Author: patcamerino

Some elderly folks believe the most important advantage of living in any retirement community is the health care opportunity provided during those years when sickness may be more prevalent than health. Although Karen and I agree it is very comforting to have medical facilities readily available, we have not seen this to be an essential requirement. I do admit, however, that as much as I enjoy living in a small town, or even in a country setting, I would not move to a location where one must travel for hours to reach either a physician or a hospital. I fully appreciate having two physicians physically present at Eagle’s Trace, during an eight-hour workday, and available 24-7 for on-call emergencies. I have enjoyed taking only an elevator to the location where blood can be drawn for laboratory testing, if one can really enjoy such an activity!

When early residents moved into Eagle’s Trace, we were assured that an extended care facility would be constructed within a year or two. The unit, to be called the Renaissance Center, would provide assisted living, memory care, and rehabilitation. When there was a delay in the construction, many residents were irate with the “broken commitments” made by the Erickson enterprise. Karen and I were not among this group; we had not moved to a retirement community for its long-term health facilities. We were interested in an active retirement.

Construction of Bayou Vista, the renamed Renaissance Center, began in January 2012, some eight years after we moved into ET. The recession of 2008 – 2009, as well as a period when Erickson suffered the threat of bankruptcy, resulted in the delay. Fortunately, Karen and I did not require the facility, except for her use of rehabilitation procedures that, at the time, could be found on the first floor of our main building.

Karen liked the medical assistance routinely provided by Dr. Reina Patel, the first M.D. at Eagle’s Trace. I had Dr. Holden, who had been the medical director before he returned to academic medicine. Dr. Brian Tremaine has been an excellent replacement as my general medicine practitioner. On the other hand, the specialists, who were proposed to have an on-site presence, did not materialize. I have remained, however, with the former ET audiologist when she left us. Karen and I went through a series of dentists until we found a nearby practice. For several years, we continued to visit our Baylor ophthalmologists and dermatologists at the Texas Medical Center, where we have been treated since the days I worked at BCM, before transferring to ones who have offices closer to ET.

Over the last fifteen years, as our own health has been modified, we have added a few more specialists in disciplines relevant to our needs. A neurologist became one of my annual reviewers as a result of global transient amnesia. I experienced a GTA episode during a one-hour incident, the details of which my memory does not hold – except for remembering I kept asking Karen what had happened during the lecture we were giving to an ET class at the time it occurred. Several days at a local Memorial Hospital, along with magnetic resonance scans and parallel examinations, did not reveal the cause of the problem, which is the usual case with GTA. A year later I had to excuse myself from a meeting with a couple I had been preparing for marriage. As a result of this second GTA episode, I could not remember how I had managed to drive home from CGS. Nevertheless, once a year, I continue to see Dr. Diaz, who has assured me that motor-skills and other learned behavior continue to function during the episode, although the memory of the associated events does not.

Karen’s new specialists are involved with orthopedic surgery. Several years ago, she had both knee joints replaced, one-at-a-time. After laboring through an encounter with the walls surrounding Dubrovnik, Croatia, she decided the time had arrived for new knees. The results were fantastic. Once more, it was pleasant to use the elevator to commute to rehabilitation sessions, even if the bends and stretches experienced there were not pleasant for her.

At this time, we learned how quickly the ET first respondents actually responded. Karen had been given a brace for her knee, to be used during the initial post-operation week. She had removed it in the bathroom. Her weakened leg collapsed and so did she. I was at CGS at the time and, thus, not available to help her. Fortunately, the bathroom has a pull-cord for emergencies reported to the front desk at Eagle’s Trace. When she did not answer the immediately ringing telephone, two respondents arrived within five minutes of her cord-pulled-notification that they were needed. There are great advantages living in a retirement community equipped for the unique needs of its residents.

Having had a successful surgery on her knees, a few years later, Karen was willing to have the ball and socket of her right shoulder replaced. Meanwhile, her orthopedic surgeon had returned to Tennessee. His replacement was not as fine a surgeon. Since the pain and degree of motion for the treated shoulder became worse following the replacement, she decided to forgo any action on the other one. Having recently found another specialist, she has obtained some comfort from cortisone treatments. Final consideration for the second shoulder remains pending.

Recently, during our seventeenth year at ET, she has had her right hip replaced. She is becoming a bionic woman, at least of her right side. Although she expected an easy recovery, since hip-replacements are supposed to be easier than either knee or shoulder renewals, her body is now that of an octogenarian, one that required ten days in rehab-care at Bayou Vista before returning to our apartment. On the other hand, I finally learned how to use our dishwasher and washing machine while she was recuperating.

The only other surgery during our retirement years has been for the removal of cataracts from my own eyes, again one-at-a-time. Another Baylor specialist removed them with the result that I saw the color blue as it was meant to be seen, a magnificent color devoid of the greyness it once possessed. The artificial lenses have allowed me to dispense with the eyeglasses I have worn since I was in the first grade. A year later, I noticed some distortion in my long distance vison while driving, but I continue to be thrilled by what is so actually visible across a once beclouded room.

Our personal problems with sickness and any diminished health have been minimal here at Eagle’s Trace. We recognize this is not the case for our friends. A significant difference in living in a retirement community from that of a usual neighborhood, results from the demographics accompanying the two locations. We have experienced an increase in the frequency of deaths, especially since those who moved here at the same as we did are “aging in place.” We are among them. However, there is probably no better place in which to age in place than here at Eagle’s Trace. Here it is very comforting to live in sickness and in heath, until death do us part.

Usually, the residents of the Gulf Coast are the ones who worry about hurricanes. After all, the most destructive one ever recorded for the United States was the unnamed storm that wiped out Galveston on September 9, 1909. It has been reported that about 8,000 people died as a result of that tragic event.

