The holiday season, 2021, will go down in history as  stressful and disappointing for millions of people on the planet Earth. Actually “disastrous” is not an exaggeration for some.  Only weeks ago, it seemed that the Delta variant was showing signs of waning, and then out of South Africa comes Omicron. The Howell/Ellis clan were among millions of Americans whose lives were touched by this hideous virus. Here is our story:

To say that I had been looking forward to Christmas 2021 is an understatement. It was two years in the making. In 2020 I had reserved a 51-foot sloop in the Sunsail charter fleet in the British Virgin Islands for a week-long cruise for Embry, me, our two children and their spouses and our four grandchildren —10 of us in all. In the first year of Covid, when vaccinations were not yet available, we were forced to postpone for a year, to Christmas week, 2021. In early December of this year, we were all fully vaccinated, boosted and set for what was billed to be “The Last Hurrah BVI Cruise.”

My sailing days are nearing their end. I will turn 80 in three months, and this fall sold “Second Wind,” the last of the six sailboats Embry and I have owned beginning in 1968. This weeklong cruise starting on Christmas Day was not just another BVI cruise—and there have been many—but the end of an era and celebration of a lifetime of serious sailing and cruising. What could be better than to have all the family together in what many describe as the most ideal sailing waters on the entire planet? The BVIs are legendary for consistent trade winds of 12-18 knots, azure waters, and Carolina blue skies with welcoming, protected anchorages. And the grandchildren, now all teenagers or close to it, are now old enough to enjoy the experience of sailing – a pastime which has meant so much to me, starting when I was a teenager myself.

A week ago, following months of preparations, we were all set. I had planned out the cruising itinerary, reserved a kayak and a paddleboard to go with the boat, and Embry had purchased over $1,200 of food to be delivered to the boat and sent out a list showing who was responsible for cooking which meal. I had purchased all the ingredients for the legendary, tropical rum beverages of the BVIs—”Pain Killers” and “Dark-and-Stormies”.  Though it was becoming apparent that the new variant could be a problem, at the beginning of the week we were all feeling well and eager to go.

Like many countries, the BVI has established Covid testing protocols for visitors that are not entirely straightforward. To be allowed to enter, you have to have a Covid test showing negative results within five days of entry and show the results to the airline before you can board. Then once you arrive there you have to take another test; and if that is also negative, you are home free and allowed to enjoy nature’s sailing paradise. If the second test is positive, however, you have got a problem. You are not allowed to enter without a 14-day quarantine. Also, at the end of your wonderful vacation, to get back into the U.S. you have to have to show another test with negative results within 24-hours of reentering the U.S. This posed a bit of a challenge, but I thought I had it figured  out and made reservations for testing at the local hospital for  tests on our day of departure. Anyone testing positive would not be leaving the BVis for two more weeks, the details of which were not exactly clear.  I agree that thinking about what could happen was a bit unnerving, but, hey, early in the week we were all well, eager and chomping at the bit.

The warning shot across the bow happened on Monday, December 20, five days from the start of the charter. Andrew called us that evening with a worried tone. Andrew’s wife, Karen, had tested positive for Covid. What to do? Call the whole thing off? Go without Karen? In her typical, calm way, Embry suggested Karen should get another test. False positives were happening all over the place. That was the plan as we let the Ellises, our daughter Jessica’s family, know. We all grimly buckled down for the next two days awaiting the results. This event triggered an existential moment for me. I suddenly felt my stomach churning, triggering the fears that I had been struggling to suppress. For the last week or so when the headlines were all about Omicron, I had a premonition that we would not be able to pull this off.

Nail biting time.

Two days later on Wednesday, December 22, Andrew called back and joyfully announced the second test had come back, and it was negative. Trip on again! I could almost feel a collective sigh of relief from the entire family.

At the same time, tempering my enthusiasm was the false positive of Karen’s first test.   That raised some what-if questions. What if someone else’s test came back positive or false positive? The Ellis family had not gotten their tests yet. Neither had Embry or I. What if trying to get into the BVIs the negative test in the U.S. was followed by a positive test at the airport in the BVIs? What if someone tested positive on the BVI exit tests before coming back to the U.S.?

