s note: I began to collect the opening lines from all the emails I have been receiving from companies during the pandemic. I thought it would be fun to put them together like a poem. So, here it is…
For the one who does it all, handles it all, and helps you out, too.
Compiled by Donna Johns
Hey, smarty-pants,
We’re Grateful For You.
You make us … us!
And we’re here for you.
Say goodbye to boredom.
Party at home with playlists.
This One Yoga Pose Could Calm Your Nerves.
To-do list: Organize.
Make a great meal.
Relax and sleep well.
Every day feels like Saturday now.
Go ahead… stay in your jammies!
Make yourself at home.
Is Your Diet Weakening Your Immune System?
Head to the pantry.
Espresso yourself!
Cinnamon-Date Sticky Buns!!
$16.99 SPANX power panties!!!
Now HERE’S something to look forward to…
Say goodbye to boredom.
Let’s Stay Connected: Stronger Together
Ready, Set…Zoom
BOLLI MATTERS “After Dark” feature writer, Writers Guild and Scene-iors Member
DONNAis a teacher/librarian, writer of unpublished romance novels, sometime director of community theater and BOLLI member. She has two fantastic faux knees which set off the metal detectors at Fenway Park.
September sends geese into their southern flights,
Honking without breaking form.
Lawnmowers don’t dare to breach the peace.
As oak leaves cluster and fall.
Shrubs and small trees shed their greenery,
Revealing my dining room table to passing cars.
Campers and canoes come home from the beach.
And school buses slide by.
Joanne was born on September 11.
She died before the assassins came with their hate.
September is hard for a mother
Whose fences are coming down.
BOLLI feature writer and Writers Guild co-chair Lydia Bogar
Our own “Renaissance Woman,” Lydia has done everything from teaching English to doing volunteer emergency service. She says she “hails from Woostah—educated at BOLLI.”
Outside, in the dimly lit darkness, in the land of the rising sun, our bodies still heavy with restless sleep, we stood in line, waiting.
Not knowing how quickly the cold night would pass, how thin the mountain air, not yet ready for our turn, we stood in line, complaining.
Inside, the large dining room overflowed with fellow hikers, nodding, sitting on mats, speaking words with no meaning, the lucky ones who’d arrived before us.
Sipping hot tea, murmuring, emptying rice bowls with wooden chopsticks, they took no notice of our shadows hovering, swaying, listening to a distant chorus.
Outside, in a line snaking to the door of the wind-blasted hut, refuge for too many, we wrapped thin blankets around our shoulders.
Why weren’t we the lucky ones sipping tea?
Why wasn’t it our turn?
Ahead in line, an elderly woman wearing white gloves, her lipstick perfectly applied, her jet black hair shining, silhouetted against the darkness, her face a friendly smile, turned towards us.
Touching a graceful finger gently to her lips, speaking the only language we understood, we knew patience would reward us, but when?
Not knowing what she said, still knowing exactly what she said, we sighed and stood in line, waiting.
Was that streak of light a break in the never-ending darkness?
Slowly, the line moved forward towards the light inside where we, too, would sit on mats and sip hot tea, no longer waiting.
Inside at last, the sun, a distant fuzzy orb, blinding in its intensity, freed us from sleep, brought promises of the new day, another ascent into the clouds.
And so, no longer waiting, our turn arrived, our spirits revived, we, too, sipped hot tea, emptied rice bowls, and listened to a distant chorus.
BOLLI Renaissance Man, Quinn Rosefsky
It is strange to say I used to play the French horn in an orchestra. I used to study Japanese. I used to hike. I once walked across England from St. Bees to Robin Hood’s Bay. I was once a doctor…49 years’ worth of medicine. My children were once young. I tell myself to get on with it. Leave it behind. Now I paint with watercolors. Now I have given either nine or ten courses at BOLLI (and will do two more this fall.) Now I bag ten thousand-year-old lithics as a volunteer in an archaeology museum. Sometimes I write. Last year, I wrote and illustrated four short books for my now seven-year-old granddaughter who wants me to write something new, something about chopping the Evil Virus that plagues us into tiny pieces that will never come back to hurt anyone ever again. Yes! I have left “I used to” behind and think more about what I am “going to do.”
