One of the largest employers in Cedar Rapids, Collins Aerospace, announced salary cuts and furloughs in response to the coronavirus pandemic. They aren’t the first big company to do it.
Last night the Walt Disney Company, where our daughter works, announced furloughs beginning April 19 for union-represented cast members. There is a long list of corporations with furlough plans.
A month ago corporations were aware of the potential business risks of a pandemic. They froze things in place with some adjustments to see how the pandemic evolved. Next, they are taking steps to ensure longer-term financial survival and recovery. We’re a month into broad recognition of the pandemic which suggests business management believes, and we should as well, we are a long distance from exiting the restrictions imposed on our lives and returning to things like grocery shopping, buying gasoline, flying, visiting theme parks, and going to church without anxiety.
A team of Harvard researchers said models project social distancing may need to continue into 2022 to prevent medical systems from being overwhelmed by a resurgence of the novel coronavirus. The happy talk about “opening up the economy” rings hollow right now.
We go on living.
Yesterday I finished planting the main onion patch. That there is an onion patch is a change from previous years. By noon there were eight rows with seven varieties:
Red, yellow and white from the home, farm and auto supply store, varieties unknown but likely a July harvest.
Matador Shallots, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 90 days from transplant.
Ailsa Craig Onion Plants, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 95 days from transplant.
Patterson Onion Plants, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 86 days from transplant.
Red Wing Onion Plants, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 103 days from transplant.
All of the onion work is an experiment in being more successful in growing them. Red, white and yellow unknown varieties were from bulbs, the shallots from seeds, and three varieties of onions from Johnny’s are storage onions. Weeding and proper watering will be needed now and for the next three months until harvest.
It snowed last night. The temperature inside the portable greenhouse was 48 degrees this morning because of the space heater used overnight. The plants looked fine, although the cooler temperature will slow germination of recently planted seeds. Snowfall will delay planting in the garden as the soil was already too wet yesterday when I spaded a strip. We’ll see what the day brings, however, the snow should melt and if the lawn dries enough I could get some mowing done and use the clippings to mulch the garlic and onions. Lot of “ifs.”
On the tenth day of my unpaid leave of absence from the home, farm and auto supply store I’m waiting for the next shoe to drop so I can figure out how to manage our lives on the prairie.
I know gardening will be part of it yet there’s more to come.
The coronavirus changed and is changing how we live, temporarily and permanently.
Today we don’t understand what is on the other side of the pandemic nor when that will be. I’ve been working to figure it out.
Ambient temperatures were chilly all day yesterday with a strong, consistent breeze. The ground was too wet to dig in the garden. It was a sunny and picture book spring day. Even though there is a lot to do outside, Monday wasn’t a day to do it.
In the garage I planted a third flat of spinach for the garden:
Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach, Ferry-Morse, 45 days.
As if to show the economy was still operating, the United States Postal Service delivered my Practical Farmers of Iowa Spring Issue, a Land’s End catalogue, and a box of onion starts just when I need to plant them. I know what politicians mean when they say “open up the economy,” yet ask how does one re-start something that never shut down?
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced yesterday personal stimulus payments had begun to be issued in waves with 80 million of them to be sent by Wednesday. The government knows how to spend our money, that’s for sure. If our household receives what we hear in the news that would be equivalent to three months take-home pay at the home, farm and auto supply store. (While I was typing the stimulus hit our bank account).
I ran an expense analysis of our household budget while dodging the windy work outside. With or without the stimulus payment we would be able to pay regular living expenses for the rest of the year without sacrificing our lifestyle. The coronavirus has me asking whether I should even return to my part time job.
In Iowa we don’t know the spread of COVID-19. We aren’t doing much testing. We have little visibility into what the governor or the Iowa Department of Public Health are doing. Yesterday Katarina Sostaric, state government reporter for Iowa Public Radio posted on Twitter:
Iowa’s #COVID19 testing is still limited and actual case numbers are likely much higher than those reported by the state. Today Gov. Reynolds said, “We’ve been in substantial spread for quite some time…you should just assume it’s in your community no matter where you live.”
