Category: Retirement and Eagle’s Trace

I enjoyed living at Longwood in Cypress, Texas. It was a true replacement for my home in Amherst. Ponderosa Forest in Spring had merely been a place to live while working in Houston. We had planned on living in Texas for five to seven years, the usual maximum length of time for us to reside anyplace, during the previous twenty years. When we arrived in Houston in 1977, I was sure we would move back to New England and to another college town. Our kids decided otherwise. They had grown up and married. Their wives, Tracey and Kelly, had deep ties with Houston making it unlikely, I thought, that our sons, Ken or Chris, would choose to go somewhere else to live.

Then grandchildren came along. Since our own kids had never resided near their own grandparents, we thought we should remain in Texas. Baylor Med paid me well. Although I continued to respond to selected announcements in the employment section of the Chronicle of Higher Education, I realized movement to another academic location was not likely.

My life in Longwood was peaceful. The backyard with its newly covered patio and accompanying landscaping was an excellent place for a smoke and a cup of coffee, especially a cappuccino. Following one of our several vacations in Italy, Karen had encouraged the purchase of a machine which, at first, we routinely used for late afternoon relaxation. Until I gave up smoking. Apparently, I also gave up cappuccinos unless we were in a foreign country.

I did not mind the forty-five to sixty-minute drive to Christ the Good Shepherd, where I continued my diaconal ministry. Karen was content to drive for the same amount of time to her own ministry at the Cenacle, on the westside of Houston. We were a bit closer to Deb who now resided in San Antonio and a bit farther from those remaining in the Tomball-Woodlands areas. Retirement life in Cypress was filled with contentment. But I was curious.

I had seen an advertisement for a new retirement community in west-Houston, not too far from the Cenacle on Kirkwood. I requested that Erickson, the company backing the development, send me a brochure. I had no intention to look for a retirement community, even though, on our routine drive to CGS, we drove past Gleannloch Farms, which was in the process of building one. At the time, the concept of a self-contained retirement community was unusual for Houston.

The Erickson booklet I received looked interesting enough that I thought Karen might enjoy seeing it. We scheduled a visit to their trailer on Texas Highway 6 that served as a sales office for a development called Eagle’s Trace. Having seen it, Karen said this was where we were going to move. I had no reason not to agree.

At the time, I had no idea she was very willing to stop daily meal planning and preparation. (At Eagle’s Trace, an evening meal would be included in a monthly service-fee.) Although I continued to enjoy gardening, I agreed I liked to view the results more than to perform the daily-required upkeep, itself. A retirement community would accommodate our newly expressed desires. We continued to explore the possibility.

We visited locations on Louetta Road and Cypresswood Road in northwest Houston, an area with which we were very familiar. Although Gleannloch Farms looked interesting, it would be a couple of years before it would be opened. The Cypresswood community consisted of limited apartment-space, except for two adjacent cottages. In comparison, Eagle’s Trace would be more readily available and have facilities which might be of interest to us.

There would be on-site medical care with several internal medicine physicians and other specialists, e.g., cardiology, audiology, optometry, and dentistry. An extended care facility would open two years later. The main building would have a bank, grocery store, and library as well as a swimming pool and physical fitness equipment. Although nothing had been constructed, the floor plans looked promising.

We made a deposit to become “priority members” and chose a two-bedroom plan we thought would be acceptable. Unfortunately, other people thought the same thing, and we needed to wait until the second building would be completed. However, shortly afterwards, we were offered another plan which included a den, thereby expanding the available space. Although it would be more expensive than any other home we had ever owned, we decided this is what we wanted.

We put our Longwood property on the market and sold it six months before Eagle’s Trace was scheduled to open. With no other place to live, we rented a first-floor, three-bedroom unit at Stoneleigh Apartments on Spring-Cypress Road. One bedroom became a storage room for unpacked boxes awaiting our final move to Eagle’s Trace. A pathway was left for maneuvering among the containers mounted all the way to the ceiling. Some of our furniture and larger belongings, which could not be crammed into our apartment at Stoneleigh, were placed in a storage building on Spring-Cypress. CGS was only fifteen minutes away from our new, albeit temporary, home.

