Ironic and Horrendously Sad

1st Lieutenant Joseph T. O'Donnell was killed in action on Heartbreak Ridge in Korea on October 13, 1951

Popp’s Ice Cream Parlor – Woodhaven in the 1960’s

Every day after high school I took the bus home from Our Lady of Wisdom Academy in Ozone Park.  Some days I would hop off the bus at the half way point in order to stop in at Popp’s Ice Cream Parlor on Jamaica Ave.   (I believe his first name Ralph) had become a local hangout for a group of Woodhaven teenagers and I snuck into the mix even though I lived a few miles down the road in an area called “East New York”.  My cousin, Tom Marski, lived in a two family house in Woodhaven and he had ready access to a rather large group of teenagers.   My neighborhood, up the hill from Jamaica Avenue and down the road from a rather large park known as Highland Park, was sorely lacking in teenagers.   Scenery-wise, my neighborhood was a bit more rural, but when one is 15 years old, other young people are more attractive than trees, bushes and grass. 

Certain places and certain events leave lasting impressions when one is coming of age. Popp’s Ice Cream Parlor was one of these places.  And the events that took place there, as mundane and unexciting as they may have seemed to others, left a lasting mark on my soul.   I can remember the feeling of excitement and trepidation as I exited the bus and crossed the street to the front door of the corner Ice Cream Parlor.  When you entered the establishment you were met with a delicious smell of chocolates from the glass display case on your left.   And as you looked to your right, towards the big mirror behind the counter, it was especially nice when Popp looked up from washing the glasses to acknowledge your existence by nodding and issuing a quick greeting.   When, eventually, that quick “Hi” was followed by your name, you got this warm, happy feeling because you felt you had made it to the category of a “Regular”.  You would never know who would be there that day, sitting in those modest back booths, slowly sipping their egg creams.  You wouldn’t know if there would be a space at the booth or if you would be able to say the words that made you sound like one of the cool kids.   It was a certain type of scary but Oh so exciting.   To be continued…..

These photos were taken in April 2017 when I took a nostalgia trip to Woodhaven

# 9 Unbridled Thoughts during the 2020 Pandemic

At the beginning of the pandemic I truly enjoyed sleeping. It seemed like a refreshing way to completely escape the reality going on outside my door.  I was one of the lucky ones; it appeared the virus 🦠 hadn’t made it’s way into the fortress of  my warm and cozy home. 

Sleep is no longer such a beautiful escape.  Almost nightly I wake up shaken by the stories being played out in my head. At first the nightmares were rather clouded, and I couldn’t understand there connection to the evil COVID-19.  

But, at 4:30 am this morning, I am awakened and in a shaken state, writing ✍️ in an effort to rid myself of the anxiety.  In this nightmare I heard a loud announcement, “ Two bombs were just dropped in ____________”( my brain didn’t process the location) but when I heard these horrifying words and the noise of the explosions, I looked up and saw the black, billowy clouds quickly filling the sky overhead.  I shut the windows in an attempt to keep the soiled air outside; in an attempt to escape what was being sent to destroy us.  In my sleep I thought this, “we are on our knees, and an enemy has come to take advantage of our weakened state.” That’s all the dream contained but it was more than enough.  I wanted a hug but my husband appeared to be sleeping peacefully and I know now how truly valuable that it! 

# 8 Unbridled Thoughts during the 2020 Pandemic

( photo taken in Cobleskill, NY on Wednesday April 15, 2020)

Last night I prepared a grocery order (on line) through the Hannaford Supermarket on Wolf Rd in Colonie, NY.  When I went to schedule a time to pickup the order, it said there were no time spots available for the next two days, but I should try back later as sometimes spots become available. I then attempted the same order through the Walmart Superstore on Route 9 in Latham, but alias I was given the same message. I tried to place my order again after midnight and yet again at 6AM this morning but there wasn’t a single spot open.   I am not sure why the stores don’t allow you to schedule a pickup time some time later in the week. I had planned ahead and was willing to wait a week or more but none of the stores seem to offer that option.  I am not sure why. 

