The Worst of Times

CHARLES DICKENS 

Dickens needs a rewrite. "It was the worst of times. It was the worst of times." I'm sorry, but this pandemic has turned me from the most hopeful of optimists into the most despairing of pessimists. 

What started out as a reasonably expectant period of one, two or three months of sequestration has dragged on now through a fourth with no end in sight. 

What began with just a trickle of cases of coronavirus in February rapidly increased to a scenario where hospitals were bursting at the seams at the end of March and early April. Nursing homes shuttered as the virus began to ravage elderly populations most at risk from the disease. Outside visitors there and access to prisons were denied to all but essential employees. Personal protective equipment (PPE) including masks, gowns and gloves were in such high demand that hospital workers and frontline medical staffs were asked to reuse the items against common practice and safe and sage medical advice. 

Spare ventilators became the rarest of medical items and states competed openly on both the worldwide market and within a system for federal allocation of these life-saving devices. Doctors were fearful they would have to decide which of the sick were more deserving than others to receive vital health services. Would a 75-year-old cancer patient be passed over if a 29-year-old athlete were also sick? Epidemiologists predicted overrun ICUs and emergency rooms bursting at the seams. Doctors, nurses and medical administrators worried about which patients they would have to turn away.

It was a national nightmare.

But then, people began to respond. They stayed home. They washed their hands regularly and became mindful of not touching their faces. When they did journey out to a store for food or water, many of them wore masks so they wouldn't spread the virus if they had it. They wiped down their bags and washed off milk cartons. Schools shut down and students came back home. This was a picture of a united America that, like hard-ravaged Italy and Spain, was intent on keeping the future infection rate and deaths down.

A steady decline occurred. At one point, New Orleans held an unenviable position as one of the worst rates of infection in the country. It now boasted a remarkable turnaround. No one ran out of ventilators and a field hospital located in the Ernest Morial Convention Center set up strictly to treat COVID-19 patients, was shut down. Clearly, several markers showed remarkable progress being made in the city and throughout the state. Still, the death toll was huge.

Louisiana prepared to enter Phase I of a return to pre-pandemic normalcy. The numbers of available testing kits went up and more and more people were testing to see if they were infected. The crisis seemed to have abated, even though the death toll continued to rise.

But then, around the time of Independence Day, Louisiana began to take its eye off the ball. Residents outside of New Orleans began to let down their guard. They gathered without masks and celebrated the nation's birthday with abandon. Large numbers of residents openly questioned the wisdom of wearing masks, relegating it not to a health matter, but to an exercise of political freedom.

The infection rate began to climb again and with it more deaths. 

Recent news reports suggest the state's previous reports in April may have been underreported by a much as 16 times the actual incidence of infection. Another recent day showed more than 3,000 cases of COVID-19 as having been recorded, a record that stretched all the way back to the end of May.

We are making progress, but it is in the opposite of our desired direction. Instead of being squarely into Phase III, we are still in Phase II throughout Louisiana and the City of New Orleans has pushed back on an easing of regulations for bars and gyms so that they are either closed or are only operating at the 25% capacity allowed under Phase I. 

Many businesses are on life support and many others, like world famous K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen, have announced plans to shut down entirely. Federal subsidies to keep employees hired and unemployment benefits for millions of Americans are all running out within days.

On top of all of this we have an ongoing  national discussion on Black Lives Matter, how to reshape policies that unfairly profile segments of our society and how to stop systemic racism. Mobs tearing down Confederate statues are understandable, but those that select targets like the Lincoln Monument need to check their motives.

Then there's a presidential election going on too. In a normal election year, tensions would be heightened and rhetoric would be sharply up. This year is no different and, indeed, medical life-saving measures such as wearing a mask have become highly politicized. As we move toward November, this national discussion will become more contentious. 

If there is one department, where hope remains high it is in the spirit of Americans to rise above the derision and to connect through social media and apps like Zoom. If we are ever to come out of this fray with our heads held high, it will be because of our listening to one another and becoming part of the solution, not continuing the problem.

So, Dickens was wrong. It is the worst of times and the worst of times. How we deal with it may help shape what America looks like on the other side of our recovery. And when we do look back on this, may we recall that it is a far, far better thing that we do than we have ever done before.

