Getting Through: a year with Covid-19, edited by Dorothy L. Parker
RICHMOND, California — Reviewing a book with 31 contributors demands a concierge, a guide, to multiple themes.
In September Dorothy L. Parker, President of San Diego Independent Scholars and project editor, reached out and invited likeminded independent scholar organizations to participate in a writing and art project about Covid-19 experiences. The result is a collection of 31 essays about pandemic experiences, thoughts, impressions and history. The writers represented a range of backgrounds, academic disciplines, and perspectives. They were seasoned and experienced, most over 65.
The San Diego Independent Scholars organization was formed by a group of female PhD recipients in 1982 to support their intellectual aspirations outside formal academic institutions. It was part of the Independent Scholars movement that emerged in New York, San Francisco and other cities in response to a dire academic job market. It has flourished for almost 40 years. The membership aged and many retired academics joined who sought challenging mental activity and camaraderie in the warm climes of San Diego County. The youngest author was probably 40 something; the oldest was a 105-year-old physician Beatrice K. Rose who shared her “Lockdown Thoughts.”
The articles are presented alphabetically by independent scholars from the SDIS, the Bay Area’s Institute for Historical Study, Princeton Research Forum, the National Coalition of Independent Scholars, and a network of friends and family. Themes and subjects coalesced around health care, adapting to and enjoying isolation, travel, art, music and photography, history, appreciation of backyard birds, flowers, and butterflies.
SDIS member Arline Gilbert’s daughter Nina, a pianist and conductor, is a musical gig worker coordinating choral music in churches and synagogues, community playhouses and coaching voice lessons. She kept two electronic calendars on her phone with frequent alarms and reminders. The calendar is now less cluttered but rehearsals on line and in parking lots created new demands. Linda Holt, President of the Princeton Research Forum who writes novels about Beethoven was disappointed not to fulfill her dream of singing in Beethoven’s Ninth this month during his 250th birthday celebration.
Faye Girsh, a retired clinical and forensic psychologist, described her trip to Morocco in March on the cusp of Covid. She met up with her daughter Kamala who flew in from Australia. Her adventure was cut short as restaurants, hotels, music venues, airports and airlines responded to Covid shutdowns. Like many tourists she struggled to return home. Flight insurance did not cover the pandemic. SDIS member Jill Swaim of Carlsbad wrote “A Travel Leader’s View of Covid-19.” Until Covid she had been an active Road Scholar tour director. She noted that her great grandmother died in the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic leaving four children. Jill’s husband was stranded in almost Covid-free Cambodia, unable to return to Carlsbad.
Closer to home escaping the Covid confinement could be found on California hiking trails, which contained their own risks. Kevin Knauss, an Institute for Historical Study member, went hiking with his much faster 23-year-old son, fell behind and got lost on the Pacific Crest Trail.
David Parker, 87, and Dorothy, SDIS President, 80, married since 1971 have taken several hundred camping and hiking trips together. Since 1996 they hike during the day and return to their 22-foot converted Dodge Ram camper van at night. David’s “When Seeking Social Distancing Almost Caused a Tragedy” recounts going to a remote area, Long Valley campground near Chimney Peak Wilderness in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains. They went to the “wilderness partly because of covid-19 craving to be in a different environment without the danger of encountering many other people.” Dressed for heat, he got lost, trails and terrain can be confusing, and spent the night in the cold outdoors. Come morning light he met a Tulare County Deputy Sheriff alerted by Dorothy and dispatched to search for David.
I empathize with these stories. Around 2000 I hiked the Mount Whitney trail. My two faster twenty-something sons got ahead of me, and I had the fright of walking the last few downhill miles in the dark.
Irish born Nigella Hillgarth earned a PhD in Evolutionary Biology from Oxford. Watching local birds had a therapeutic effect, “Nature continues to bring me hope and nurture in this extraordinarily difficult time.”
The poetry of SDIS member Kenneth Krauss, IHS member Judith Offer, Tiffany Vakilian and a lengthy “Plague Journal 2020,” by Randall Nicholas were opportunities for expressing protest. Readers seeking visuals will be gratified by pictures of flowers, birds, underwater and ocean scenes, and images produced by a cellphone photography club formed in 2018.
Inga Liden, approaching her 80s, wrote in May 2020 about tackling long put off tasks, the dilemma of accumulation, Save, Give Away, Trash. In her account of September 2020 she expresses her anger about mask resisters. “It is sad and it scares me that many individuals belong to that political persuasion.”
All these stories are matters of life and death. Vidur Mahadeva, MD, treating Covid patients via telemedicine in Reno, introduced readers to the “Go Bag,” a collection of minimal indispensable low-cost items to monitor temperature, blood pressure and oxygen saturation for COVID negative patients quarantined at home.
The word covid is used 81 times, and pandemic 73. Plague the third most used word appears 53 times, mostly in two historical articles. Michael Sage, emeritus professor of Classics who taught at the University of Cincinnati and retired to San Diego in 2010, presented “Plagues in Ancient Greece and Rome.” And I, another emeritus professor, offered “Pandemic, the longue durée.”
A sense of privilege pervades the lifestyle of the contributors. Many live in a comfortable retirement environment, with amenities like electric assist bikes and swimming pools. Many are social activists who have given years of effort through teaching and volunteering to improve the natural environment and social conditions. Toilet paper scarcity and empty frozen food cabinets were temporary inconveniences. Special reserved shopping hours for seniors, home deliveries were offered. Jig saw and crossword puzzles helped pass the time. Unemployment, homelessness, lines at the food bank, overburdened hospitals, became chronic problems.
Most of the essays in Getting Through were submitted between July and September. This compilation may be Part One as it does not include the Fall Surge, Winter Wave, or California December shutdown. We are all learning on the job. In the words of longtime SDIS member, Gerry Horwitz, “Mother nature cannot be conquered. She can be anticipated.” Expect the unexpected.
Copies will posted on the SDIS website (sdscholars.org) in a week or so.
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Oliver B. Pollak, Ph.D., J.D., a professor emeritus of history at the University of Nebraska Omaha, and a lawyer, is a correspondent now based in Richmond, California. He may be contacted via oliver.pollak@sdjewishworld.com