This was our first experience, since our days at Dartmouth, in which we lived in an apartment. It was interesting getting reacquainted with the lifestyle. We were pleased our unit at Eagle’s Trace would be on the top floor, rather than below residents who must be dropping exercise weights in the middle of every night, as they seemed to be doing at Stoneleigh.

We lived in this cramped location for five months. Eagle’s Trace became available a month earlier than we had thought would be the case. Unlike other residents who would “downsize” on their move to Eagle’s Trace, we actually would expand our immediate space!

Meanwhile, we had made trips to our new home-site, as often as we could, and eagerly awaited seeing the actual building. We were in luck; two weeks before we were scheduled to arrive, friends had moved into the same model we had chosen. Karen was able to measure their rooms and plan where our furniture would be placed in ours. She did an extremely accurate job; only one bookcase needed to be relocated after our actual move-in.

Our original day for scheduling a moving van was November 16, 2004, a date which would accommodate the use of the elevator needed to transfer our belongings to the fourth floor of the building designated as Pecan Grove. Late in the afternoon of our move-in, a major storm arrived. Our movers had to stop their activities. That night, we slept on mattresses on the floor. The ET director made a special visit with his flashlight to check on our comfort, which was minimal but acceptable. I used the stairs to obtain something to eat for our first dinner in our new home.

It was fun to be pioneers. The shelves in the closets and their final painting occurred the day before we moved, the day we saw our apartment for the first time. We also saw that the ceilings in both bathrooms had been painted to match the color of the walls; management claimed this was the current style. When we entered our pink bathroom, it felt as if we were entering someone’s mouth. Maintenance used white paint to re-cover the ceiling there and in the green bathroom as well.

The storage cages for our floor were unfinished. After several days of “extras” being stacked in our living room, we rented an off-site storage space. Although we had previously discarded a lot of our kitchen equipment and other, small, once-needed items, we quickly learned we should make another trip to the local Good Will depository. These were our only move-in problems.

The only other problem I had was trying to remember, without the aid of signage, how to get from the main building to our apartment. I finally looked for the hallway with the glass windows connecting the buildings. I was significantly lost only once.

It did not take long to begin the joys of living in a retirement community. In fact, in the months (and years) which followed, our usual description to inquiring friends was that living at Eagle’s Trace was like living on a cruise ship, but one with much larger cabins.

Before moving from a four-bedroom house to a two-bedroom (with “den”) apartment, we knew there would be changes in our lifestyle. The most common one is related to “downsizing.” Modern businesses, when they reorganize their corporate structures, often refer to the process as “right-sizing.” This reinterpretation is relevant, as well, for living in a retirement community.

Karen and I knew we must give up/eliminate/throw-out large (and small) items we would never need in the foreseeable future. Furniture, of course, requires the largest modification. One of our three “extra” bedrooms at Longwood had already been converted into a study for me. Although a second bedroom had been set aside, in part, for accommodating guests, there would now be no reason to keep any bedroom furniture for use by guests. (They would have access to a guest suite at ET or could stay in a nearby motel.) In addition to beds and dressers, there were the usual living room and family room stuff. Who needs a six-foot, colonial style couch in an apartment? Along with end-tables, sideboards and other cabinets?

We made a compromise for the dining room. The table and chairs were eliminated, the hutch would be kept, but the once sacred, wedding dishes, stored within, would now be used for daily meals – mainly breakfast and lunch, since we would eat dinner in the Garden Room, the common dining room at Eagle’s Trace. Our children and older grandchildren were given the option of taking our used furniture, as we had once experienced with our own parents when we established our first homes in Ithaca and Hanover. What they didn’t want (which was much of what we had to offer!), was given to charitable agencies. At the same time, we would no longer function as the storage place for items they had left under our care until they, themselves, had “larger” houses for their own self-storage. Now was the time to take it or forget about it!

