One Year Ago, Today

I wrote this on my calendar one year ago today...

My daughter and I happen to work in the same building within the same organization.  We were sent home from work early on March 16th, 2020 for an undetermined length of time. 

I have been keeping a journal since this - the coronavirus started - widespread, here in the United States of America.  This is my entry from, exactly, one year ago today...  

“3/16/20

Disneyworld shut down last night due to the threat of the Corona virus. Today, there were 80 more cases diagnosed in New Jersey. The governor put in place a soft curfew of 8:00 pm for people to be home. The casinos in Atlantic City shut down at that time, too. Restaurants and bars are switching over to take out status and closing earlier. There are several closings—come to think of it tonight, at 8:21 pm, my supervisor texted our group saying that if we were, “non-essential” personnel, that we did not have to report to work tomorrow. So, in other words, my job has been postponed due to COVID-19.  My daughter and I are off until further notice. When we return is anyone’s guess.

This shutdown makes sense. There are those who feel otherwise, but they are wrong. The best way to contain this is to, “flatten the bell curve” and to practice social distancing (limiting one’s own movement and avoiding public spaces). The spread can be slowed but people must be open to making this happen. The universe has given us time off so that we do not contract and/or spread the virus. Who are we to argue with the universe?”

My daughter and I now work from home.  It is the same with my wife.  My wife is looking forward to returning to her routine and her office.  My daughter and I, however, are happy working from home.  But all that is a tale for another day - a different journal entry altogether.  

That journal, by the way, is now over 3,300 pages long.  A lot has happened in a year's time.  I thought that I would document it as best as I could.  You should know, Gentle Reader, that it is not all me and a lot of it is not fit for human consumption.  There are hundreds of pictures and articles - all sited mind you - and, of course, there is commentary and observation from yours truly.  An everyman's view of this time in history.  It has grown long but the work must continue.  It will continue until I feel that we have either placed COVID-19 behind us or we have adapted to a "new normal" where COVID-19 remains with us, but due to vaccines and personal responsibility it will be kept at bay.  Personally, I believe it will be the latter.  There is no magic bullet for the coronavirus.  I believe we will have to adapt.  When we do, I will call the journal complete.  

There are better days ahead.  The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter.  We will get there.  

Until then, get vaccinated.  Wear a mask.  Wash your hands.  Practice social distancing.  Be good to each other.  Perhaps if most of us can do these simple, unselfish things, I will not have to write another 3,300 pages come this time next year?

Stay safe.

Packing & Unpacking

I intentionally forget things. I pack bad memories and experiences up on a fairly regular basis and funnel them away to be dealt with at another time, on another day.  Maybe.  I can do this and, as it turns out, I can do it with relative ease.  Debilitating heartbreak? Pack it down.  The world has changed forever? Forget and move forward.  Unpack later – or don’t.  Substitute the space left with a distraction or with something happier.  Dwell there.  Rinse, repeat.  Perhaps this is what my Alzheimer’s journey will be like; where I’ll keep making substitutions for the holes and the missing pieces.  I’ll just keep smiling holding onto the shadow of pleasantries long past.  I don’t know.

Most of the time I’m good.  I look back on all of the good things and I smile, I have context on which to hang my memories and, no lie, I have every reason to be thankful.  Still, every once in a while something hits you, unexpectedly.  Case in point: a friend of mine on Facebook posted this, “Do you remember (especially the CCS class of '87) what we were all doing on a very warm day 31years ago today?”  As it just so happens, I do.  It was the day we graduated high school, 6/19/87 and the world was going to hell.  My dad was released from the hospital, University of Penn, that very day.  A tennis ball, sized tumor had been scooped out of his head and I was about to start taking him for his radiation treatments for the summer.  He couldn’t make my graduation but that was okay, he was home with us again.  That was 31 years ago, today.  He was diagnosed with the brain tumor while we, my class and I, were on our senior trip only a few weeks prior.  Due to the aggressive nature of his cancer and the location of the tumor, the doctors did not hold out too much hope but it was a chance and we took it.  The sores, the hair loss, the erosion of conciseness & self (the insidious, cruel nature of diseases of the mind), the loss of speech, mobility, and his body’s failure - each took their toll.  He was gone five months after being diagnosed.  I was 18.  It was 1987 and the world went to hell.       

Every now and again it is important to unpack.  I can say that you never get used to loss.  The world changes and it does not go back.  “Time heals all wounds” – this is a lie.  The world moves on with a hole in it.  This is how it is now.  Nothing can change it.  It doesn’t get replaced.  It is what it is.  So, I made remembering my mission because if I remember then he is still a presence – still an influence.  I am the only one who holds these memories and they will die with me but I have made a point to tell my girls about the man he was – the man he became.  I know it to be true that we do, in fact, stand on the shoulders of giants and that to know me is to know him.  Dan Fogelberg’s Leader of the Band, he sings, “I am the living legacy to the leader of the band.”  I weep when that song sneaks its way onto the radio or over the sound system of the supermarket where I may be shopping.  It hit far too close to home.  To this day, I weep.