Based on Reynolds’ statement I’m not comfortable returning to work after my unpaid leave of absence which ends May 5. The terms of the program are if I seek additional time off, I will have to resign. If I want to return to work after that, I have to reapply. If I do resign the chances of me re-applying are pretty slight. There’s ample time to consider this. Resigning is how I’m leaning today.
What would I do if I quit? Go on living.
Since the coronavirus, combined with Republican efforts to kill the postal service, have them on the brink, I will buy some postage and send a few post cards. Not sure that will save them, but it’s something. Every bit helps.
I’m still soil blocking at the farm and took this photo to prove it.
The coronavirus pandemic is impacting the food system dramatically. I didn’t think we’d be in such a position yet there are legitimate concerns about running out of food while large dairies and vegetable and meat producers destroy excess perishables because so many U.S. restaurant dining rooms are closed. One would think the distribution challenges could be resolved, although they haven’t yet been.
Our household will make it through the food supply turbulence, and I’ll make sure our neighbors do as well. Barring unexpected issues it looks to be a great garden year.
The combination of using a large greenhouse and my portable one makes things possible that weren’t last year. I’m starting more seeds at home and soon will see the result. A larger number of seedlings are growing at home than I’ve had this early. Also no worries about vegetable predators.
There are responsibilities with having a home greenhouse. Mainly monitoring internal temperature and watching the weather for strong winds. Too hot or too cold and seedlings in which so much was invested could perish. A strong wind could blow the structure over despite 200 pounds of sand buckets weighing it down. I used the Weather Channel app on my phone before, yet find myself checking it more often with a home greenhouse. Last night the temperature dipped below freezing so I hooked up a space heater to protect the seedlings.
I also transplanted pepper starts from a channel tray to larger soil blocks.
Where I am deficient in technique, I’m learning needed skills at the farm. I’m re-engineering how I grow peppers as part of the barter arrangement with the farmer. I’m also learning how to produce a better crop of onions. As a result of this learning, I placed a heating pad and channel trays in the on-line shopping cart at the seed company. The seed company is not taking orders from home gardeners because of the pandemic. I won’t use them until next year in any case, so there is time. A bigger concern is whether they will ship my onion starts before planting time. Because of a need to keep their employees safe during the pandemic, their shipping process slowed down.
As usual I was tired after my shift at the farm.
I went home and took a shower, then it rained in the afternoon. Once the ground dries out, I’ll return to the garden. My hope is to harvest grass clippings for mulch before the lawn gets too tall. I don’t know about that if it keeps raining.
A gentle rain fell after noon in Big Grove Township. Forecast to be a quarter of an inch, it continued into nightfall, slow and gentle. It was the kind of spring rain we need and have come to expect.
Neighbors worked in our yards in the morning: trimming trees, collecting brush, gardening and mowing. Children were supervised by parents and the sound of their laughter penetrated the neighborhood. With the coronavirus pandemic we checked in with each other, chatted some, maintained our distance, then returned focus to the work at hand.
After planting I picked up and cleaned garden fencing from where I laid it to prepare the garden plots. Rolled bundles are piled near the Bur Oak trees until needed. For now, nothing is growing above ground that wildlife will eat.
I seeded the last of the early crops in the ground before the rain started:
The portable greenhouse is filling so I consolidated seedlings to make room for what I’ll bring back from the farm today. I gave a tray of broccoli and kale to a neighbor for their garden. Later I’ll post an offer of free seedlings for neighbors on our social media group. Kale is not as popular as I’d like and not everyone gardens.
Inside, I made luncheon of a cheese sandwich with a single slice of bread, spooned out some pickles, and turned to what would be the afternoon’s work.
I have two archival-style boxes of postcards containing hundreds collected from all over, maybe a couple thousand in all. Some were sent to me. Some purchased while traveling in the United States, Canada and Europe. Some bought at auctions for a dollar or two bid per bundle. When I visited second hand stores, if they had a postcard section I browsed for good ones. Post cards are an inexpensive collectible.