When my husband and I woke up, even before we got out of bed, we talked about taking a ride out towards a slightly more rural area to do the shopping for ourselves. Bob researched some possibilities and we settled on a Hannaford Supermarket in Esperance, NY.  We would then do some banking at a drive through window at a Key Bank in Cobleskill.  Besides being able to get some food items and other needed supplies in a less populated area, we would have the added benefit of a ride in the countryside.  It was our excuse to see some sights outside of our immediate neighborhood.  The weather was a bit chilly and overcast so our usual long walk through a cemetery was none too inviting. 

We both had N95 masks and even though I was unable to find plastic gloves anywhere, we felt relatively secure.  I reminded Bob that we couldn’t touch our faces at all until our hands were washed carefully.  After removing our masks, we once again washed our hands and applied alcohol.  We did the best we could without driving ourselves nuts.  

During our little excursion I made a few observations.  Gas prices got cheaper and cheaper the further we drove. By the time we got to Schoharie County, we could have gotten gas for $2.10 a gallon.  We haven’t been anywhere lately so our gas tank was full and we were unable to take advantage of this great bargain. 

There were some cars on the road but certainly traffic was sparse.  Nothing much was open except for the gas stations and the drive throughs at McDonald’s, Burger King, and Dunkin Donuts.  I also noticed a couple of small diner-type places with signs announcing that take out was still available. 

The Hannaford supermarket employees were all wearing gloves, masks and plastic shields over their faces.  They also had square plastic shields between themselves and the customers cashing out.  Our food items were bagged into paper bags and none of our own reusable bags were allowed in the store.  I noticed several other older people shopping even though it was about 11:30 AM. It seemed like all the older people were wearing masks of all different shapes and sizes and materials.  For the most part people appeared to be keeping a fair distance apart but probably not always the recommended 6 feet.  On the floor at the beginning of each aisle there were arrows made out of wide gray tape ( I actually didn’t even notice them until Bob specifically pointed them out to me, as they were so non-distinct that they kind of blended into the flooring).  Apparently this was the store’s attempt to direct shopping traffic down one aisle and up the next although, once again, there appeared to be shoppers coming up the down aisle others coming down the up aisle.  Because the store wasn’t too crowded it wasn’t too problematic.   A more obvious problem appeared to be when customers stopped at a spot in an aisle in moment of indecision and others tried to reach around them for items. 

There were quite a few customers, mostly younger and middle aged, who were not wearing any type of mask at all. There was one young woman and a little girl (who appeared to about 3-4 years old) and neither one of them had a mask on. I wondered why. 

#7 Unbridled Thoughts during the 2020 Pandemic

So what does one do all day (if, like me, you are lucky enough to be retired ) when everything is closed and you are told to stay home.  Get out of bed, make the bed, take a shower, make the coffee and drink a cup as you sit in your recliner and read the daily paper as you wonder if the person who delivered your paper is infected with the coronavirus.  Therefore you try not to touch your face until after you’ve finished the paper and washed your hands. You also have to remember if you’ve touched anything else while you were reading the paper but before you washed your hands!! Then you have to clean all those things too and the surfaces they might have touched.  

Later in the day when you get the mail out of the mailbox or when a package is delivered to your front door, you have to go through this elaborate sanitizing ritual 

all over again ad nauseam.  By this time your hands are chapped or reddened and raw and you have the added fear that another type of germ might make its way under your skin thus causing another type of infection. The last thing you want to do is to cause yourself a problem bring that might require medical care outside of your home. You certainly do not want to step foot into a medical facility.  Or a dental office for that matter. Wash your teeth like you’ve never washed them before. Use your water 💦 pic, the dental floss and the electric toothbrush and finish it off with a slug of heavy duty mouth wash. 

Watch a little news but not too much or you might cause yourself a nervous breakdown. And be sure not to watch the news too late in the day or your daytime nightmare will become a night time nightmare as well. 

Have a cocktail but don’t drink too much because you don’t want to develop diabetes or a rapid heartbeat or any other thing that necessitates a visit to the doctor-that is if you can find a doctor who wants to see you right now. 

Concoct some soups or make up some recipes with the ingredients you can find in your pantry.  Who the hell wants to suit and mask and glove up ( if you can find any of these supplies anywhere ) to go to the supermarket?  