It was on the 10th of May in 1843 that Henry received the fateful commitment letter from the woman he adored and had been courting off and on for the last seven years; she had finally agreed to his proposal of marriage. His first wife had died of a miscarriage eight years earlier while they traveled in Europe, and a few months later, he met Fanny, his wife to be, and her father in Switzerland.
Henry’s first wife had been embalmed, laid in a lead-lined oak casket, and shipped to Boston for burial. After the funeral ceremony, he took up his new post as a Professor of Modern Languages at Harvard and began living as a boarder at Craigie House near Harvard Square. Fanny, whose real name was Frances, also returned from Europe, with her father Nathan Appleton, to their home on Beacon Hill. As one of the original investors in the first integrated textile mill in Waltham, Nathan was quite wealthy.
After receiving Fanny’s letter, Henry was so energized that he pulled on his boots and started the three and one-half mile, 90-minute trek down Broadway Street and across the Boston Bridge to Beacon Hill to make sure that Fanny wouldn’t change her mind. It was a journey he made many times over the past seven years, and he had become something of a legend in Cambridge for his unrequited ardor, perseverance, and refusal to quit.
He and Frances married shortly thereafter and parented six children before Fanny died in 1861; she was sealing letters with wax when her dress caught fire, and she succumbed only a few days later. Henry, in an attempt to save her, suffered wounds to his face and body and was unable to attend her funeral. He retired shortly thereafter and devoted the rest of his life to writing and became one of the best known and popular poets of the 19th Century.
He and both wives are now buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery, and the “Boston Bridge” that he crossed so many times while courting Fanny was re-christened “The Longfellow Bridge” when it was replaced in 1906. The pedestrian bridge recently built over Storrow Drive near the Hatch Shell has been christened The Fanny Appleton Bridge.
The Fanny Appleton Bridge
BOLLI Matters contributor, SGL, and Writers Guild co-chair Larry Schwirian
Architect Larry and his fellow architect wife Caroline live in an historic preservation home in Newton and have led BOLLI courses on architecture. Larry has been an active participant in and leader of the Writers Guild special interest group as well as serving on the BOLLI Journal staff.
At my neighbor’s recent socially-distanced cocktail hour, there was talk of the upcoming conventions, and I heard myself say, “I was a delegate to the 1968 Democratic Convention.” a show-stopper statement. Impressed and surprised, the others look at me.I, too, am surprised.Me?In another lifetime. Picture this:
I’m 31 years old;I have lived in Gallup, New Mexico for the past one and one-half years.I have given birth, in January of that year, to our second child, a son, at the Gallup Indian Hospital.It is now March. My older child celebrates her third birthday.Each year for the past 6 years my husband and I have moved cross-country, pursuing his career goals.This year, when my husband’s two years in the Public Health Service are complete, we will move once again–this time to Michigan.Now we are a family of fourpoised to make another cross-country move.At heart, I am a liberal New Yorker, radicalized like so many of my generation by the Vietnam War and the race riots roiling the U.S.I have sent a $5.00 donation to the “Eugene McCarthy for President” campaign.Turns out, I am the only person in all of McKinley County, New Mexico to have sent any donation to this campaign.
At the urging of a cadre (an advertising guy and a few nuns) of out-of-state organizers for the McCarthy campaign, I become “coordinator” for the “Eugene McCarthy for President” campaign in McKinley County.Turns out I have a flair for this sort of thing. (Six years as an English teacher in NYC must have helped.)
My “handlers” suggest organizing strategies with public health service people and with Navajos on the vast reservation, some of which is in New Mexico. They recommend publicity-grabbing actions—accusing the local Dems of picking delegates to the State Democratic convention in Santa Fe on an unsanctioned date, etc. I am surprised to discover that I am good at this!We hold “legal” precinct meetings on and off the reservation on the prescribed date, the first time that a few precincts have met and voted on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico, and I end up leading a delegation of 36 from McKinley County to the State Democratic convention in mid-June.
Here is the “road not taken.”At the convention, I am asked to run for New Mexico’s State Committeewoman.I ask if it will matter that I am going to be living in Michigan in a few weeks?It does matter.I am not eligible.But I am rewarded for my good work and become an alternate delegate to the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago that August.