At some point I segregated those with more personal meaning from the boxes and put them in trunks with other memorabilia from those periods of my early life. Our parents used to take us to Weed Park in Muscatine, driving along Highway 61 from Davenport in our 1959 Ford. I have a photograph of Dad, my brother, my sister and me standing near the car with the Mississippi River in the background. I put the postcards of Weed Park in the trunk from the time before Father died.
I went through both boxes and looked at every card during a single, four-hour shift.
What strikes me about those hours is the nature of memory. Not only do I have memories evoked by artifacts, I have the sense of being in those places literally.
For example, today is the 75th anniversary of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s death in Warm Springs, Georgia. In June 1976 four of us left Fort Benning, Georgia where we were taking infantry officer training and drove the 45 miles to visit. We saw the chair where FDR died and I bought a postcard from the gift shop.
I found the postcard in one of the boxes last night. It had the date and names of the other three soldiers who went with me written on the back. I saw myself in that room again, just like it was in the present. What is that experience? I had to look it up.
After consolidation, long-term memories are stored throughout the brain as groups of neurons that are primed to fire together in the same pattern that created the original experience, and each component of a memory is stored in the brain area that initiated it (e.g. groups of neurons in the visual cortex store a sight, neurons in the amygdala store the associated emotion, etc). Indeed, it seems that they may even be encoded redundantly, several times, in various parts of the cortex, so that, if one engram (or memory trace) is wiped out, there are duplicates, or alternative pathways, elsewhere, through which the memory may still be retrieved.
Therefore, contrary to the popular notion, memories are not stored in our brains like books on library shelves but must be actively reconstructed from elements scattered throughout various areas of the brain by the encoding process. Memory storage is, therefore, an ongoing process of reclassification resulting from continuous changes in our neural pathways, and parallel processing of information in our brains.
Shorter version: the postcard caused a group of neurons which physically comprised the memory to recreate it in real time.
This is particularly important when writing a memoir. Perhaps the hardest part of my work has been to resist the influence of today’s life on memories retained. Historians refer to this as presentism, or an “uncritical adherence to present-day attitudes, especially the tendency to interpret past events in terms of modern values and concepts.” It is important to learn how to live from memories and experiences we’ve had. In our search for meaning today, it’s important to refrain from assigning arbitrary values to our past. We have to let the memories exist and pay attention to what they are.
In the 50 years since Father died I frequently revisited the memory of the night men from the meat-packing plant arrived at our home to console Mother while we waited in our parents’ bedroom for news. I suppose the worst parts of those days after his death are blocked, or whatever psychological term represents that. I don’t want to put a name to that blocking process because while other memories physically exist in my brain, over the years I’ve adopted a view, or perspective about what that memory is. While that may provide comfort, when writing autobiography we have to work at retrieving that contemporaneous experience. It must be what it is. That distinction between the memory told and the actual memory is at the core of what I’m about in my writing.
When I woke last night to use the bathroom I thought about what I would write this morning. The shift of postcards prompted something… a lot of somethings. It’s not that complicated. In the rush of viewing memories prompted by a thousand or more artifacts, in a single sitting, we must get a grip on the quantity and manage it. In the end, though, do we need to do that?
Is it better to live in a hurricane of memories and hope for survival? It is better to confront the wind than hide from it. That is my only conclusion today, except for the notion I must post a photo of our Bluebells for complicated reasons.
Buds of leaves and flowers are beginning to burst. Spring has sprung with its sunny yet chilly good news. I planted in the greenhouse and in the ground on Friday.
I took one of the cars for a spin, literally. I drove out of the subdivision, north on the lane to the highway, and proceeded to the roundabout at the intersection leading alternately to Ely, the state park, or back to the City of Solon. I drove around a few times. My gas gauge showed full, so I drove back home. The traffic was light so I didn’t bother anyone.