Watch all those shows you’ve been meaning to watch. Clean out those drawers that are overflowing.  

Take a walk through an old cemetery that might have opened somewhere around 1841. It is not as scary to see people who died a long time ago. If you see too many recent gravestones it touches too close to home and makes you feel more vulnerable.  If you walk in the cemetery on a regular basis, you get to know the people buried there and they somehow become more like friends.  

When you get back home again you feel like you’ve been somewhere and have done something and it doesn’t feel so boring to sit back down in your recliner and write in your Blog. 

#6 Unbridled Thoughts during the 2020 Pandemic

Life and Death and Love continue to survive in spite of these extreme times. In this past week we experienced sitting shiva via Zoom in honor and memory of Richard Kitt, a beloved family member who died suddenly on Long Island on March 30th.   It is certainly not the same as being together in person but it something at least.

Yesterday as my husband and I took a walk on the deserted campus of nearby Siena College, we noticed several cars parked in one area of the campus.  People got out of their vehicles and greeted each other jovially albeit at a distance.  There were a couple of young men dressed in suits and one of them had a flower in his lapel. As we walked up an incline I got excited to see a young woman dressed in a lovely white dress. She was holding a small bouquet of flowers and a photographer, standing at a “safe” distance, was taking her picture.  “ Bob”, I said, “ I think it is a wedding! Can’t we hang around for a little while and watch to see what’s going to happen? “  After all, to put it mildly, our schedule has been rather loose lately.  Bob, forever a man of action, replies, “ Ah come on Mary, I have a lot of things to do today and we don’t even know these people.”   I remind him that everything is closed up tighter than a drum and there is literally no where to go and nothing to do.  Nevertheless, I follow behind Bob as he starts to head back to our car which is parked across Route 9 in the Town Hall parking lot.  As we are approaching our vehicle, I make a decision.  I’m just about ready to say aloud “ Bob, I’ll drop you at home, but I’m coming back to find the wedding. At that very moment Bob speaks first and says, 

“ I’ll drive you back down Spring Street and I’ll wait in the car while you go to investigate. “ I feel immediately flooded with joy.  I love Bob a lot at that moment as my spontaneous answer is “ Hurray! Just call me Rita.”  Bob knows exactly what I mean, he knew my mother well. 

I jump in the passenger side of the car and we dash back down to the spot on Spring St. where I first saw the joyful young woman dressed all in white. There is no one there and I feel discouraged and disappointed.  Nonetheless, I ask Bob to pull up to one of the loved gates. I quickly ask him if he wants to come search for the wedding with me and as he says “ no” , he proceeds to open his cellphone and start playing on Facebook as I jump out of the car, run around the locked gate and proceed to look for the bride.  In less than a short city block, I’m rewarded!! There, right before me, in a beautiful grotto lowered into the landscape, I see the wedding.  It is a very tiny wedding ( less than 10 people) and the people there are following the rules for social distancing.  I feel tears welling as I stand there and watch this beautiful expression of love. There is a young woman in the backyard maybe 20 feet away and I nod to her and say how this is touching my heart.  She answers “ the groom is my brother”.  To hear lifelong vows shared in this simple, beautiful way in the midst of such unprecedented worldwide upheaval was an amazing gift to me.  It is hard to explain the feeling, you had to experience it firsthand.  Sadly, Bob sat in the car a few hundred feet away and missed the whole thing. 

# 5 Unbridled Thoughts during the 2020 Pandemic

During this time of crisis I feel much worse for the younger people. I am 75 and have lived three quarters of a century. Believe me I’m not ready to jump into my grave but I am, in a very real sense, satisfied.   Have you ever heard that right before you die you see your life playing like a movie in your mind.  Well I have been giving a lot of thought to my past, and to all the people who have journeyed with me throughout these many years.  It is a wonderful thing to remember the love and support I was offered by so many people. I am very grateful for each and everyone of you.  

It is also hard not to think about death when you witness your peers and those even younger getting sick and dying.  It is hard not to think about death when you have aches and pains and limitations that every day seem worse than the day before.   