However, even New England is not immune to hurricanes along its shores as well as in the Connecticut Valley, itself. The local history of Amherst, Massachusetts, recalls the devastation roaring through the Pioneer Valley on September 12, 1938. Although the death toll was less than 10% of the count associated with the turn-of-the-century storm in Galveston, the overall destruction was significant enough for the town to name its high school athletic team: The Hurricanes. The overall results of the current storm, Henri, striking New England’s coastline may be less significant but the residents of its inland towns have, nevertheless, been inundated by the usual accompanying floods.

Karen and I have had sufficient exposure to floods from tropical storms to understand the physical and psychological damage hurricanes, the cyclones of the Atlantic Ocean, can cause.

Our introduction came in late June of 1989, ten years after we had moved to what our property deed called “a hundred-year flood plain.” In the long run, it was fortunate that these conditions had been officially stated; we were obligated to carry flood insurance. Our policy covered the amount needed to repair the damaged floors and walls and replace the water-soaked furniture of our Spanish-colonial home.

Following that 1989 event, we are among those Houstonians who are psychologically troubled whenever the rainfall exceeds several inches per hour. It is deeply stressful to watch the water line creep toward your house. When we finally were able to sell our home on Grand Valley Drive in Spring, Texas, and buy one in Cypress, we made sure our new property was among the highest in the neighborhood. Fortunately during the years we lived there, passing storms avoided us, flooding only the community golf course.

It was in 2005, as we neared the completion of our life in Cypress and prepared to move to Eagle’s Trace, that we expanded our tropical storm experience to one for a true hurricane. At the end of August, Katrina arrived in Louisiana and a significant percentage of New Orleans residents suddenly appeared in Houston. Many transferred from the Astrodome to homes in other parts of the city and became permanent members of the Houston community. At the time, having sold our property in Cypress, we were living temporarily in an apartment complex in northwest Houston, awaiting the opening of Eagle’s Trace in November.

Our plans called for us to drive, in early September, to Dallas where I was to officiate at the wedding of the daughter of close friends who, previously, had resided in Houston. Following the wedding, we were to drive to Grand Coteau in southern Louisiana for our annual Ignatian retreat at the Jesuit Center there. Our plans were radically changed by Rita, a hurricane headed toward our part of the gulf coast in mid-September.

We left our apartment in northwest Houston early on Thursday morning so that we would be in Dallas for the rehearsal scheduled for the following day. After six hours of so-called driving, we arrived in The Woodlands – a trip which usually took a maximum of twenty minutes. Karen and I spent a total of fourteen hours in our journey from northwest Houston to Dallas. As we idled along, we had several interesting conversations with newly found friends in the cars in the adjoining lanes of Interstate 45. Fortunately, there were compassionate Texans who walked along-side of the traffic and offered us free bottles of water. Our Dallas friends were overjoyed that we arrived in time for the rehearsal on Friday and for the Saturday wedding I was to witness. Only one other couple from Houston accomplished the journey, the soloist for the wedding, along with her husband.

We never did make the trip to Grand Coteau, Louisiana. However, when we called to cancel the plans for our retreat there, the Jesuits were pleased, since the Center was now filled with religious refugees from New Orleans and the surrounding area. The saddest result, however, was that this cancellation ended our twenty-five consecutive years of annual retreats at this Jesuit Retreat Center.

As residents of Eagle’s Trace, we have also experienced the passage of hurricane Ike (September 1, 2008) and hurricane Harvey (August 27, 2018.) In both instances, the management of our retirement community, as well as its residents, have been of magnificent benefit to us. The staff worked to provide for our well-being, even if the meals had to be unhealed. Flood waters rose in surrounding neighborhoods, but our grounds remained unencumbered. As a result of Harvey, the number of our future residents increased; former neighborhood residents purchased apartments here, because they chose not to live any longer in their flood-prone homes.

The US Corp. of Army Engineers is now relocating its headquarters to a site opposite to the entrance for Eagle’s Trace. Because of multiple political reasons, it may not be possible to erect an “Ike Dike” in Galveston Bay, although discussions continue about its construction. Nevertheless, given the merit of our staff and cooperation of our residents, our own community should be able to continue to endure future gulf-coast storms, no matter what they are called.

Boccaccio wrote Decameron, with its ten-days-worth of tales told by seven young ladies and three young men who had isolated themselves in a villa outside Florence in order to escape the ravages of the Black Death of 1348. That epidemic of the 14th century has been replaced, in the 21st century, by one brought about by a novel coronavirus, designed COVID-19, since it was first encountered in China in the last months of 2019. So far, it has infected some half-million people worldwide.

The US has about one hundred thousand known cases of COVID-19, with some two thousand in Texas. As of March 28, 2020, there have been only twenty-six reported deaths in the state due to a virus pictured as a pink pincushion.

While many have endured hardships, sufferings and deaths, Karen and I, as well as the other nine hundred residents of Eagle’s Trace, have had mere inconveniences. We elders may not have a self-induced quarantine like those Florentine youths, but our “shelter-in-place” has helped to keep us safe and well. Although our tales are not as risqué as those of Boccaccio’s time, they might be jotted down for those who read these notes in a future year, assuming this nation and its citizens will have a future year. Some see the beginning of the apocalypse or at least a huge dystopia ahead of us.

Daily accounts in social media and television newscasts have documented, ad nauseam, the political and economic results of this epidemic. For some strange coincidence, governmental announcements seem to be made at 11:30 a.m., CDT, when Karen would prefer to watch Jeopardy, the gameshow, not the reality-show. Many people are undergoing their own personal jeopardy, with their rapidly falling (crashing) markets. Fortunately, for me, personally, my portfolio has dropped a mere 18%, since the beginning of the month.