The major hardship we had concerning downsizing was our book collections. All of mine had to fit into the two bookcases assigned for my study. (No longer would there be a wall of built-in bookshelves.) Karen’s collection would be relegated to a single bookcase in her study, the den which adjoined our new family-living room through its arched doorway. My study, which tended to be more jumbled, would use the space originally allocated for a second bedroom, since this room had a door that could be closed to hide that jumble.

Karen donated a bookcase, with spirituality-related books, to the Cenacle. My theological books and others relating to my diaconate work were packed off to the Library at St. Mary’s Seminary. Our most interesting donation was a complete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica given to the new, local Harris County Community College. The librarian was pleased to receive it and offered the assistance of a young student to help me carry the boxes from my car into the building. The amusing part was that the student had never seen a printed set of encyclopedia books; he was truly amazed that such a non-Internet publication existed!

Of course, over the first months in our Eagle’s Trace apartment, we did need to buy a few, smaller, items to replace what had been downside. A cabinet for the TV. Another one for my computer and its accessories. A small table and two chairs for the eat-in-kitchen. Two recliners and a very small leather couch for the family-living-dining-room. Although we retained pieces of our heavy New England furniture, the new, contemporary additions mixed well with the established items purchased more than fifty years!

Living a retirement lifestyle was more than accommodating the furniture. As we downside our material possessions, we up-sized new activities available at Eagle’s Trace. The retirement-living principle at ET was to join an existing interest-group or create one you wanted to join! Ultimately, more than ninety different interest-groups were established by our residents. Our individual focuses began to shift from our religious communities at the Cenacle, Christ the Good Shepherd and St. John Vianney to those within our retirement community.

Karen became active in a choir-singing-group and various prayer-spirituality-groups. I joined a book-club and even used the physical-fitness center to counterbalance a sedentary life. She joined the walking club. Karen also organized days-of-prayer and related mini-retreats for women as well as other efforts associated with neighbor-to-neighbor communication. I began to facilitate an interfaith bible-study as well as presentations for adult religious education, under the title of The Catholic Project. Ultimately, we joined Legacy in Words, a memoire group which led to the production of this blog, CamerosAndCarousels.com.

The only area we purposely avoided was any long-term involvement in committees associated with the “governance” of Eagle’s Trace, although we did accept a short-time assignment to the Residents’ Life Committee, which had oversight for the counseling efforts we enjoyed. Karen agreed to serve on the Election Committee for the Residents’ Advisory Council, which offered suggests to the management team of our Retirement Community. I even got conned into serving on the Civility Committee for the RAC.

The concept of the need for a committee charged with making suggestions for “civility” in a retirement community is, perhaps, a strange one. However, many elderly folks, who were used to owning their private homes on private property, did not recognize the differences which may result from hundreds of people living under the same roof. It had been decades since we had resided in a dormitory with its individual and communal spaces. We had forgotten that noise might be transferred through ceilings and walls, that someone might dispose of trash in unexpected places, that a borrowed cart used to transport purchases from the car to the apartment should be returned to a common site and not left in hallways or elevators. Yes, living in an enclosed community, even with independent living, does demand a level of basic civility, if arguments and estrangements are to be minimized.

Karen and I learned that those who reside within Eagle’s Trace may do so like a hermit, who lives in solitary confinement, or like cenobitic monks, those living in community, who gather as needed for meals, prayer and work. Retirement living should not be the same as survival of the fittest!

On October 10, 2022, Eagle’s Trace celebrated its Seventeenth Anniversary. This event has led me to think about the pros and cons of our decision, in 2004, to move to this retirement community, scheduled to open the following year. When I first heard about this new form of housing, new, at least, to Houston, I never thought we’d actually become involved. Having seen an advertisement in the local newspaper, I sent off for the brochure being offered. It looked interesting enough for Karen and me to attend a presentation in a prefabricated building about an hour’s drive from Longwood, the community where we had been happily living for seven years.

