Joy in the time of pandemic

September 12, 2020. As the perilous times continue, it is time to review real joy amidst the miasma.

First, family. As these six months have evolved, my three women have shown remarkable resilience and persistence, leading to success and a at least modicum of joy, sometimes much more. All three earned exceptional reviews for the work they have done in the past six months or year. Gaby earned a full-time job offer for when she graduates next year. Jane earned an exceptional review from the president of Cristo Rey and she has fully furnished and equipped her Water Street apartment. Dena has thrived under the pressure of the pandemic in keeping stores supplied with critical personal care products. As my primary purpose for these past six months has been to pray, provide and protect, and to do all of this to support good financial and medical health, this has provided real, substantive joy in achieving a positive mental, medical and financial state for Gaby, Jane and Dena.

Wisconsin and Harrison have been great places to be this past year. As I noted late last year, after three months living here, I value the Appleton area as much for what it does NOT have as most people value where they live for what they do have. And for those living in larger and more liberal areas, many of those desirable features of urban living have been eliminated, put on hold or moved to the endangered list, causing those large, liberal urban areas to lose much of their appeal. I find great joy in being able...

· to grocery shop (and find all that I need!),

· to treat my wife to excellent cuts of meat from Haen Meat Packing,

· to attend in-person Mass,

· to see Abe and Jane on a regular basis, to enjoy a day on Green Lake with family,

· to see Dena make a “Target run” or engage in retail therapy,

· to take a four-mile walk through pleasant, quiet neighborhoods,

· to exchange ideas and answers with my Kimberly Heights neighbors on Facebook,

· to share my mower with Casey (across the street),

· to borrow a ladder or other tools from neighbors (and to feel comfortable doing so),

· to watch Fourth of July fireworks from my bedroom,

· to see the thriving construction in my neighborhood,

· to mow my lawn in comfort and with speed,

· to email Hank, Steve and others to keep in touch,

· to meet regularly with my brothers and sisters via Zoom to complete a crossword puzzle,

· to order necessities (and more!) from Amazon,

· to stream movies and series with a reliable internet, sitting in my well-worn lounger,

· to pick up my daily mail,

· to occasionally visit McDonalds, Chipotle or Angels,

· to be able to ignore 90% of the mainstream media nonsense, bias and political vitriol,

· to care less about the more-than-ever irrelevant professional sports players, games and leagues,

· to have Jane and Gaby home for unexpected, extended, irreplaceable time, and

· to support my women in their endeavors.

If my women are happy, then I am happy. Their joy is my joy.

I am going to make only oblique reference to the sheer joy of being out of the social engineering experiment that once was what was a truly great, global institution called American higher education.

Since this pandemic exploded in America in mid-March, it has been hard to find joy in the public arena yet one of the lessons of this unprecedented event has been to better appreciate the fundamentals of life (e.g., faith, family, food) and to realize that it remains best to “simplify and control,” to manage things that you can control and to reduce the number of things that needlessly distract me from the truly important and urgent elements of life. I can’t fix the world economy or cure Covid, but I can do my part to make the world a better place – in my own small way – and to find great joy in all of this.