About three weeks ago, when all of this began with earnest here in Houston, I might have been more concerned and anxious than I am today. It was on a Tuesday. I had gone to the dentist to have a small cavity filled. With a numbed mouth, I somehow had bitten my lip very badly during the following hours and so, on Wednesday, March 11, I called my dentist to learn if there was anything I could do to help the healing process. There wasn’t, but his office did say they had been intending to call all their patients seen the previous day. Evidently, one of them had notified my dentist that he, the patient, might have the coronavirus and was awaiting a final, determining test. The dental office would be closing that day for an indefinite period and would send me an email if a follow-up were needed! (They never did.)

Yes, I was “concerned” by the information given to me, but I was in the usual state of denial. I reasoned that my dentist, like other professionals, had adequate sterilization procedures in place for his instruments and, moreover, it was not probable that I had been exposed to any aerosol viruses left by a presumed, but unconfirmed, victim. Nevertheless, I’ve been taking my temperature three-times-a-day. It has remained below 98.5o every day for three weeks! I have passed any isolation period usually associated with exposure to this new coronavirus.

I, like all of our friends, have been complying with the recently established ground rules for “social distancing.” Eagle’s Trace has made this easy to practice. All clubs and gatherings have been eliminated for the known future. I cancelled my own Catholic Project classes scheduled to begin at the end of the month. Karen and I no longer attend our group for Legacy in Words. Her choir does not meet, much to the extreme regret of its director. We are not confined to our apartments, but when we pass others in the halls, living room, or lobby, no one touches. Hugs, of course, are taboo. If two people stand less than four or five feet apart, others wonder about their positions.

Meals are no longer available in the dining rooms or café. Food for three-meals-a-day is delivered to our door every third day. Actually, the limited menu from which we choose our entrees has been rather good in quality and outstanding in quantity. (The only exception has been for lima beans. Neither of us like them; our sink disposal also did not like them. The maintenance man with his plunger worked wonders.) With the abundance of included deserts and snacks, my intentions for Lent have vanished along with the munchables.

Actually, Lent has been a very strange season this year. Archbishop DiNardo has cancelled all masses during the week and on Sundays, until further notice, in accord with suggestions made by federal health agencies. Friday fish-fries, along with all other gatherings relating to any religious organization, have been suspended. While a virtual mass streamed from a local parish may be spiritually uplifting, the sacramental presence is not available. It’s probably true that some folks might miss the real presence of the fried fish more than they do the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. On the other hand, I did find the unique “urbi et orbi” blessing of Pope Francis, being streamed live from the Vatican (noon, local time!), to be a comforting spiritual experience. It was also very moving to see him standing alone, under a large canopy, facing a completely empty St Peter’s Square. The rains were not what kept the people away; the immediate cause was the fact that Italy has a higher death rate from COVID-19 (more than 10%) than any other nation.

Fortunately, the weather in Houston has made our isolation more bearable. Although it is still March, the daily temperatures have been in the 80’s! With brisk breezes and low humidity, I have enjoyed the hours I’ve sat outside in a comfortable chair and been able to view the ripples on the lake in the center of our campus. This is the only time I have taken to be outdoors. I’m pleased there has been this opportunity.

Normally, Karen and I ventured out at least once a week for a meal in a nearby restaurant. By local order, they have all been closed for meals consumed on site. However, some have stayed open for carry-out or delivery service. Fortunately, Babbins, where grandson Dillon works, remains open; on the other hand, his brother, Thomas, no longer has employment as a bartender. With our at-door food delivery, and lack of alcohol consumption, we’ve had no need for any external service, although I do miss pizza, hot-and-sour soup and gumbo.

During the last two weeks I have made only one excursion to Kroger’s to purchase eggs, cheese, milk and margarine. During this shopping event, I also marveled at the shelves bare of any paper products: napkins, towels, tissues and toilet paper. For some strange and unknowable reason, people have been hoarding toilet paper. I can understand why canned tuna fish and other non-perishables may be unavailable, but why do people need toilet paper for their apocalypse?! Should I end these jotted notes merely by writing, “No shit!?”

Among my very first memoire essays, was one entitled, “Pimple on His Chest,” in which I wrote about one of my earliest memories – the death of my five-year-old-best-friend, Jimmy Rossi. When he died, my mother told me that the cause was from a pimple on his chest. For many years thereafter, I deeply feared to see a pimple on my chest. It was a sure sign I would die. It was only decades later I realized the cause of Jimmy’s death was polio myelitis and I was not doomed to die from a pimple-on-my-chest.

Polio was, indeed, the scourge of my childhood. Throughout the country, kids were forbidden to gather together for any reason. Our isolation was mandatory. No parent wanted a child to spend the remainder of one’s life inside of an iron lung. Finally, in the late fifties, there was the sugar cube laced with a vaccine that warded off the menace of infantile paralysis.

But now, some seventy-five years later, the generation which no longer fears the polio virus has become the major target for the coronavirus that causes a respiratory disease called COVID-19. We have come a long way in our understanding of what a virus, itself, might be.

In recent years, we have learned about the Ebola virus, which causes hemorrhagic fever. That virus, discovered in Africa in the mid 1970s, was not thought of as a possible worldwide threat until 2018, when it spread rapidly through the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Tanzania. Nevertheless, this virus was judged, by most Americans, to be an unlikely problem in the U.S. We had been conditioned to believe that viral epidemics could not occur in a modernized society.

In the previous year, 2017, our western states had outbreaks of a hantavirus that caused both hemorrhagic and pulmonary diseases. Most citizens, however, thought they could avoid the rodent droppings, which carried the hantavirus, or the body fluids which served as the repositories for the Ebola virus. We went about our daily lives with minimal disturbances. We even learned how to coexist with AIDS and HIV.