Cabin fever coronavirus style

Seen under an electronic microscope, the virus that causes COVID-19.

You can't see it. You can't smell it. You can't taste it or hear it approaching. And if you should touch it, you won't even know that you did until two weeks later. That's a pretty accurate assessment for what we are all fighting with the threat of COVID-19 (coronavirus).

For good or bad, we have taken collective action in what may prove to be a judicious application of resources available to us now or, conversely,  might later be viewed as a set of grossly overprotective and unnecessary medical measures. In any case, I would rather err on the side of overkill rather than be caught unprepared and unable to respond to this very real threat.

The danger to me personally is minimal. I am at the age where authorities say I should be concerned, but I am in very good health and have a better than average immune system. The threat is not only to me; it's to my elderly loved ones and friends, most especially my 88-year-old mother, who is now in frail health.

I would not want to put her at risk due to my careless and unthinking actions. Also, who knows? Statistically, most victims have been elderly patients. Yet, the first two people who have died in New Orleans since the outbreak of COVID-19  were both in their 50s, one 58 and the other 53 years old. While they did each have underlying medical problems, the threat to middle-aged adults is very real. One of the more recent victims – a member of my own religious community – was 84. Others were octogenarians and nonagenarians. That does not give me a reason to be consoled in any way.

The problem for me is that I am by nature a very gregarious creature. I enjoy meeting people and talking, walking and greeting them. I find nothing more frustrating than to keep myself entertained and in a virtual bubble.

But this is the new normal and I am going to have to make the necessary adjustments to accept this as both necessary and in the best interests of all concerned.

Except for take out, there's no restaurants. No bars. No parades. And, for me, the worst reality check, no theatre. For a theatre critic, the thought of how to cope is almost surreal. Given the lack of open theaters, it is understandable that the public would be less focused on the plight of the actors, producers, technical and administrative staffs who collectively are the grease behind the monolith of local theatre.

But theatre is the salve that calms society in hard times and we need it during this crisis more than ever. The sooner theatre is restored to our city, the sooner we will know we have weathered this storm and moved past it.

For Leigh

You were just a kid when we met

I wore my hair high and wide.

And you were still a blonde –

And not yet a bride.

Our love of music sealed the deal

You just had to sing out loud.

I knew what I liked to play

And you made me proud.

The blues you found in your soul

Would flow out from your heart

And mine would quicken its pace

Whenever you would start.

You sang on table tops

You sang on a makeshift stage

The crowds would gather for you

Your name became the rage.

Through the times we lived,

We suffered great loss.

You through division

And mine with a cross.

But the progeny you had

Meant love would survive

The red-headed mama

In her joy was alive.

You practiced your art

And drew crowds late at night

You slept through the day

Dosed, dazed – a sight.

But there was glassy truth

In your voice of purple hue

You reigned o'er the land

And then they crowned you.

When the waters rose high

You were chased far away

Another blue called out

And there you would stay.

So the Queen was in exile

And her sullen people mad

The times were brown, dead

Interminably sad.

When the dipsy pain raged on

You fought it with pride

You gave us the truth

You never had lied.

When out in the hemlock

You floated into mist

Into the aether of the heavens

With love you were kissed.

I miss you, my darling

Your haughty hands, your smile.

We are destined to reunite.

Just wait. Wait a while.

©2019 Alan Smason

(Photo ©2018 Winston-Salem Journal)

To blog or not to blog?

It's been more than a year since I posted to this blog.  For a very long time this was my sole outlet for writing my most personal of musings and insights. It was where I felt there were no barriers for me to make comments, lash out or to release in cathartic fashion whatever it was that was foremost on my mind.

The fact is I have many more outlets to write these days and the time to delve into my inner psyche has become limited in more ways than I can readily admit. My writing has brought me awards in journalism I could never have envisioned three years ago. I have seen my stock rise high despite the fact that my value as a writer is still under appreciated and barely compensated.

Of course, writing a blog rarely leads to untold wealth or riches. What has been essential in these postings is that I write the truth as I see it, unfiltered or unaffected by the opinions of others.

In these days of highly charged politics and ultra sensitive social media trolls, it has become increasingly difficult to feel comfortable to speak my own mind.

And yet, I must.