Today is the ninth day since I worked at the home, farm and auto supply store. I began my 30-day unpaid leave of absence for the coronavirus pandemic on April 6. Time away from structured work will scramble life in a way I hadn’t anticipated. Unimportant things fall off. There is new focus on daily habits and patterns. Something different and hopeful will emerge from the isolation. There is no path back to my life before the pandemic. I appreciate social isolation yet recognize our common endeavors on this floating blue-green sphere. I look forward to diving back into society.
The rest of my day was spent considering how to layout the garden, working in the garden, and managing seedlings in my portable greenhouse. I expect to bring seedling trays back from the farm on Sunday so I’d better make room.
It’s been 35 days since Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds activated the state emergency operations center to prepare for COVID-19. According to the Iowa coronavirus website there have been 1,388 confirmed cases of the disease and 31 deaths. Hardest hit have been middle aged adults (ages 41-60) with 537 cases, followed by adults (ages 18-40) with 432. We don’t have detailed statistics about ages of the deceased. 506 people are recovering.
“Flattening the curve” entered common parlance. The idea is to spread contraction of COVID-19 over time so medical capacity is not overwhelmed by patients needing care. As of today, Iowa has enough hospital beds, ICU units and invasive ventilators to meet demand during the pandemic. It is early, but if caseload holds at current levels we may run out of ICU units first. We are a long way from using available hospital beds. Given the projected numbers, a tweak in the system will be needed to accommodate patients. Today, peak resource use is projected for April 30.
We don’t know how many have contracted COVID-19 because of a lack of testing beyond people who self-identify with symptoms or are diagnosed by a medical practitioner. Many have criticized the government response to the pandemic. After all, we live in a Democracy with social media. My sense is the state is doing the best they can while the shit show in Washington, D.C. provides distraction for those who want it. There is no lack of things to distract us.
The governor announced the June 2 primary election will go on. The Secretary of State announced he will send absentee ballot requests to every registered voter. This weekend we’ll print requests ourselves, fill them out, and send them to the county auditor. The only contested races here are for county supervisor, U.S. Senate, and county sheriff. Easy decisions all. The big election is Tuesday, Nov. 3.
It’s hard to believe people are undecided about the direction of the country. Social media allows minority opinions to flourish and gain traction within that small universe of voters. People are bitching and moaning about various aspects of the candidates and process. But undecided? How is that even possible now that we know the choices for president? In October 2008 David Sedaris summarized my current feelings about undecided voters.
I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”
To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.
Rain is forecast after 2 p.m. There is more planting to do, branches to cut into firewood and fencing to clean and mend. Making space in the greenhouse takes time, but that will be done in the garage if it rains.
It’s part of sustaining a life during the coronavirus pandemic.
Tuesday was the last time I started the automobiles.
I plan a drive in each of them later today to make sure the batteries don’t drain. With gasoline selling for $1.259 per gallon I’ll don a protective mask and gloves and fill the one I missed while out to buy groceries.
It’s a maintenance mode of living as we wait out the coronavirus pandemic.
Strong gusts of wind had me bring the greenhouse seedlings into the garage yesterday afternoon. If it did blow over, I didn’t want to lose the work done since February. It’s still standing this morning.
Overnight ambient temperature dropped below freezing, so when I return the plants to their shelves after sunrise I’m going to run a space heater out to warm them. The forecast is ambient temperatures around 50 degrees after noon. The sun should take over warming by then.
The pandemic is real and people who own and operate small businesses are getting antsy. Under normal circumstances a small business owner is eligible for unemployment payments only if they pay in for themselves or their employees. Most sole proprietorship operators don’t.
There is discussion in the national media about stimulus bill funding for small business owner payrolls to make sure they make it to the other side of the pandemic. People I know in this situation, who have applied for unemployment to Iowa Workforce Development, had their claims denied. There is a lack of information about how this provision of the stimulus will work, or whether it even exists. Bottom line is the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been too little, too late.