Now, in 2020, in a time of national and international unrest due to many political, economic and cultural reasons, our current virus, indeed, wears a new crown. This coronavirus possesses a disruptive authority not seen since the time of the bubonic plagues of the fourteenth century, when the population of Europe was truly decimated by yersinia pestis bacteria. With the demise of the clergy as well as peasants and merchants, the accompanying intellectual, economic, and cultural changes were extremely significant. According to some, this is the time when the use of vernacular languages as well as the peasant revolts of Europe increased. With this history, who knows what the long-term effects of COVID-19 might be.

Thus far, there have been modest impacts on the small events that shape our lives. At last Sunday’s mass, communion was distributed only in the form of the consecrated host; the use of the common chalice was forbidden. At the exchange of peace, the congregation smiled at one another; no longer did people shake hands or exchange a hug. In some parishes, the holy water fonts at the entrances into the sanctuary were emptied.

The self-service at the buffet held each Sunday in our retirement community was replaced by the wait-staff transferring food to our plates. The use of hand sanitizers was strongly encouraged when entering the dining room. According to some, the price of such items has increased tenfold, if you can even find them in a grocery or pharmacy store. And whatever else you do, don’t touch your face!

Nationally and internationally, travel is being restricted by both governmental authority and personal concerns. Major international gatherings have been cancelled in Austin and Houston. So far, the Rodeo and Livestock Show are still open, but the crowds may tend to be limited. Even Texans are reluctant to be exposed to the coughs and sneezes of anyone who might be carrying a “bug.”

Each year, thousands die because of the flu virus, but it appears that death from routine causes – be they cars, guns or flu viruses – can be tolerated, whereas aliens, whether they are a virus originating in China or refugees from Mexico, are to be avoided at all costs.

It would seem that every human has his own pimple on his chest. We will, no doubt, continue to fear these blemishes until we realize we are calling them by the wrong name and fear them needlessly. No scientist is close to discovering the cure for the virus of xenophobia. I hope they do better for COVID-19.

A year ago, only a few weeks after COVID-19 was recognized to be a viral infection on the verge of becoming an epidemic, I wrote a few comments on the immediate effects brought about by this novel coronavirus. At the time (March 2020), most people, especially our President, Donald Trump, thought it would be short-lived. In his view, this flu-like illness would vanish long before Easter. It did not. It grew worse. It became a true pandemic.

During that first year (2020 – 2021), some 2.4 million people around the world died of it. In the US, alone, there were about one-half-million COVID-19 related deaths. More than 107 million cases were confirmed, worldwide, of which more than 27 million were found in the United States. In Texas, there were about 2.5 million cases and 471 thousand deaths.

Obviously, much has changed from what I described in early 2020. Shortly after I wrote about the modifications implemented at mass at Epiphany of the Lord, Karen and I, along with all other Catholics in Houston, were no longer able to attend mass, in person. Churches were closed completely. We participated in the Eucharistic celebration through live streaming from St Anthony of Padua in The Woodlands. We sampled services streamed from other sites and preferred this one for its liturgical forms and homiletics.

Now, in early 2021, places of worship are reopening on a limited basis, with people sitting in socially distanced pews, i.e., every other pew is vacant. Masks are worn by almost everyone in the congregation. The Presider removes his only during the homily, standing at a safe distance from others. Karen and I have not received communion for the last year!

A new, conflicted lifestyle exists throughout the nation and the world. Surely, history books will record much of what has transpired during this century’s meltdown, one equivalent to that of the plagues of the 14th century in Europe. I need not cover these conflicts, but a few comments on how COVID-19 has impacted Karen and me would be appropriate.

We have been cut off from visiting with friends, and even more significant and devastating, we have been restricted in direct interactions with family members. We did not gather for either Easter or Christmas in 2020. Nor for birthdays or any other events. We have dined a couple of times with Ken and his family at Del Pueblos, with Deb and Frank at Brookwood, and with Chris and Kelly at the same place. We made an outdoor visit with Dillon, Carolyn, Brantley, and Shiloh at their house. We also had a very pleasant visit with Ken’s immediate family on his newly covered patio. That’s it!

Life within Eagle’s Trace has been drastically modified. For many weeks, the staff delivered meals and mail to the door of our apartment. Centralized dining was eliminated and is now returning with limitations relating to the numbers present and how far apart they must be seated. Karen and I continue to bring back a daily meal from the Eagle’s Roost café. Meetings of any kind have been cancelled for many months. I stopped presenting any offerings for the Catholic Project; Karen no longer organized prayer groups.

Our interactions external to Eagle’s Trace have been equally limited. I venture to Kroger’s once-a-week to stock up on essentials, mainly for breakfast and lunch, as well as laundry and miscellaneous household needs. I wear a face mask for every trip and use latex gloves while picking out items to be purchased. Toilet paper is back in stock, although limited in the number of rolls you can purchase at one time.

Karen, except for rare visits to medical sites and the brief family encounters I’ve mentioned, remains apartment bound. We have not been to a mall or shopping center for a year. We survive with items ordered online from Amazon or a few of Karen’s specialty catalogs. I completely understand why so many local businesses are closing shop.

In the last year, I have had three haircuts; Karen finally resumed restricted visits to the salon on the first floor of Eagle’s Trace for hers. We are encouraged to interact at a six-foot distance from anyone we meet within the common areas here. Face masks are mandatary. Hand washing upon returning to the apartment is strongly encouraged. Electronic streaming has become a way of life; for us, not only with Sunday liturgy but also with a weekly podcast viewed in lieu of attending a formal town-hall meeting. The content usually relates to news about COVID-19 at Eagle’s Trace.