Longwood, with its pine forest and bike-paths, was a new development in Cypress Texas, a rural town north of Houston. Elsewhere, I’ve described the physical nature of our Longwood home, a place which, I thought, would be our location for all of my retirement years. We were living a life I had once merely dreamed about. Nevertheless, I was curious about the concept offered by Eagle’s Trace, a community of individual apartments with amenities that included two dining rooms, a swimming pool and exercise room, a computer room, a library, a beauty salon, a bank, a community store and an on-site medical facility with two doctors and other specialists, along with a dentist. There would even be a new building for extended care as well as one for a spirituality center.

Having attended the presentation, Karen announced to me, much to my surprise, that this is where we would be moving! She looked forward to not needing to prepare dinner each evening, but to eat out, depending upon a menu which offered a variety of steaks and poultry. Occasional lobster was also featured. She maintained, correctly, I would enjoy the results of great landscaping, without the effort of maintaining it.

Having downsized our possessions by giving them to our children and several charities, we moved into our never-seen-before apartment, two weeks after Eagle’s Trace opened for business. For the last seventeen years, we have never regretted our decision to move to a place we continue to maintain seems like living on a cruise ship with much larger cabins.

The advantages of the amenities offered were realized, along with several we had not foreseen. The security of the complex allowed us to continue taking foreign travel without having to be concerned about what might happen to our home during our absence. The delay in erecting a long-term care facility did not impact us, since we had not moved to ET with our terminal years in mind, but rather an active place for living as senior citizens. We would have preferred that the onsite dentist and audiologist had remained, but we were able to retain all of the off-site health specialists we had used previously. A formal religious or spiritual center was never constructed, but our continued participation with our home parish and the nearby Cenacle House, as well as our new involvements with prayer and adult religious education within our new community were fulfilling compensations. The advantages we had anticipated, now, in reality, delighted us. However, the passage of time has brought about a few disadvantages I had not envisioned when we first entered our years of retirement living.

It’s possible that one significant change would have occurred even without the physical move from a large house to a compact apartment. Nevertheless, I associate the resulting modification more with size than with time, itself.

We no longer gather together as a nuclear family as we did in the early days of our marriage. Previously, Christmas was celebrated as a joyful, daylong event in our own house, filled with relatives: our three children, their spouses, their children and, occasionally, other members of the extended family. We quickly learned our limited-in-size apartment would not accommodate such holidays as Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter. It was now time for us to travel to their homes for such gatherings, rather than for them to visit us.

For a while we were able to substitute with events held at a series of favorite places. We sponsored gatherings at a Chinese restaurant we had discovered many years ago. Nearby Brookwood, with its unusual meal setting and shops, offered an annual place for entertainment. Sunday gatherings were now held at Logan’s Roadhouse, where the grandkids, as well as their parents, could throw all of their peanut shells on the floor, an action frowned upon in the Garden Room Restaurant, an alternative afforded at Eagle’s Trace. Birthdays were now celebrated where our children lived, not where we lived. Perhaps, there was an advantage in not needing to prepare for a party and to clean up afterwards, but the change does appear to be a significant one when it comes to memories.

In the earliest years of our marriage, I fondly (and not-so-fondly) recall the trips Karen and I made for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and summer vacations to both Niles and Sandusky, Ohio, from upstate New York and New England. Finally, with our move to Texas, those visits were reduced. Rarely did our parents visit us. So, it should not be surprising to me the time has come when a transfer of venues would become prevalent.

With the growth of the families of our grandchildren with their own offspring, the rate of change has increased. Birthdays are now celebrated in their homes with their friends as well as with the relatives who can make it. Housewarmings and Oktoberfests are held in new neighborhoods for new generations. Along with the retirement living of its elders, there is a continuing need for the daily living of every generation wanting to enjoy and celebrate life, itself. Life changes: life stays the same.

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.