With non-essential business shut down three weeks ago, small business operators are having trouble making ends meet without their regular cash flow. Some are considering returning to work to resolve the stress. It’s easy to say that’s not a good idea during a period of contagion, but our household is financially stable and as such, mine is a perspective of privilege.
As retired workers, our family relies on our Social Security pensions. Politicians floated the idea of increasing Social Security payments temporarily this week. That doesn’t seem necessary. The main thing about Social Security should be to ensure that the trust fund is solvent now and beyond 2034 when if nothing is done it will begin to run out of money. That’s a worry for another day in light of the pandemic.
After Tuesday’s trip to the wholesale club we are provisioned so we can make it through the end of the pandemic. According to current projections the peak is expected to be April 27 although it will take some time past that date for the CDC or Iowa Department of Public Health to give us an all-clear.
For now, I’m focused on planting the garden. If the pandemic continues into summer, we’ll need the produce.
I helped organize my home town for the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970.
Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders’ Dec. 24, 1968 Earthrise photograph changed the way we look at our lives. We became aware of the fragility of human society spinning through the void of space.
As we complete the 50th year since then, society changed.
The Environmental Protection Agency was created in December 1970. The Republican president led an effort to protect our natural environment through legislation including The Clean Air Act (1970), The Clean Water Act (1972), The Endangered Species Act (1973), and more. These laws made positive things possible.
50 years later our government seems ready to throw all that in the ditch because it is too much of a burden for business. Powerful interests infiltrated our government. Corporations write environmental laws that protect their interests first, rather than the common good. A form of nationalism is rising which says, “Put America first.”
We live in a global society in which we are intimately connected, as Anders’ photo suggests. Large American companies manage a global supply chain and produce much of their revenue in other countries. We are connected as the current pandemic suggests: the coronavirus does not recognize national borders.
We must transcend nationalism and consider the best interests of everyone. We must lead in a way only the United States can. On the first Earth Day we thought that was possible.
I hope it still is.
~ Published in the Solon Economist on April 16, 2020.
I am voting for Michael Franken for U.S. Senator in the June 2 Democratic primary election.
He can beat incumbent Senator Joni Ernst on her terms as an advocate for all Iowans and as a former military officer.
After thorough consideration, and interviews with four of the five candidates in the race, Franken offers the best portfolio of qualifications.
During the first of three conversations, I asked about renewal of the New START Treaty, and the 2020 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Franken was knowledgeable both about our treaty obligations and the dangers of ending U.S. participation in arms control. He would support nuclear arms control.
For Franken the climate crisis is a signal issue. The United States has bad leadership and poor strategy to address the climate crisis, he said. He viewed climate change as a national security priority and a question of environmental justice. He would take climate action, while already understanding the science, from the perspective of an engineer with sympathy for the issue. He would act on the climate crisis.
The coronavirus does not recognize national borders. We must transcend nationalism that puts America first and consider the best interests of all of humanity as only the United States can do. A career naval officer who achieved vice admiral rank, Franken’s service took him around the globe in consequential military action. He has the experience to keep America safe while exemplifying the best of what we offer the rest of the world. He would represent Iowa values well.
Franken spent ten years as a military liaison to the U.S. Congress, beginning with work for Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. His work in the Congress gives him a long head start when it comes to writing legislation and getting Iowa priorities accomplished. Experience matters and Franken has it.
Finally, Franken will support Democratic priorities, whether they are health care, voter rights, equal protection, or a woman’s right to choose. His will be a thoughtful vote, one in which the leadership that made him a three star admiral will shine through.
I like each of the candidates I recently interviewed for different reasons. A loyal Democrat, I’ll support the primary winner. With early voting beginning in two weeks, now is the time to make a stand.
Securing a mask from the medicine cabinet in the garage, I went to the wholesale club to get groceries. We’re bunkering in at least until the coronavirus pandemic peaks which is estimated to be April 27.
I bought three bags of granola, two gallons of cow’s milk, fresh fruit and sundry other items. Toilet tissue was being rationed and I bought one pack.