Many within the city, state, and country argue vehemently about the need to wear a mask in public (scientifically proven safety versus governmental authority); about social distancing of at least six feet for masked interactions; about the opening of essential businesses like bars, nail salons, and fitness centers; and about whether students should attend schools in person or by electronic zooming. Karen and I have avoided any discussions with others on these and other politically related issues associated with COVID-19. We do what we believe we should be doing. We avoid those folks we believe are not doing what we do. There are times when intolerance might be necessary for survival, as one sees it. At the same time, maybe, there is a need to tolerate intolerance! We keep trying.

Perhaps life and its events will return to a new-normal in the not-too-distant future. It is highly unlikely to return to what was “normal” only eighteen months ago. Several vaccines have, remarkably, been developed over the last few months. Usually, it takes years before such treatments can be made available. However, using new technology relating to “messenger RNA” for the production of antigen-proteins, two vaccines (made by Pfizer or Moderna) are being used under emergency certification. The Pfizer formulation, although requiring storage at extremely cold temperatures, has been made available to Eagle’s Trace through CVS pharmacy. Karen and I have received our shots at the two required clinics held here. Some 1,000 residents, staff and related personnel have been vaccinated. On the other hand, anti-vaccers continue to rant against the treatment. Some seem to believe the pandemic has been faked, along with many other events in life.

Although the vaccine will not keep us from acquiring the virus, the symptoms requiring assisted ventilation within a hospital should be reduced along with resulting deaths from COVID-19. The only negative aspect of the inoculation, for me, was a painful upper arm muscle for the week following each injection. Karen had no complaints. Unlike what we have heard about the conditions others have faced in attempting to be vaccinated, our clinics were a breeze. We have found one more reason to say we made the right decision fifteen years ago by moving to Eagle’s Trace. If one must shelter-in-place, we have the ideal place in which to shelter.

In the middle of the night, between January 6 and 7 of 2021, I awoke and, lying there, wondered if I were going insane. What is reality and what is fantasy? Is my life actually my personal experience or a metaphysical solipsism? Can anyone, besides me, read these words I’m writing?

Maybe the feeling is a result of the movie I watched last night. “Unknown.” Actor Liam Neeson awoke from a coma resulting from an auto accident and found his identity was not recognized by his wife and others. He finally discovered he was really a trained assassin and had assumed, as his own reality, the cover-story invented by his team, including his “wife,” in order to eliminate a biochemist who had developed a new species of corn.

Surely the newscasts I had watched, before and after the movie, did not depict reality. The images of American citizens storming the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., having been excited to riot by the President of the United States, who desired to remain in power, having been voted-out by a majority of the people and a plurality of the Electoral College, could not be true. This had to be part of my imagination. But since it seemed so real, I must be hallucinating. I might be on the verge of insanity. Or it was an instance of metaphysical solipsism where I am the only existing mind and everything external to my mind does not truly exist.

I finally recognized I had not been imagining what I remembered about the television news programs I had seen. President Trump had really called on his Trumparians to march on the Capitol. Perhaps he thought they would mill around outside and not enter the building to vandalize it. They would not stop Congress in its ceremonial recognition that the Electoral College had legally elected Biden as President, to be inaugurated two weeks from now. After all, the fifty states, themselves, had certified the correctness of the count for each one. Almost sixty ill-fated federal and non-federal lawsuits confirmed the legality of the elections. He had, indeed, not won, as he had been claiming for the last month, by a record-breaking landslide which had been thwarted by those who were not Trumparians.

In a video message, he had claimed his Trumparians were “good people” who should “remain peaceful” as they occupied the Capitol building and made the Senators and Representatives seek hiding places as they, themselves, mocked the democracy they claimed they were defending. He continued to love them. Fortunately, those he loved did not have the wisdom to destroy the certified records waiting to be reported. They had been content to dress as Vikings waving Confederate flags and merely occupy the building, until the Capitol Police and National Guard forced them to leave, thus finally allowing Congress to carry out its governmental role late into the night, about the time I awoke to question my own sanity.

As I write these words, it is unknown what the next days and weeks will bring. Will the Cabinet, as some postulate, invoke the 25th Amendment and declare the current President incompetent to retain his office for the next two weeks, thus inaugurating Mike Pence as the shortest-governing President in some two and one-half centuries? Will those around him be able to sequester his actions for the next fortnight and preclude his overthrow of our democracy? And if there is, indeed, a “peaceful transfer of power,” as has been reported on his behalf, will there be a “peaceful continuation of power.” Perhaps the answers lie, not in a question of my own sanity, but that of the Trumparians at the gates.

Yesterday, January 6, was the Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord. It commemorates the “showing forth” of the coming of the one whose intent was to bring forgiveness and peace to people of good will. We still await the second Epiphany, the second coming of the One who will rule after the apocalypse. It is also said that in the final days, the Trump will sound. The question remains: what blast will be heard at that instant?

Donald J. Trump has been impeached for the second time – and all within a single year. There are many ways to break records. This should not be one of them! The House passed a single article of Impeachment: to the effect that the President of the United States incited his radical followers to march on the Capitol building and begin an insurrection against our democracy. All of the Democrats and ten Republicans in the House voted in favor of the article of Impeachment: “Resolved, That Donald John Trump, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors ….” The document ends with the words: “He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United. States. Wherefore, Donald John Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security, democracy, and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. Donald John Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.”

A year ago, Trump was impeached for seeking the aid of a foreign leader to find foreign-based evidence that would prevent Joe Biden from being elected. Now claiming that Biden stole the election from him, he proclaims to his Trumparians that the forthcoming inauguration will establish a fraudulent presidency. Therefore, they should “fight like hell” to preserve the democracy which he, himself, should continue to lead. Following his speech to his assembled disciples, they vandalized the Capitol halls in which Congress was assembled to confirm the results of the majority of the Electoral College, as well as that of the majority of the voters last November. There was the appearance that these invaders would, if given the chance, hold Congressmen as hostages. They even shouted to “Hang Pence,” the current Republican Vice-President, who has been a very loyal partner with Trump for the past four years.