If there ever was a time when I should be speaking out about the climate under which America lives these days, it is now.

We have become so intolerant of each other that an errant phrase on social media can bring about immediate doom to celebrities and politicians alike. Of course, there are some politicians who are Teflon-coated, who it seems escape scrutiny and condemnation despite egregious rantings. Again, these are the times under which we live.

But Tweets and viral posts notwithstanding, I am finding myself discomfited in the lack of a sense of humor in America today. I am afraid that few can recall Will Rogers and his simple take on what made our country and our people great. Even the affable and kindly Fred Rogers would take exception as to how hardened our nation has become and how we have passed the innocence of our most precious resource – our children – into the flames of fear and mistrust and tempered them with credos of greed and self-absorption.

Perhaps it is the knowledge that our government has separated innocent children from their parents and imprisoned them without the benefit of trial and a sense of fair play. Maybe it is the senseless loss of life at places like night clubs, supermarkets, movie theaters, outdoor concerts, shopping malls, workplaces or any place where gatherings of people enjoying life or going about their business become soft targets and part of an ever spiraling list of mass shootings by assault rifles.

The rise of organized hate by small-minded men and women who blame the ills of the world on religions or people whose skins are a different hue is something I could never have fathomed as a child. We had fought two world wars stamping out the designs and encroachment of foreign powers on faraway shores in the first and halting the spread of governments that fostered genocide and glorified killing in direct conflict with our ideals of freedom and liberty in the second.

During the Cold War, I believed that the good of humanity promoted within a system of capitalism where individuals could better themselves would eventually defeat the premise of Communism that  men had to share what they earned or wait for the government to parcel it out. That belief turned into reality in the 1990s and America seemed to be a beacon for the world again.

I would never have considered that the America of my youth could fall from its pedestal of being the leader of the Free World and a moral nation that others would want to emulate and morph into a nation led by the super rich and super greedy with corruption and amorality as its most prominent features.

We have become a litigious society where juries are awarding incredible sums of money to victims of corporate greed which have addicted thousands in order to fatten their wallets or who have looked the other way when putting products on the market. There is little chance that tort reform will reign in the rampant filings by hungry attorneys hoping to find their pot of gold at the end of the judicial rainbow.

Doctors are also under siege by self-appointed financial wizards who have managed to administer health organizations on their behalf and perpetuated a system wherein they realize greater profit by denying benefits to those in dire need. Medical malpractice costs have forced many physicians who might have established solo practices in the past into forming corporate partnerships as a measure of self-preservation and protection. The days of a kindly Marcus Welby, M.D., who makes house calls is sadly over. Instead, new concepts like urgent care centers have sprung up and patients are paying visits to emergency rooms in droves due to the demands of insurance policies.

Health care has become a major determinant in keeping a job or seeking employment elsewhere and programs like Medicare are having to raise the age levels of those seeking benefits. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that my child will have to wait until 70 years of age or higher to qualify for Medicare.

As a boy, I was a Cub Scout and Boy Scout. Even the simple nature of Scouting for boys and girls has become shrouded in controversy. For decades, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) was vilified for its standards for adult leaders and youth which prevented gays from entry into its membership. After protracted legal challenges and a historic plebiscite by its members, those policies were eliminated and membership extended to those who had formerly been shunned.

Today, the BSA and the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. (GSUSA) are embroiled in a new legal battle over which gender belongs with what organization. Facing historic lows in membership, the BSA announced plans two years ago to open its entire ranks to girls, notably in the Cub Scouts and the newly-renamed Scouts BSA (formerly the Boy Scouts). Even though co-ed units are the standard around the world, including in England, where Scouting was founded, the GSUSA has challenged the BSA in court.

Due to that battle and the inordinately burdensome task of paying out millions to victims of alleged child abuse, the BSA has already announced its own plans to declare bankruptcy should they need to protect their assets. Many alleged victims of abuse have recently been given a second chance to charge individuals and organizations by legislation passed on a state level such as in California, New York and New Jersey. Victims need to be compensated, of course, but in many cases the problems arose within religious organizations who partnered with the BSA and the alleged incidents occurred as far back as four decades ago. Sadly, many of the offending adults were often sheltered by those who wished to not visit scandal or shame upon their religion and the BSA was never informed of these crimes at the time they occurred.