The horrifying pictures of suffering and loss that we are seeing on a continuous basis on the daily news is overwhelming. 

I was thinking about some of the reactions people are having and I remembered, as a young nurse, learning the stages of grief described by Swiss-American Psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross: 

shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing, and acceptance.  

I also learned that dealing with death was like staring directly into the sun ☀️.  You can only do it for a short time and then you have to turn away. 

Watching a couple of programs on NETFLIX tonight was a wonderful bit of denial for me.  For a short time it was just an ordinary, relaxing Saturday night.   I turned away from the sun and gave my eyes a rest. 

#4 Unbridled Thoughts during the 2020 Pandemic

Yesterday I received a reminder about my upcoming ( April 7th ) “new patient” appointment with a cardiologist at Capital Cardiology Associates. I was a bit surprised to get the reminder since every other doctor and dentist appointment both Bob and I had has been put on hold due to the pandemic.   Eighteen months ago I had a nuclear stress test and on my follow up appointment with the cardiologist I was told everything looked okay.   Nevertheless since I have hypertension and cholesterol issues and a very strong family history of cardiovascular disease I decided it was time to get reacquainted with a Cardiologist. However, the thought of going into a medical facility for a routine appointment seems ludicrous right now.  I rescheduled for the first available appointment which happened to be at the very end of September.  

It might sound nuts but in a certain sense I like the idea that for the time being I am basically excused from doctors, dentists, blood tests, ultrasounds, MRIs and all the rest of this kind of stuff.   

I’ll just have to take care of myself without any medical intervention and hope for the best. 

It is a bit liberating, like being in a free fall. 

#3 Unbridled Thoughts during the 2020 Pandemic

This evening I took a short walk around my daughter’s neighborhood. It was cold, damp and dreary.  In my mind I started singing “ Don’t they know it’s the end of the world 🌎 “.  These are my uncensored thoughts so I hope they don’t drag you down.  Sometimes it helps to get the thoughts out of me and onto paper, so if you prefer not to read the dark stuff, simply pass it by.  

I thought about the great flood and Noah’s ark and how God promised never again to destroy the earth by means of water.  I share this story not because I take it literally but because it is a story that was a part of my life.  This current pandemic is so overwhelming in its impact that it certainly brings the idea of the end of the world to my mind.  Maybe the end of the world will come about because of the massive power of a minute but monstrous virus 🦠. At any rate I have no doubt that life as we know it is ending.  When we emerge on the other side, and I do hope and pray that we do, we cannot help but be changed people.  

There are so many unknowns, and we cannot truly predict the final outcome. 

I wonder if we will be more understanding of those who routinely have barely enough to survive. I wonder if we will be humbler, less arrogant, less greedy.  I am thinking about all those things we take for granted in our country and how we consume so much of the goods of this earth while so many don’t have bare necessities.  Is this virus changing us, teaching us some very needed lessons? I wonder. 

Unbridled Thoughts during the 2020 Pandemic

I’ve been going through boxes 📦 of memorabilia in the basement. This is a monumental, exhausting task because the boxes contain not only my own immediate family’s treasures but also the things my parents’ collected from their own married life and even the lives that led up to their creation.  My mother’s sister, Aunt Anne O’Donnell, lived in an apartment over the garage in the same house as my parents lived and as Executrix of her estate I also inherited the precious few things she preserved.  

Just about everything I throw out leaves  me with the feeling that one more piece of who I am and where I came from is being erased.   I try to think differently but still these powerful emotions overwhelm me with just about everything I put in the trash.  I do get a sense of joy, however, every time I can connect a piece of the past to the right person - the person to whom it really means something special.  I guess it is a matter of how much energy I have to be able to complete this task. 

As I write these words my husband just put an old 45, “ You are my Everything “ by the Temptations, on the record player I insisted we buy several years ago. I must admit we rarely use my unnecessary purchase but it certainly was fun to hear it today as all hell is breaking loose in the world outside our cozy home.  Frankie Valli just sang a To Give ( the Reason I Live) - I couldn’t help but think it describes the medical personnel and all the other people who continue to put themselves at risk to keep other human beings alive.