My husband and I leave our two babies with friends in Ann Arbor.Armed with my delegate badge, we roam the increasingly dangerous streets, and I attend convention caucuses, meet Hubert Humphrey, enter the huge, raucous, smoke and noise filled convention hall.(It doesn’t help that I have a killer of an ear infection, complete with swelling, pain, and pain killers. )
On the night when the presidential candidate is chosen, my husband and I are outside on the streets.The rioting begins.To our eyes, the armed riot police are the instigators.When the demonstrators are unable to get a permit to march, Mayor Daly orders his police force to attack and disperse them.They attack with wooden clubs, in formation, roaring as they race into the crowd of unarmed young demonstrators.We stand in the Conrad Hilton Hotel’s lobby, our faces pressed against the plate glass walls.It’s hot, noisy, and alarming.I want to stay and see the action.I think my delegate’s badge will protect me. It won’t. My husband grabs my hand, and we run back to our hotel where we watch the mayhem on our t.v. screen, listening to the far-off police sirens, and Hubert Humphrey is chosen as the 1968 Democratic candidate .
In the morning, we examine the carnage left behind.The plate glass windows of the Conrad Hilton Hotel have been smashed.Upstairs, at McCarthy headquarters, young people, bleeding and bandaged, lay on the floor, beaten by the police.We leave Chicago and return to our babies, chastened. I never pursue a political career.That period of my life is over.
More than 50 years have passed.I now marvel at the gutsy young woman I was, and I am grateful for that experience.It has helped to form me and my opinions and some actions.Part of me wishes I had stayed in New Mexico and become that State Democratic Committeewoman,an adventure I did not think at the time that I could pursue.Instead, I followed a more conventional path:mother, housewife, teacher, social worker, counselor.Sometimes, I have a flash of activism.With ElaineDohan, I initiated the “Make a Difference” special interest group at Bolli a few years ago.I’d still like to “make a difference.”Wouldn’t you?
Choosing a president this year will likely cause more widespread violence than what we witnessed in Chicago, 1968.Now, as then, the fate of our democracy is at stake.All of us must bear witness.What actions will be effective in our strife-torn, pandemic ridden, democracy?Now that we are so much older, are we any wiser or more effective?Can we make a difference?
BOLLI Matters contributor and SIG co-leader Eleanor Jaffe
“As I grow older,” Eleanor says, “I am more interested in the conditions, changes, services, culture, and even politics affecting me, my husband of over 50 years, and my friends.” To that end, she has led BOLLI study groups focused on aging, immigration, and more. In addition, along with Elaine Dohan, she chairs BOLLI’s political action “Make a Difference” special interest group.
AN ADULT FANTASY TO COMBAT MALAISE by Dennis Greene
I am a semi-grownup who admittedly escapes to imaginary worlds when confronted with the unpleasantries of life. When faced with Joe McCarthy and his “Red Scare,” the 1950’s polio epidemic, the fear of nuclear war, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, and finally the military draft and the devastating years of the Vietnam conflict, I sought refuge in Edgar Rice Burrough’s Barsoom, Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Herbert’s Arrakis, the futuristic universes of Asimov, Bradbury, Bester, Niven, et al, and the hopeful visions of TV’s Tom Corbet Space Cadets and Star Trek. All these fantasies helped me handle the passing of the 50’s during which I was fortunate to witness the birth of Rock and Roll, the transformative effect of television, the explosion of this country as a world leader in everything, and the beginning of the Civil Rights movement. I felt, back then, that I shared an unshakable optimism about my country with all my fellow Americans. I now know that my view of the 50’s was not shared by many women, blacks, ethnic minorities, gay men and lesbian women, and others who are still victims of poverty, discrimination, and indifference. But I was a lucky (and “privileged”) 16-year old white boy in New Bedford. What did I know?
Lately, the problems of America, and the world, seem so insurmountable that fleeing to my imaginary worlds no longer affords relief. Not that I don’t spend lots of time there anyway. Recently, I have been escaping the insipid and never-ending stream of depressing news by binge watching the many popular TV series that I had somehow missed. These included Star Trek Enterprise, Good Omens,Stranger Things, Endeavour,Eureka, Battlestar Galactica,West World, Witcher, Schittz Creek, Northern Exposure, Bosch, The Umbrella Academy, Altered Carbon, and even Tiger Joe. But none of them cut through my present case of the blues. Then one of my daughters mentioned West Wing. I had somehow missed all seven seasons from 1999 through 2006. It was a political drama which, at the time didn’t especially tickle my fancy. But, desperate for any distraction, I watched the first few episodes. Wow! I was hooked. I am now just beginning the sixth year of the seven-year run, and it keeps getting better.