At the moment, some 2,500 National Guardsmen are stationed within the Capitol building. At the moment, there are more troops sleeping in the halls of Congress than there are stationed in Afghanistan and the Middle East. I pray that they will not be called upon in the days, or weeks, to come, as the Senate debates and votes to support the House’s impeachment. I assume that Mr. Trump will actually no longer be President when the final vote is taken, since the Inauguration will occur within a week from now. But a positive response would (perhaps) preclude his running for the Presidency in four years, as he claims he will do.

The scenario occurring at the moment continues to seem to be a narrative that is not real. Somehow, we, as a nation, will suddenly awaken and realize the sham which has been occurring. Even Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, for the moment, of the Republican-controlled Senate may be in favor of voting for this second Impeachment, having led the attack against the first one a year ago. A lot can happen within a very short time. I may, yet, see a return to sanity, with an awakening from this nightmare and a dismissing the phantoms of the past.

The opening weeks of the year 2021 have been momentous. They will, no doubt, be discussed by American citizens during the months to follow and, in the years to follow, by the world’s historians. On January 6 Trumparians attacked the United States Capitol Building. Shortly afterwards, the House of Representatives, for the second time, voted that Donald J. Trump should be impeached – this time, for inciting his loyal followers to thwart the certification of Biden as President-Elect and prevent the normal peaceful transfer of power.

Mitch McConnell, then the Majority Leader of the Senate, said the trial relating to his Article of Impeachment would not be held until after Biden’s Inauguration on January 20. Nancy Pelosi, Chairman of the House of Representatives, delivered the Article to the Senate shortly after this date. Reluctantly, the Senate began its deliberations in early February. On February 13, fifty Democrats and seven Republicans voted “guilty.” However, the “not guilty” votes by forty-three Republicans carried the day, since Senate agreement to an Impeachment requires a plurality of votes; the motion failed by seven votes.

The results of the Senate’s deliberations came as no surprise. There has been the political view that Trump, who no longer serves actively as President, could not be removed from this Office and an Impeachment would not be Constitutional. On the other hand, others expressed concern about the “January Exception,” wherein a lame-duck President could do whatever he wanted to during his last weeks in Office, in particular, foster events that would preclude the necessity of his vacating the Office, itself.

For me, and perhaps for others as well, the real surprise came in the speech delivered by Mitch McConnell, shortly after Trump’s forgone acquittal. Since the Senate is equally divided between the Republican and Democrat parties with Kamela Harris, a Democrat, as the newly elected Vice President who chairs this body, Senator McConnell is now the minority leader. Somewhat surprisingly, in his speech before the full Senate, he agreed with almost all of the issues raised by the Democrat House Managers, who had presented their case over three days in the Senate’s deliberations. Mr. McConnell said,

    “January 6th was a disgrace. American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did not like. Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the vice president. ...     “They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth – because he was angry he'd lost an election.  Former President Trump's actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty. ...     “There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president. And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth. The issue is not only the president's intemperate language on January 6th. It is not just his endorsement of remarks in which an associate urged "trial by combat." It was also the entire manufactured atmosphere of looming catastrophe; the increasingly wild myths about a reverse landslide election that was being stolen in some secret coup by our now-president. ...     “The leader of the free world cannot spend weeks thundering that shadowy forces are stealing our country and then feign surprise when people believe him and do reckless things. Sadly, many politicians sometimes make overheated comments or use metaphors that unhinged listeners might take literally. This was different. This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories, orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters' decision or else torch our institutions on the way out. ...     “The unconscionable behavior did not end when the violence began.  Whatever our ex-president claims he thought might happen that day, whatever reaction he says he meant to produce, by that afternoon, he was watching the same live television as the rest of the world.  A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name. These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags, and screaming their loyalty to him. It was obvious that only President Trump could end this. Former aides publicly begged him to do so. Loyal allies frantically called the administration. But the president did not act swiftly. He did not do his job. He didn't take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed, and order restored. Instead, according to public reports, he watched television happily as the chaos unfolded. He kept pressing his scheme to overturn the election! Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice President Pence was in danger, even as the mob carrying Trump banners was beating cops and breaching perimeters, the president sent a further tweet attacking his vice president. Predictably and foreseeably under the circumstances, members of the mob seemed to interpret this as further inspiration to lawlessness and violence. ...

 If Senator McConnell had said these words, publicly, before the vote, there is a possibility that fewer than the forty-three Republicans would have voted: “Not guilty.” On the other hand, many of the seventy-plus-millions who voted a few months ago to reelect Mr. Trump might have renounced this particular Republican leader and we would be on the verge of a prolonged insurrection. Perhaps, Mr. McConnell was correct: Mr. Trump’s actions should not lead to his Impeachment, but rather, bear other results for him, personally. The events to come will prove to be interesting.

There is a saying to the effect that a certain, usually notoriously bad, event will occur “… when Hell freezes over!” The weather forecast for tomorrow, Presidents’ Day, 2021, for Houston and the Gulf Coast actually indicates that we will have the coldest temperatures ever recorded in this part of the country. Houston, itself, may expect several inches of snow! Look out!!

One week ago, on May 30, 2024, Donald J. Trump, former President of the United States was found guilty on 34 charges related to his activities around his election held eight years ago. He had been accused of falsifying business records relating to hush-money payments made through his then current personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to a former porn actor, Stormy Daniels, who claimed she previously had an illicit relationship with Mr. Trump. The hush-money, some $130,000, was paid to prevent publication of her story in the National Inquirer immediately prior to the 2016 election, which Mr. Trump won but might have lost if the story had been made public, particularly since he had recently stated how a wealthy man, like him, could get away with any physical desire relating to women.