Then I thought about the last few days when I had had the sniffles, a sure sign of “mild Covid” for someone with two vaccines and a booster. I was convinced that I would be the one with the positive test. On Thursday, December 23, Embry and I got our rapid PCR tests at CVS; and with fear and trembling, I waited in agony for the email to come in posting the results. I held my breath and clicked the email: “Test Negative.” Eureka! Embry got the same results. We were going to go after all!  All we needed now were the results from the Ellis family, who lived a pretty secluded life in Portland, Maine, and took extraordinary precautions. Jasper, our oldest grandchild at 16, was rumored to double mask in his sleep.

Jessica called us around noon on the 23rd.  Jasper had gotten his booster shot that day and was feeling terrible, but not to worry. It was probably just a reaction to the shot. She would let us know about his test results later in the day. Time was running short, however.  On Christmas Eve morning,  they were to drive from Portland, Maine, to Maplewood, New Jersey, where they would spend Christmas Eve night with Andrew’s family, get rapid tests for the rest of their family, get up at 3:00 AM to head to Newark Airport where both families would board a 6:00 AM flight to San Juan, and then would  take a puddle jumper to the BVIs. It seemed to me to be cutting it a little close, but that was not unusual for the Ellis family. Uncharacteristically, I remained optimistic and assumed that everything would fall into place.

Until the second call came that evening: Jasper had tested positive for Covid.

What to do? The Ellis family was now out.  Jasper was sick and all others in their family exposed—probably to the highly infectious Omicron variant. Should we cancel the whole trip? After reviewing the pros and cons—actually mainly cons:  getting a positive test at the BVI airport, coming down with Covid on the boat, not being able to get out of the BVIs after the cruise, and mainly just not being the same without the whole family—the decision was starting to become obvious. All of the signs were bad, but to cancel what had been billed as the “Last Hurrah BVI Cruise” and probably my last shot at sailing the blue waters and fair winds of this magical place? Not an easy call. We agreed to think about it and talk early Christmas Eve morning.

There was one other complicating factor. We had gone to great lengths to get someone to cat sit for our aging cat, Queen. The person who finally volunteered was a cat lover and planned to bring along her mother and sister, who were visiting from out of town for the holidays and had  no other place to stay. It was one of those rare win/win situations, which made it very difficult for us to say sorry, the situation has changed, you are not needed, and now are on your own.  This was a non-starter. Starting Christmas Day our apartment would be occupied for five days by strangers. We would be homeless unless we could come up with an alternative.

Andrew called around eight Christmas Eve morning. He had a new idea. Forget the BVIs. Too much risk and not feasible. Without his sister’s family it would not be the same anyway. But since all our flights went through San Juan, why not just spend the week in Puerto Rico? He had done some research and found a terrific deal, renting a three-bedroom apartment overlooking a marina and only a five minute walk to a gorgeous beach.

Sounded like a great plan. We would miss Jessica’s family, but it would salvage a pretty woeful situation. Spending nights on the street for seven days was not all that appealing though I am sure we could have figured something out. I immediately perked up. “Never let the perfect be the enemy of  the good,” I told myself as I envisioned sitting on a secluded beach sipping a Pain Killer and feeling the warm breezes, maybe even renting a sailboat for a day from the marina. I told him to book it and breathed a sigh of relief.

I returned home from running some errands around four when Embry asked me if I had heard the latest news. The Puerto Rico trip was off. Andrew could not get the flights rebooked, and the apartment rental turned out to be double-booked.

 Back to square one.

Now I must say that the Lord works in mysterious ways. As a last ditch alternative to becoming homeless on the cold, dark streets of Washington, we decided to drive to New Jersey to spend Christmas week with Andrew’s family in Maplewood. This change of plans would allow us to take Embry’s older brother, Mike, up to Princeton where he would spend Christmas with his daughter, son-in-law, and his two teenage granddaughters. Mike is 85, a poet and artist, now living in a HUD seniors’ building in Washington and not able to travel easily on his own. This reunion had been planned but cancelled a few days earlier because of Covid risks associated with Mike’s riding the train. His daughter, Eva, was delighted when Embry asked her on Christmas morning if the new plan would work. Eva—whom we are very close to, along with her brother, Alex –had suggested that maybe we could stay for a “bite of lunch” before going to Maplewood. When I told her that we could only stop for a few minutes because we were expected for a full Christmas dinner with Andrew’s family around five, she held her ground. “No worries,” she said, “I just called them and they are coming too.”