Workers at the wholesale club recognized me with the mask. We had regular conversations as if I wasn’t wearing it. Other friends at the store, among whom I worked providing product samples to shoppers in 2014-2015, were all laid off on Sunday. As subcontractors, they were told they would have to reapply for their job if they re-start operations after the pandemic. I will miss talking to many of those who remained from my tenure.
What to do during a pandemic?
I downloaded questionnaires similar to what a physician might use to assess mental health and answered the questions. I’m pretty good on suicide and depression, although I have cause for anxiety. I’ll be alright.
The number of reported cases of COVID-19 in Iowa on April 7 was 102, the highest daily total thus far. It’s expected to get worse during the next two weeks so now that shopping is done we don’t have to leave our property. Yesterday the number of COVID-19 confirmed cases increased to more than 1,000 so recording where we are is useful to a future me.
Here is the Iowa state government COVID-19 data today: The governor has not implemented a stay at home order and likely won’t unless the situation changes. She discussed Iowa’s plan for social distancing with Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts and Dr. Anthony Fauci, an immunologist and member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, this week:
I had good conversations with the governor of Nebraska and the governor of Iowa here. And it’s interesting that functionally, even though they have not given a strict stay-at-home — what they are doing is really functionally equivalent to that, Fauci said. I think there was a public response that they weren’t really doing anything at all. And they really are doing a very good job. Both of them. Those are the only two that I spoke to. But it was a really good conversation. I want to make sure people understand that just because they don’t have a very strict stay-at-home order, they have in place a lot of things that are totally compatible with what everyone else is doing.
Considering the scope of the pandemic, Iowa appears to be in reasonable shape. Here’s an analysis of key Iowa resources from healthdata.org:
Staying home helps slow spread of the coronavirus. Our household is doing it’s part. I’m thinking of my laid off friends at the wholesale club and hoping they make it. Like them, we will all have to re-apply ourselves in the new paradigm after the pandemic runs the first wave of its course. COVID-19 will be a permanent fixture in society, even after a vaccine is developed. For now, we are provisioned and ready to make it through the next couple of weeks.
A month after Governor Kim Reynolds activated the Iowa emergency operations center to cope with the coronavirus pandemic I took a 30-day unpaid leave of absence from the home, farm and auto supply store.
My close family gave a thumbs up.
After a trip to the grocery store the plan is to hole up here in Big Grove to ride out the pandemic. Early spring is a great time to spend more time at home. The garden will benefit greatly.
Yesterday I planted squash seeds in trays for my greenhouse:
Raven Hybrid Zucchini, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 48 days.
Early Prolific Straightneck, Ferry-Morse, 50 days.
Early White Bush Scallop, Ferry-Morse, 50 days.
I posted in social media about my leave of absence and entered a discussion with a local friend about wanting to plant their garden, but not having seeds. I made a care package of early crop seeds and broccoli seedlings for them.
My dental appointment next week has been postponed due to the pandemic. In fact, more businesses are slowing down, delaying, and cancelling events. The Democratic Party decided to delay the county convention and is opting for on-line participation. I’m an alternate delegate this time and curious to see whether I get virtually “seated.” This week is expected to be a bad one in terms of COVID-19 positive test results and deaths in Iowa.
There are multiple models of the course of the pandemic. The one I favor points to April 26 as the possible peak in number of cases and deaths in Iowa. People social distancing at home watch the numbers closely. Regardless, we all must wait to see what happens as the pandemic runs its course.
I spent time cutting back overgrown lilac bushes in the backyard. The goal is to remove the old growth and let new recreate the appearance. The results are positive but I have to sharpen the chain saw before tackling the remaining thick trunks. This is preparation to cut back the ones in the front yard. The wood will create a second brush pile to burn before tomatoes go in.
A few masks for sawdust control rest in the garage medicine cabinet. I’ll take one to the grocery store and wear it while shopping. Hopefully I’ll survive another day of living in the coronavirus pandemic.
Journey Home 
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