The guilty verdict was reached by twelve jurors in the Manhattan court, under the jurisdiction of Judge Juan Merchan, who will pass sentence on July 11, immediately prior to the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, at which the GOP will nominate Mr. Trump as its candidate for President of the United States.

Mr. Trump, of course, says he is not only innocent of all charges (including having sex with Ms. Daniels) and, in reality, the trial is a “witch hunt” propagated by the Democrats led by an evil President Biden. He maligns both the Judge and the jurors who have taken part in this evil, fake trial. His words and actions are backed by all of the leaders of the Republican party, as well as by his adamant Trumparian followers.

Mr. Trump maintains he was not given a fair trial in Manhattan, even though this is the city where he grew up and made his billions as a real estate developer. Judge Merchan was biased as indicated by a $15.00 (or $35.00) donation he made to Mr. Biden’s Presidential campaign. Mr. Cohen, who testified about the financial transfers, was an evil liar, despite the fact he had been the personal lawyer whom Mr. Trump relied upon as his own “fixer” during his own former campaign and Presidency. If Mr. Trump was worried about the notoriety of any sexual relationship with Ms. Daniels and other women, it was because of his desire that his own wife not be concerned and not that the national electorate might be concerned. After all, he once said he could kill someone on Fifth Avenue, and no one would hold him responsible.

Thus far, his angry words and the actions of the Trumparians have been well heard, but physical action has been limited to relatively peaceful demonstrations throughout the country. This may not last. The insurrection of January 6, 2020, is vividly remembered. Trumparians had stormed the Capital building in an attempt to force Vice President Pence and the Senate to verify Mr. Trump’s election by the Electoral College. His legions could, once again, threaten both the Congress and all those who might not have voted for Mr. Trump. As he had once urged his Trumparians to fight to uphold his election, he now calls for them to fight for their freedom and rise up against all who oppose him. Once again, civil war is a threat upon the horizon.

The first major episode will occur on July 11 when Mr. Trump is sentenced for the 34 counts on which he has been found guilty by a jury. It is unlikely Judge Merchan will sentence him to prison. He can, however, be fined and his movements curtailed. As a former President and potential candidate, he will continue to receive protection by the Secret Service. Even these limited legal actions could result in uprisings by Trumparians throughout the country. It is unlikely the Republican Convention, a week later, will nominate someone else. It will be interesting to learn whom they will choose for Vice President, given the possibilities which could become available to the one chosen to replace Mr. Trump, should the need arise after November. The next significant episode will, of course, come at that time.

In this election, Trumparians will join with him in their acceptance of his godhood and invincibility in foreign and domestic affairs relating to the Mexican border and the vicious immigrants who cross it, to the national economics and a lack of buying-power for the average American, and to the climatic events of floods, hurricanes, tornados and earthquakes, no doubt caused by ignoble Democrats. Come November, even non-Trumparian Republicans will likely close ranks in support of his return to the power which was stolen from him four years ago.

It will be interesting to see how the “independent” voter responds to Mr. Trump’s guilty convictions. They will also be moved by social and economic elements, those which even the Democrats agree are problematic for Mr. Biden. The outcome of the 2024 election is very uncertain. On the other hand, the results which follow may, unfortunately, be less uncertain.

If Mr. Trump is again declared the loser, there will be a national uprising, a new civil war, based once again, on states’ rights versus federal control. A second stealing of the election by an evil, degenerate Biden and his fellow Democrats will not be tolerated. This time the Capital and the White House will be under active attack. Their leaders will wear more than cattle horns and carry more than tear gas and baseball bats. Military battles will be held throughout the country between the November election and the January inauguration. There will be no peaceful continuation of power.

If Mr. Trump wins and returns to the active Presidency of the United States, physical military battles will be limited. Instead, there will be a less bloody but equally devastating implementation of a dictatorship. Pageantry will replace politics. Gatherings will resemble those once observed in Berlin and Rome and currently in Pyongyang, Moscow and Beijing. Donald J. Trump may be found guilty of felonies, but the American people may become the prisoners. The question remains: who is truly guilty?

With the passage of years, the arrival of each month seems to come more quickly. The next week begins before the last one has had an opportunity to end effectively. Every other day is a Saturday and time for going to an evening mass and dinner out. This was evident until early in July 2024, when the cogs of time jammed to yield an epoch rather than a series of repetitive hours.

The first notification arrived as a message from Eagle Trace’s management about a major break in the community’s water line. A flooded street resulted in a blockage requiring a circumnavigation of the entire complex in order to leave or enter it. On the other hand, the real damage was a loss of water pressure in all of the community for the next two days. Staff were, however, very accommodating as, twice a day, they brought a bucket of water to allow a toilet to be flushed in each apartment.

Fortunately, the water pressure was restored before the fireworks exploded on the Fourth and the winds of tropical storm Beryl approached the Gulf Coast. During the weekend, this category 1 hurricane struck Matagorda Bay, south of Houston, and quickly passed over the area. Nevertheless, its winds were inordinately strong and did extreme damage to the area’s power system. For reasons still under debate, CenterPoint Energy was not able to restore electricity to most of its 2.3 million customers until days, if not a week, afterwards.

Apparently, Eagle’s Trace is accessed by two central transformers, one associated with the new neighborhoods, another for the four older buildings, including our own Pecan Grove. The original residents found themselves living in darkened apartments with room temperatures in the high eighties! Many sweated together in the central living room and dining areas. Karen and I spent several days in the lounges of Mockingbird Plaza, one of the newly opened residences, readily accessed by a five-minute walk from our unlivable unit, to which we returned for a nightly baking. Once again, the ET staff provided meals and assistance to hundreds of residents. By the second weekend of the month, it appeared we had survived the current major problems of our life in a retirement community. Most of the city, however, had more tragic experiences with fallen trees, crushed houses, and closed businesses.