Throughout the course of writing these words, I feel the same outrage as when our nation was shaken to its core through assassinations and divided by waging a war on many fronts in Southeast Asia and against each other at home.   

Those were certainly not the good old days, but even then I knew we would get better as a nation and move past the division and derision. These days I am not so sure.

We have never become more connected through devices and the media that update us as to our world in ways we could only have imagined two decades ago. Yet, despite this connectivity, we are a nation of lonely people, seeking to live out life vicariously through these devices while hardly lifting up our heads to acknowledge one another at the dinner table.

Thus I find myself sitting at a computer adding more words to the blogosphere while mulling all of this over.

Am I being authentic and genuine? Yes.

Will these musings convey my angst and disdain for where we are as a nation? Probably.

Do I feel better? Maybe.

Does any of this make sense? Doubtful.

Among the hills, amidst the critics

When summer meets the rolling, unglaciated hills of Wisconsin, the heat and humidity inextricably rise in the land Frank Lloyd Wright called home. The songbirds sing out and the mosquitoes buzz in their mad bloodthirsty dash at twilight and dawn in Spring Green for as certain as the season is the promise of hundreds of anxious patrons looking forward to the outdoor spectacle of theatre at American Players Theatre (APT).

With such an appropriate acronym, APT continues to mount stellar productions in two theaters - one, a 1,089-seat outdoor amphitheater and the other, an intimate indoor arena of more than 200 seats. With an annual budget of more than $6 million and a dedicated core staff, the company's repertory of as many as nine plays attracts more than 100,000 people to this quaint and sleepy town from June through November.

In recent years, the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA), the professional organization of theatre reviewers, writers and journalists, has held its annual conference in cities like San Francisco, Philadelphia and New Orleans. This summer, however, they have taken to the Wisconsin woods to partner with APT so that its membership could take advantage of five of its offerings: Shakespeare's As You Like It, Eugene Ionesco's Exit the King, Athol Fugard's Blood Knot, George Fuquhar's The Recruiting Officer and Garson Kanin's Born Yesterday.

In addition to the lifeblood of theatre offerings, APT has brought dozens of its own staff and nearby theatre critics, artistic directors, theatre podcasters and designers to inform and inspire ATCA attendees. Among the topics covered were sessions on copyright law, racial equity, period comedy productions and what is happening in the heartland of theatre in America's dairyland.

The beautiful setting of The House on the Rock Resort replete with a Bobby Jones-designed golf course has served as the nexus for ATCA's members to engage in heated debates about the future of the organization and its direction. Members are passionate about the organization, but in these perilous times when traditional journalism has given way to modern means of expression on the Internet and through social media, there are questions that must be posed and the very nature of theatre criticism examined.

That last unthinkable act

We lost two very industrious, highly visible celebrities this past week; two souls who were successful in so many ways.

Spade (via Wikimedia)

Even I knew the value of a Kate Spade handbag. In the world of fashion, her name was one that had secured a place reserved for only the best. Yet, despite the outward appearance of a woman who had made it and who could rest on her laurels for decades, there was something gnawing at her. Family members must have known she was depressed, but no one suspected the depth of her feeling of hopelessness. No one knew she would seek relief from her tortured existence through that last unthinkable act.

And now she is gone.

As for Anthony Bourdain, a man who loved and embraced food and cuisine with a passion that took him to the far reaches of the globe and back, there is disbelief.

Bourdain (Photo by Jessie Wightkin)

How could a man with so much to live for, who gave so many others pleasure from the verve with which he approached the simple act of eating, cast it all aside? Bourdain's job was almost too perfect. He was paid by CNN to travel to the backwater eddies of the planet as well as the most opulent of gustatory galleries to revel in dining and to share his experiences with a starving world of vicarious TV viewers


He was charming and endearing, but he was also demanding. He expected no less than the best that life had to offer and the matter of fact way he shared his experiences, eating his way across the globe established a place for him that few in his industry achieved. But, as he admitted in his book, "Kitchen Confidential," he did have his inner demons, having successfully fought drug addiction and coming back stronger, emerging as an industry leader. He was a champion for the food scene in New Orleans and we loved him for that, too. Despite his success, he was still intensely troubled and filled with such despair that he, too, thought the unthinkable.