The “bite of lunch” turned out to be a full Christmas feast, all delicious, vegetarian and vegan dishes, which began around three and lasted a couple of hours, followed by an evening walk through the village of Princeton and the university campus. The big question was how in the world did she pull this off. How did she prepare a meal intended for her family of four, which turned out be a delicious, gourmet feast for 11 people with ample leftovers? Maybe she went out and bought a lot of ingredients the moment she heard we were bringing Mike, but the grocery stores were all closed; and there was never any offer ahead of time for a full-fledged Christmas feast or any expectation on our part that we would have any more than a short visit and maybe a cup of tea. I found myself saying, “loaves and fishes, loaves and fishes.”

The Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways. I remember reading somewhere that “A coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”

And what about the other what-ifs? What if our cruise had started on December 23 instead of on the 25^th? Jasper’s test would probably have come out negative the day before, on December 22, but the next day, first day on the cruise, he would have become very sick and would have exposed everyone. Had we had started a day or two earlier, we could have had everyone on the boat Covid-infected and no idea  how we would quarantine or when or how we would ever make it back home. We had dodged a bullet.

And as it turned out, our granddaughter, Josie, did come down with Covid on December 26 and her father, Peter, experienced the usual Covid symptoms—high fever, body aches, fatigue–on the 28^th. Everyone thankfully is recovering, but still. Can you imagine what it would have been like on a sailboat in the BVIs with the entire crew sick? Karen also reported that the Jet Blue flight to San Juan that they were supposed to take appeared to be one of the ones that had been cancelled. I recall someone at one point saying, “Thank you, Jasper.”

The four days we spent in Maplewood with Andrew’s family were not the same as we would have had in the BVIs, but we still enjoyed our Pain Killers and Dark-and-Stormies. We drove to see Christmas lights in Newark, enjoyed sitting around the fire in their living room, told stories, played games, ate delicious food, and took walks—more or less a typical Howell Christmas, though sadly without the Ellises. We even made it to New York City to see the famous Christmas lights at the Bronx Zoo.

Our Covid Christmas story, it turns out, had a happy ending, but what about all the other people suffering through the Covid crisis, all the holiday get-togethers with family and close friends that did not happen , the family reunions that were postponed and, even worse, the Covid outbreaks that are already happening with surely many more on the horizon?  Life on this planet is indeed mysterious. Times of sorrow and despair mixed with times of happiness and gratitude.

Like our Covid Christmas story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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“Omicron is a fake disease and  is all Biden’s fault. All of it. His totalitarianism on forcing vaccines on innocent people and promoting useless masks and now unnecessary testing is unacceptable. If it weren’t for him, everything would be fine. As we have said all along, you don’t need vaccines. You don’t need masks and you sure don’t need tests.”

Our message is working. Omicron is a blessing. Just look at all the people who are dying, all because of Biden.  Brilliant, if I do say so myself. The more who die, the more it hurts Joe.  

Yeah, but the antivacciners are mainly Republicans.

 

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Today I watched on line one of the “conversations” sponsored by The Atlantic Magazine. The featured guests were two of their best writers, Anne Applebaum and Barton Gellman, discussing the threats to democracy in the world and especially in the United States. Gellman was the guy who pretty much predicted in the fall of last year the January 6 Insurrection. His latest feature article appeared this month which followed up on where we are now compared to then.

Gellman believes that matters are worse, actually much worse, now than they were a year ago. Numerous recent polls show that over 67% of all Republicans believe that the 2020 election was stolen and that Republicans have a right and an obligation to do something about it. Even more frightening is that well over a majority of those who feel this way also  believe  that violence is justified and necessary to change the results.  He argues that January 6 will not turn out to be an isolated event but the first of a series of events which will threaten the United States unlike anything we have experienced since the Civil War. Applebaum is not quite as pessimistic but expressed the same fear that we may be close to losing democracy in the United States, just as this is now happening in countries all over the world.

Sound scary? 

And what is perhaps even more appalling is that except for Liz Chaney and a handful of other Republican elected officials (all of whom are likely to be “primaried out” in 2022), no one in the Republican establishment is calling them out. Where is Romney or Susan Collins? The reverse is true: many are trying to out-Trump Trump.