During this city-wide chaos, there were personal problems I had to address. One issue may have been associated with the lack of appropriate sanitation during the first days of the month. I developed a week-long sore throat, cough and low grade (100◦) fever. Fortunately, most of the COVID-like symptoms ended before Beryl’s effects were fully in place.

Karen, herself, had her own issues. Having lost her balance, she fell in our apartment and required the aid of quickly arriving security staff to help her stand, a feat she could not accomplish on her own and one for which I could not offer assistance.

With the decline of my flu-like symptoms, other ailments appeared. For an unknown reason, I developed a sprained left wrist and arm. Although I could still steer the car to make a trip to Kroger’s in order to replace the food lost during our week-long lack of electricity, this action became limited as a result of a stiff neck and unturnable head. Fortunately, there has been no other need to leave the grounds. After all, there was now a functioning television to watch. On the other hand, the TV-content was suddenly very limited.

On Saturday, July 13, as we were recovering electrical power, the national event for the week was the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump, during his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A young sniper had managed to clip the top of Mr. Trump’s right ear. He fell behind the podium, as his followers gasped in horror. Moments later, he was resurrected and, with triumphal arm raised in the air and with a determination to continue the fight, he was escorted by surrounding Secret Service members to a waiting car which drove him to a local hospital.

The wound was superficial, requiring no sutures, but only a well-observable bandage. Tragically, a bystander had been killed and two others had been wounded in the attack by a twenty-year old man, who had no apparent motive to shoot Mr. Trump. He, himself, was killed. Of course, members of Congress, especially the Republicans, interrogated the director of the Secret Service. Their commentary quickly led to her resignation. Continuing investigations by Congress and other governmental offices, has produced limited information about the assailant, Matthew Crooks, a registered Republican who had contributed $15.00 to the Biden campaign! Somehow, he had managed to find a location on a rooftop only 148 yards from Mr. Trump’s podium.

During the week following the attempted assassination of Mr. Trump, the Republican Party met in Milwaukee to nominate him, officially, as the Party’s Presidential candidate for 2024. By Thursday, he was unofficially coronated by all of his former rivals, one of whom, J.D. Vance, a Senator from Ohio, he had now accepted as his running mate. Their leadership of the news cycle did not last very long during this strange July 2024.

A week latter, on Sunday July 21, Joe Biden, the current President of the United States, announced he would no longer seek the nomination by the Democrats at their own convention in August. Since late June, following his inept debate with Mr. Trump, many leaders in his own party had called for him to step aside. Despite those who have been concerned about his age (81 years) and health status (currently with diagnosed COVID-19), Mr. Biden had repeatedly affirmed his intent to remain in the running. However, sometime during this weekend, he decided he would no longer seek re-election. A few hours after his original announcement, he endorsed Kamala Harris, his current Vice President, as his replacement on the ballot. Before the end of July, she should announce the person who should replace her as Vice President in this year’s election.

At the moment, the national media are overcome with conflicting reports and opinions relating to the coming campaign for Trump-Vance versus Harris-TBN. Some people believe Kamala Harris, a multiracial woman, should be replaced by a more traditional candidate. However, she has suddenly obtained the backing of a significant number of the delegates who will select the Democratic candidate and, given the fact the Party’s campaign funds were increased by 81 million dollars within twenty-four hours of her backing by President Biden, it is likely she will become the official nominee when their convention meets next month in Chicago.

During the past week, the Republicans have already called for Harris’ impeachment as Vice President on the grounds that she has not invoked the 25th Amendment calling for the President’s replacement, which they believe is mandatory, since Mr. Biden, not being in condition to seek re-election, should no longer be able to serve as President.

The remainder of July is still ahead, no doubt with more surprises, in addition to those of a hurricane, an attempted assassination and a decline of a Presidential candidacy. Thus far, there have been several other notable events.

On Saturday morning, the day before Mr. Biden’s announcement, CrowdStrike, an international cybersecurity resource headquartered in Texas, released an update for their world-wide software programs, which crashed millions of computers around the world. Airlines, hospitals, banks and other companies using this software continued to have problems, even after the computer code error had been corrected.

Additional news coverage has been associated with the death, on Friday, July 19, of Sheila Jackson Lee, Houston’s Congressional representative over the last three decades. She had been known for her outstanding leadership in equal rights and being instrumental in the establishment of Juneteeth as a national holiday.

Another event, scheduled for the end of the month, may bring its own turmoil and dissension. The summer Olympic Games will open in Paris. Although the physical abilities of thousands of international athletes will be demonstrated, there are significant possibilities of political demonstrations as well, given the current war between Russia and Ukraine and the Israelis and Hamas, the Palestinian military organization. It was fifty years ago, when the massacre occurred at the Olympics being held in Munich. These quadrennial games dedicated to peace have often had their own political entanglements.

Although the events of this month have been dramatic, albeit even tragic for many, there have been other significant, personal occurrences for the month. In early July, our grandson, Gabriel was scheduled for several essential surgeries and is still undergoing hospitalization. On July 19th Samantha, wife of our grandson Jordan, gave birth to their first son, James. To maintain the strangeness of his month, it should be pointed out that exactly one year ago, on July 19, 2023, Kirby, our granddaughter, gave birth to Kipton, her own firstborn. Consequentially, among our ten great grandchildren, two of them now share the same birthday. Two other great grandsons, Shiloh and Liam, have the same birthday as their own fathers. A great granddaughter, Lila, has the same birthday as her aunt. And finally, another great granddaughter, Rory, shares her birthday with her grandfather, Christopher. So, more than half of our great grandchildren have birthday partners.

Evidently, for our extended family, the cogs of time stick together for their own strange reasons. Nevertheless, may the result of their turning be more positive than negative, beyond the month of July, 2024.