When it originally aired, this idealized White House—populated with brilliant, dedicated, compassionate and quirky people working for the benefit of the country—was juxtaposed against the Bush administration and offered some fine theatre. But the contrast between the West Wing and the circus of moronic sycophants and their reigning imbecile who now occupy the White house is so vivid as to be almost blinding. If Sorkin had had the current administration as his starting point, who can imagine what he would have created? As is, West Wing is a wonderful fantasy in which to seek refuge.
There remains a little voice in my head which whispers, “Why can’t we actually find some people like President Bartlett, C. J. Cregg, and the rest to save the admirable but imperfect union that our founding fathers created?”
I am now going to watch Season 6, Episode 3.
Frequent BOLLI Matters contributor Dennis Greene.
Dennis spent five years as an engineer and then forty as a lawyer–and sixty as a pop culture geek and junkie. He saw “The Day the Earth Stood Still” in 1951 when he was seven and has been hooked on speculative fiction ever since.
In late August of 1939, just prior to Germany’s invasion of Poland, President Franklin D. Roosevelt received a letter written by Leo Szilard but signed yours very truly, Albert Einstein. In the letter, the two scientists explained to the President what they knew of Germany’s experiments with uranium and expressed their genuine concern that the Germans were working feverishly to develop the splitting of the atom, an atomic bomb. With a letter signed by Einstein, the two men hoped to influence Roosevelt to respond to the German threat. Listening as economist Alex Sax read the letter, trying to grasp the significance of so much nuclear science jargon, Roosevelt famously said: “Alex, what you are after is to see that the Nazis don’t blow us up.”
While no longer active in earthly affairs, Roosevelt, Szilard and Einstein have not entirely disappeared. Even in the afterlife, Einstein, devastated that the bomb had been detonated against civilians, still regrets signing the letter. What would have happened if he had kept silent?
One recent bright, sunny morning, Einstein and Szilard met at a Starbucks not far from Harvard Square. (Coffee is as popular in the afterlife as it is here on Earth.) Roosevelt was busy with his stamp collection and had stayed at home.
Dressed casually, minding their own business, Einstein and Szilard fit in with the young crowd too absorbed with their laptops and crossword puzzles to notice two old men sitting in the corner.
“If you ver ez dedicated to chumanity ez I cheard you claim ven you chad your interview to get in, vy zeh chell ver you zo shrewd viz me zat day, gettink me to zign a letter vich put zeh vorld on zeh path to damnation?” Einstein asked. “Perhaps you left out somethink?”
“I meant what I said, but how was I to know? It’s not my fault what Truman chose to do, mister sophisticated smarty-pants.” Szilard replied, somewhat hurt. “Besides, Truman isn’t here to defend himself. He didn’t pass the entrance exam.”
“If I chad known vat vaz goink to chappen, zeh only vay you could get me to zign vud chaf been to chypnotize me. I vaz alvayz too shmart to let anyone do zat! Oyy, I’ve got such a cheadache.”
“Sounds like Freud could help you, but he didn’t make it, you know. Still, I hear he keeps busy.”
“Nu? Und I’ve regretted it ever zince. Mankind chaz never been zeh same. Now look at zem, liffing in zeh now, zeh future, zeh past, dreamers, all of zem. See zat man over zer with chiz little computer gizmo, zeh one viz zeh double latte?”
“Yeah, what’s so special about him?”
“Che’z been looking up information from zeh ether about zat letter of yourz, zeh one you wrote zat I signed ‘yourz very truly.’ Efen here, zer’s no place to chide.”
“I know.”
“Zer’s been almost ez much written about zeh atomic bomb ez zer chaz been about Mark Twain und zeh Civil Var. Personally, I prefer Mark Twain.”
“I’ll invite Mark out for coffee the next time.”
“Okay, but I never undershtood hiz zense of chumor. I’m goink to chaf to teach chim Yiddish.”