The world can change a lot in 31 years.  It kills me that he has not been here to see it.  Paul Leo Scully would have been amazed at how far sweeteners have come.  No saccharin these days.  I have seriously missed his counsel during the last 31 years.  I have often wondered, “What would dad think about this?”  He would have loved Linda, my wife.  He would have absolutely loved his grandchildren.  I would like to think that he would have come to some sort of resolution with Paul & Susan – my half-brother and half-sister, the children from his first marriage.  He owed it to them.  He owed it to himself.  But none of this happened.  None of it could.  For unfathomable reasons, God or fate or the universe had other plans.  If there ever was a plan then healing was, clearly, never on the table.  In the song, ‘American Pie’, Don McLean sings, “And the three men I admire most – the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, they caught the last train for the coast, the day the music died.”  I was at the train station when they left.  The unfillable hole remains, and it always will.  I think of my father every day.  I have done so for the last 31 years.  Usually I don’t unpack so many things but today was special – it’s the 31^st anniversary of my high school graduation. 

My father’s life shaped me, and his death did as well.  I knew what mortality was early on.  I could see the precious, gossamer threads that hold together this thing we call life.  I knew from the age of 18 the importance of appreciating what we have, what we have earned, and what we’ve been given.  It gave me a different perspective than most of my peers and it still does.  I am beyond the unanswerable questions.  We are here and then we are not.  Make the most of that time.  It is precious.  Be kind along the way.  Be someone worth remembering.

Paul Scully II was one of the good guys.

He was my dad.

He came home from the hospital 31 years ago today.

It’s time to pack things up again.  I’ve said far too much or perhaps I’ve said far too little.  It’s hard to tell.  It’s time to concentrate on happier things.  Pack it in.  Unpack it later - or don't. 

Congratulations to Cumberland Christian School’s Class of 1987, wherever you are.

Meteors & Dash-Cams

A meteor flashed across the skies of South Jersey last night.  Actually, it was seen from Delaware up to New York.  I’ve read reports that speak of an orange trail and a burning green streaking by down into the tree line.  I missed it.  The eastern seaboard isn’t Russia and I don’t expect there to be all that many videos.  I do not know why the Russians had so many dash-cams but I am now seriously thinking about getting one.  This will be good if a Yeti crosses my path or for the next meteor / visitor from another world who decides to show up while no one is looking. 

Come to think of it, why did the Russians have so many dash-cams when the meteor hit there on 2/15/13?  As per the Washington Post’s article, “Why are there so many dash-cam videos of the meteor?” which can be found here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/02/15/why-are-there-so-many-dash-cam-videos-of-the-meteor/.  Why?  “Answer: to prove who was at fault in car accidents.”  Apparently, driving is a bit more… adventurous in Russia and there are loads of scams, hit & runs, and the roads aren’t safe… 

You know what.  This could just as easily be American roads.  True story.  Before Christmas, 2012, I was a passenger in a van.  The vehicle was being driven responsibly; however a guy in a pickup truck decided that he didn’t like us.  He pulled in front of us and slammed on his breaks in an attempt to teach us some twisted life-lesson by attempting to kill us.  The tires squealed and people’s bodies strained against seatbelts.  I got out my cell phone to take a picture of the pickup truck’s license plate but my cell phone was too slow.  The hero of the day made a sharp turn and disappeared.  He could have just as easily been fleeing from the scene of an accident that he would have caused.  Here is a picture of the truck that almost killed us:

I firmly believe that the Russians are onto something here.  It’s simply a matter of time that dash-cams become standard equipment.  I’d do it.  I’d do it and live feed it.  With all the road-rage out there on the American Mad Max highways at least there would be a “Black Box”, so to speak if I couldn’t.  Further still, I would do it because it would have a tendency to keep people honest.  After an adjustment period of people realizing that their words & actions mean things some semblance of accountability could be enforced and, maybe – just maybe, people would become more responsible.

Why would I get one?  Well, for the simple conclusion that the Russians have arrived at; I DON’T TRUST YOU.  I do not trust anyone on the roads.   Most of the time I can see it coming – some idiot with a head full of bad wiring, that guy trying to assert some sort of dominance over every other driver on the road, the person who must by any means necessary teach the other drivers of the world a lesson, the passing on the shoulder guy, the bully who has to get home to beat his significant other, the person who does things because they’ve never been called on it before/yet, the guy with “nothing to lose”, the ass directly on my bumper, that guy with the plastic hanging testicles from his trailer hitch, the drunks, the texters, the distracted, anyone selfish enough to put their fleeting whims up against other people’s lives.  You may or may not know who you are but the fact remains, I DON’T TRUST YOU.  I never have.  You’re not responsible for yourself so how can I possibly believe you’ll be responsible with the lives of other people?  I can’t.    

As it turns out, I don’t trust me either.  I suppose looking out for both of us makes me a more careful driver.  I tell my girls that you can be doing everything right, obeying the laws, the speed limit, the wisdom of common sense and still become collateral damage for some selfish mouth breather with a drool cup who simply does not care about anyone or anything.  It would be fine if they only killed or maimed themselves but the fact is that’s not how it happens; they take others with them.  Fox Mulder from, The X-Files was right when he said, “Trust no one”.  While driving this is the best policy.

Please, please, please, be careful out there, Gentle Reader.  It’s not a race.  It’s not some vendetta on the highway and if it is pull over, count to ten, and let it go. 

Life is too short & too precious. 

Until such time, I stand with the Russians.  Besides, there is a Yeti out there I’m trying to film.