And now he is gone.

Williams (Photo via Wikimedia)

When comedian Robin Williams committed suicide in 2014, he did so by hanging as did Spade and Bourdain. Perhaps the most creative comic mind of his generation, Williams brought mirth and laughter to audiences and to his peers for decades. He could bring joy to a small child or happiness to a nonagenarian with his over-the-top frenetic gyrations on stage and delighted millions with his on-screen performances. He created Mork and Mrs. Doubtfire and showed us what a grown-up Peter Pan might look like, imbuing all of his characters with a humanity that made us love him. Yet, despite an Academy Award and fame that brought him financial well-being, he, too, suffered from depression and could only reach for a rope to bring an end to his tortured existence.

And then he was gone.

But in the end, it was not just him.

Lederman (Photo by Alan Smason)

In the week that followed Robin Williams' demise, suicide ideation shot up a whopping 75%. One of those who took his life was my friend, supporter and one of the most beloved of my high school classmates, Louis Lederman. Not many people were more animated than "Louie," the son of Holocaust survivors. How could anyone whose family had endured the horrors of the Nazi era and had clung tenaciously to stay alive simply give up everything? It was as if the Nazis had won. A talented traditional jazz drummer, he organized the Bone Tone band that marched in Mardi Gras parades and was the onetime Boss of the Phunny Phorty Phellows. There were few like Louie.

And then he was gone.

Suicide rates have risen by 30% in the last two decades and health authorities are buckling down, expecting another wave of attempts in these next few days. It is important that we look to signs that might portend one of our loved ones is suffering from the same kind of misguided thinking. The world will not be better served through these cruel and cowardly acts. Cruel because their deaths hurt those they leave behind and cowardly because, rather than confront life, they give in to a solution that fixes nothing and oftentimes makes matters worse.

Please keep an eye out for your loved ones this week. The National Suicide Prevention Hotline number is 1-800-273-8255. Get help to those that need it.

The Iron Lady of New Orleans

When news reached me of the death of Jackie Pressner Gothard on Monday morning, May 21, the very first thing that went through my mind was that it must have been a trick or some sort of fantastic jest to test me. There was no warning. No bulletin rang out in advance preparing me for her sudden disappearance. She was a pillar of the New Orleans community one moment - a woman of indomitable will and gracious Southern charm - and then she was a memory.

But what a memory she leaves behind.

Jackie Gothard at the re-burial of seven Torah scrolls in 2011. 

Jackie Gothard was the consummate cheerleader, the never-say-die, larger-than-life character who, quite literally, saved my synagogue and embodied renewed hope for Jewish New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Jackie was the spirit of the new Congregation Beth Israel, erected phoenix-like on the ashes of more than 100 years of Orthodox Judaism in New Orleans.

It was her life's mission to never let anyone forget the history of Beth Israel or its tragic demise beneath the murky floodwaters from the breached 17th Street Canal following the landfall of the monster storm. She made the decision to bring the lifeless synagogue back from the dead, even while she was an evacuee in Houston and the news out of New Orleans was nothing less than bleak.

That was Jackie. She was always organizing and planning. She made certain that there was only one High Holiday period that the members of the synagogue under whose shadow she had grown up near the heavily Jewish corridor along Dryades Street, would be without a building in which they could assemble, pray and, let us not forget, eat.

Jackie employed her son Eddie, himself a former Beth Israel president, to get on the phone with the Orthodox Union, the United Jewish Communities (now the Jewish Federations of North America) and anybody else who would listen. Beth Israel was coming back, she would tell them. Orthodox services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were planned and executed at a Houston hotel and many bewildered and depressed former New Orleans residents gathered to daven and begin to consider that a move back to the city and Modern Orthodoxy might again be possible.