“What about Franklin?”
“Che von’t come. Zey don’t allow you to zmoke in public places anymore.”
Quinn Rosefsky, BOLLI member, SGL, writer, artist…and more
It is strange to say I used to play the French horn in an orchestra. I used to study Japanese. I used to hike. I once walked across England from St. Bees to Robin Hood’s Bay. I was once a doctor…49 years’ worth of medicine. My children were once young. I tell myself to get on with it. Leave it behind. Now I paint with watercolors. Now I have given either nine or ten courses at BOLLI (and will do two more this fall.) Now I bag ten thousand-year-old lithics as a volunteer in an archaeology museum. Sometimes I write. Last year, I wrote and illustrated four short books for my now seven-year-old granddaughter who wants me to write something new, something about chopping the Evil Virus that plagues us into tiny pieces that will never come back to hurt anyone ever again. Yes! I have left “I used to” behind and think more about what I am “going to do.”
I noticed things. Specifically, the little leaves coming out on my Christmas cactuses. They emerge, one at a time, first the tiniest speck at the end of an established leaf. Week by week, that speck creeps out until it is a pale, reddish quarter inch. I think, with less time on my hands, I wouldn’t see these at all. Now, I pore over the plants and I see, cheering on these tiny bits of growth.
What else can I see now? Certainly the signs of spring, my emerging bleeding hearts and forget-me-knots. Sad names for such pretty things.
The taste of food, the changes in the weather, the news from outside . . . all have an enhanced importance as other diversions are no longer available. And I rejoice at all Zooming possibilities: our BOLLI meetings, the choruses and orchestras that somehow manage to create affirming, triumphant sounds. With diminished horizons, everything looms larger, and I think we all cling to signs of life and vitality, celebrating the way that people can unite to overcome distance and isolation.
The majesty and unconquerable nature of the human spirit is something to affirm, something to cling to. I am so grateful to all those musicians and dancers who continue to bring us delight, who articulate artistry and commitment in these trying times. Ballet dancers with their adagios around a kitchen counter, others in fields and on roof tops, dancing their joy.
I look forward to meals and the occasional long phone call. I read plague literature, first Camus then Defoe. I watch the news and hear about what new blunder our government has made and watch Blue Bloods on Amazon when it all gets to be too much. I rejoice at my own ability to survive with the help of Instacart and Wegmans’ deliveries. I check out how the virus is faring in the places where my family members live. I didn’t know what county Cary, North Carolina was in, but now I do, and I check to see how relatively safe my grandson might be.
Vigilance, anxiety, concern (and rage) are balanced by some new set of appreciations, some new awareness, or permeability. I check again my tiny new slow-starting leaves, and I see another tiny dot of expectation. Hooray for you, I say. I’m on your side.
BOLLI member and Memoir Writing SGL Marjorie Roemer
Marjorie has been at BOLLI for nine years, taking classes, teaching classes, serving on committees. Writing has, all the while, helped to frame and deepen experience for her. (Be sure to dip into the 2020 BOLLI Journal to read two of her lovely poems.)
It happened quite simply. Our older daughter, her husband, and their three children moved to Massachusetts around 7 years ago. They had lived in Washington DC while she was in graduate school and her then soon-to-be husband was attending medical school. There, for several happy years, they received their degrees and became parents of their first child, our first granddaughter. They moved to the Philadelphia area and bought a sweet home in a wonderful neighborhood. She got a job, he completed his residency, and they became the parents of another daughter. We were quite sure they’d never move to the Boston area. Then he applied for a fellowship in mammography at Mass General Hospital.
Our hopes were high, but realistically, his chances were low, but we hoped for the impossible. We were thrilled when he was selected! They rented a two-bedroom apartment on the T line in Brookline. They liked living here and were glad to have grandparents as well as a great-grandmother all nearby.
Eventually, they bought a house in Newton and had a third daughter. Their lovely house sits on a quiet street where they have fabulous neighbors who have become close friends. It is within walking distance to the T and the center of town, the library, and, most importantly, PJ Licks Ice Cream. When they first looked at the house, they said that, some day, they would like to expand the kitchen and the dining room, and they especially wanted to change the chandelier. They were staying for the long haul, and we were delighted.
After six years, 2019 became the year for the renovation. They selected a contractor who had done jobs for friends and only worked on one job at a time. They were confident in their choice and shared the architect’s drawings. It looked like a bigger job than we had expected, but it surely looked good. They rented a home close by so they could take the kids to school, get themselves to work, and keep an eye on the construction. Their lease was for September to January. The contractor said that should be perfect timing. They put their furniture in storage and looked forward to 2020 being the year of their home being redone.
When our daughter was young and we had another on the way ourselves, we went through a much smaller renovation. It was rather stressful, but at least we weren’t out of our house for four months as they were to be. We suggested that, since we were going to spend February in Israel, they would be welcome to use our home if the job wasn’t finished on time. When that did become necessary, that move worked very well, especially because the family knew the house–its layout, the beds, the bathrooms, the toys, the couches, and, of course, the kitchen. They were already comfortable in it.
We arrived home on March 1st to find the house filled with smiles and laughter, and for two weeks, we all lived together. The kids went to school, their parents to work, and we were thrilled to have the time together. Then the Corona Virus overtook our world. Our son-in-law was sure that, as a doctor at Boston Medical Center, he’d be exposed, and he didn’t want to impact us since we are in the elder risk category. Both my daughters insisted that we take our friends up on their offer for us to go to their condo.
So, we packed up for our next adventure. Our friends are in Tucson, we’re in their condo, and our kids are in our home. Some day, our kids will move out, we’ll move back into our house and complain that it’s too quiet and run over to visit them. Our friends will return, and we’ll join them for dinner. Keep calm and carry on!
BOLLI Matters contributor and “Aging with Resilience” SIG leader Sandy Miller-Jacobs
Sandy finally retired after nearly 50 years in Special Education. Along the way, she married, completed her doctorate, raised two daughters, married them off, and became a grandmother. She says that BOLLI is the key to maintaining brain function through teaching and learning while meeting new friends. Her hobbies now include photography, memoir writing, and aging. Sometimes she takes the risk and shares her hobbies and ideas with BOLLI members!
When he asked her why, she thought for a moment and said that there really was no one else in the whole world with whom she could be so open. She spoke with an accent, most likely Eastern European. In her thirties, attractive, with hazel eyes, and fine features, she wore rumpled blue jeans, a man’s partially buttoned shirt, not tucked in, and had carelessly tied her dark hair in a bun. A faint lilac fragrance moved with her as she paced from one washer to the next, peering briefly into the glass front of each one as if expecting to find a forgotten treasure, a hidden message. Kanyeshna, she said–more than once. She looked at him again, straightened the loose hairs in her bun, then sighed, and continued pacing.
A few minutes earlier, unshaven, his light brown hair unkempt, he had put on loafers, khaki shorts, and a Red Sox T-shirt, determined finally, after so many excuses he’d made to himself, to get his laundry done. His old girlfriend had done it for him before she left for good, and now, she had been gone for a month. Hugging the large bundle, he had walked the two blocks from his studio apartment, past the pharmacy, the ice cream parlor, the barber shop, and the pawn shop until he reached the 24-hour laundromat. Except for the laundromat, the shops were closed, empty, the streets jammed with cars belonging to locals. Not a single jogger. No one walking a dog. He hadn’t really expected to meet anyone, not this early, not on a Sunday.
The two were the only ones doing their laundry. He checked his change. He needed a few more quarters to put in the washing machine and asked the woman if she had change for a dollar. She looked at him as if not quite understanding what he wanted, then asked him to marry her. Perhaps “Why” wasn’t the right question to have asked.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Shto za vapros!” she replied. “What question is that?”
“Well, we’ve never met. I asked if you could make change for a dollar, and you asked me to marry you.”
“Oh, did I? I get words mixed up. I am telling you I travel a lot ,and I pick up many words. I look in book for phrases to explain. I am having used one of those phrases with you. There are so many. I am being so confused. I am wishing to ask you if you can help me. I am having difficulty with these washing machines. I worry I am not used to the way these machines work.”
She smiled broadly, tilted her head, and looked at him as if she were inspecting a used car.
“You mean you’re not from around here?”
“Of course not, you silly man.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“How you mean by that?”
A blog devoted to the interests of BOLLI members and potential members
by Dennis Greene