When the floodwaters had receded and residents were allowed back into the city, Jackie beat a path to the once magnificent structure on Canal Boulevard the synagogue had called home since 1970. She gasped in between tears as she beheld with her own eyes what 10-12 feet of toxic waste laden and sewage-filled floodwaters had done to the exterior and interior of her shul. The Torah scrolls had been rescued famously by an Israeli search and rescue team from ZAKA, a group initially charged with rescue or recovery of bodies. The scrolls had been largely destroyed and were rendered invalid. In some cases, the parchment had been eaten away by whatever microbes and chemicals were in that water. Jackie contacted Becky Hegglund (see page 32, Best of the CCJN SOURCE 5776), a former receptionist who hadn't worked at the synagogue for several years, as soon as she returned home. The synagogue was in ruins, but the Torah scrolls needed to be buried in a reverent fashion, according to Jewish law. Jackie didn't know who else to call. Like so many others who had been charged with a task by Jackie, Becky - a non-Jew - agreed. Jackie gave her the contact number for ZAKA's Rabbi Issac Leider and she arranged to pick up the seven Torah scrolls, dig a four-foot by six-foot plot by herself and deposit them in a makeshift grave. 

Jackie Gothard at the reburial of religous artifacts.

Upon her return home, Jackie renewed her conversations with Reform Congregation Gates of Prayer's (senior) Rabbi Robert Loewy. Out of a gesture of kindness and charity, he offered Jackie and those Orthodox community members an opportunity to re-establish the congregation in the back chapel, a room that by divine coincidence had an aron hakodesh (holy ark) for prayer services. Beth Israel began to meet there and went on to establish a unique partnership with the Reform temple, eventually purchasing land from them and building a new structure there.

Over the course of the several months and years of recovery, Jackie was at the helm of leadership, retrieving religious articles from the old synagogue and overseeing the burial of thousands of prayerbooks, hundreds of prayer shawls and several dozen phylacteries. One of the items she was most proud of saving was the synagogue's giant Chanukiah - the special brass menorah used during the celebration of Chanukah. That menorah was scrubbed and polished to a new luster by Jackie and others who would see it used in a synagogue again. Not only was it used again at Beth Israel, but it was prominently displayed in 2011 at the official White House Chanukah ceremony at which President Barack Obama lit the Chanukah candles. 

The young rabbi who carried that menorah to the White House was none other than Rabbi Uri Topolosky, a visionary figure who, along with his wife Dahlia, were charmed by Jackie on a tour of the old synagogue and decided almost immediately to move to the Crescent City and its tiny Jewish minority from their heavily-Jewish neighborhood in Riverdale, New York. It was Rav Uri, who along with Jackie, became the public face of recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Even while the property was for sale, she constantly gave tours of the old synagogue to groups that wanted to see what destruction the structure had suffered. 

Jackie told the story of her family's kosher delicatessen and other businesses run by Jewish merchants along Dryades Street that became known as "the second Canal Street." Two Orthodox congregations had sprung up there - Beth Israel and Congregation Anshe Sfard - and only a few blocks away was the original location of Temple Sinai, the first synagogue formed under the branch of Reform Judaism.

She never tired of answering questions to the many different groups who inquired as to what Jewish communal life was like in the old days and what was in store for the congregation.

Jackie and others who followed her, including another woman president - Roselle Middleberg Ungar - saw to it that Beth Israel was restored with a magnificent new building that was dedicated on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall seven years later. Over the last five years, Jackie continued to be a mainstay at the synagogue, celebrating her 60th wedding anniversary only a few months ago with close relative and the third woman president, Lee Kansas, looking on proudly. On many a Thursday, she helped others organize and prepare the meal that would be served after Shabbat services on Saturday. 

A tireless force of nature, she never seemed to slow down, bragging on the accomplishments of her grown professional children, her grandchildren and even her great-grandson. That's why her sudden passing is so hard to believe.

On a personal note, I was defeated in 2003 for my run for Congregation Beth Israel president. At the time, I took my defeat hard. There had never been a woman elected before to that office and there were even questions as to whether an Orthodox congregation could have a woman as president. Those doubts were soon erased as Jackie enjoyed the high of celebrating the synagogue's 100th anniversary in 2004 to be followed by that difficult period of recovery from the hurricane.

At the time, I had no way of knowing how lucky I was to have lost. There is little doubt in my mind that I would have been thoroughly unprepared for the many challenges Jackie met and defeated with ease. While I may have lost, Beth Israel, the New Orleans Jewish community and, dare I say, the city of New Orleans all won. It was all because of Jackie and her fierce determination to bring Beth Israel back.

There was no one like Jackie Gothard and there probably never will be.

Todah rabah (thank you very much), Jackie. Todah rabah.