The scenario which Gellman believes is most likely to happen is that the Republican effort will be successful  to get laws changed in the most competitive states to require that the state legislatures controlled by Republicans determine who the presidential electors are as is specified in Article II of the U.S. Constitution. This effort is underway in earnest already with scores of Trump lawyers and lobbyists  feverishly  working in the dozen or so battleground states. Gellman believes this will end up in the U.S. Supreme Court where he says there is high certainty that four votes are pretty certain to allow it. It could come down to Roberts. The other thing that is happening is that “neutral” election officials in these states are quietly being replaced with Republican operatives and Trump fanatics. Should the 2022, or more likely, the 2024 election,  actually be stolen, it will set off a counter insurrection, this time by the Left, and everything will be up for grabs.

What can we Democrats and well-intentioned Independents do to stop the real steal? Most important, they say, is to get involved, speak out, give money to groups like The Lincoln Project and Move On and organize to keep keep this threat in front of the American people. Some 80% of all Republicans answer on surveys that election fraud is a major concern compared to fewer than 30% of Democrats. Many of us are aware of that bad things may be going on but like me can’t fathom that anything like a real steal  could actually happen. We are naive.

Time to wake up. Storm clouds are on the horizon.

 

 

 

 

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Have you been following the recent discoveries regarding the Universe? I call to your attention the recent series on PBS, “The Universe” and the recent “Scientific American” feature article on the inevitable, future destruction of the Milky Way Galaxy. Here is my take as a rank amateur but one who has been obsessed with space and the Universe ever since I was about eight when my 10-year-old neighbor witnessed a flying saucer land in his back yard, with seared dirt and burnt leaves to prove it.

 

We are living in a golden age for astronomy. Only in the last couple of decades or so have instruments been available to allow us to see for the first time much more of the vast expanse of space than was previously thought possible. These are some of the highlights:

• The Big Bang started it all “only” about 13.8 billion years ago spewing out cosmic dust that due to the force of gravity resulted in the formation of stars and planets. This is not  news and now enjoys almost universal consensus among scientists.
• Our star, the Sun, was formed out of the cosmic dust about 4.6 billion years ago along with eight or nine planets (if you count Pluto) circling around it.
• The Sun is a middle-sized star and part of the Milky Way Galaxy, a run-of-the-mill galaxy. On a clear night with no ambient lights, we can see with the naked eye about 2,500 stars. Scientists now believe that there are between two and four billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. They also believe that there are between two and three trillion galaxies.
• The small, blue planet we call Earth is about halfway through its life expectancy. In about five billion years the Sun will start to expand into a white giant, expanding beyond the orbit of the planet Earth and evaporating our planet, before it runs out of fuel and becomes a red dwarf, destroying all the other planets in our solar system with it.
• Powerful satellite telescopes like the Hubble and other super telescopes on the ground now enable scientists to be able to discern whether other stars also have planets and solar systems. So far—and they are just getting started on this—they have not found a star without a planet. The number is now something like 3,800 discovered planets or “exoplanets.”  More exoplanet discoveries are being added all the time. While we know so much more now than we did only a few decades ago, there is so much more we do not know or understand. Scientists have observed black holes at the center of galaxies, which provide the gravitation to keep the stars circling around them, but there is so much more to learn about black holes. And the biggest challenge is to understand how and why the Universe is expanding at accelerating speeds when one would think that the gravity of black holes and the gravity caused by the mass of stars would be pulling the celestial bodies in the Universe closer together.  Scientists have postulated the existence of “dark matter” and “dark energy,” which are believed to be  mysterious forces in the Universe. Dark energy, they believe, accounts for the accelerating speed of the expanding Universe. They think these strange, invisible, and unmeasurable forces must be present somehow, but so far, they remain a mystery.
• It is common for galaxies to collide and for a larger galaxy to take over a smaller one resulting in a cataclysmic cosmic event. Our much larger, sister galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy, will swallow up the Milky Way in about five billion years. But that is ok since our Sun will have become a red dwarf by then, and the Earth will have been long gone.
• Scientists also postulate that at some point the Universe will come to end. This will happen in about a trillion years when all the helium and hydrogen, the fuel of the stars, will have run out. Some also have postulated, however, that what we call our Universe is simply one of an infinite number of universes in a Multiverse.
• And finally, the distances between stars and galaxies are so great that we humans on Earth will never be able to know or experience being on these celestial bodies (beyond perhaps some in our solar system) unless we can somehow figure out how to travel at or near the speed of light or even many times greater. How likely is that?

So, what do you make of all this and how does all this affect your understanding of the world? Why should you even care? There is surely enough to worry about right here on Earth.

And what about your religious beliefs? Where does God fit into the picture? What is your understanding of what the word “God” means anyway? Where in the Universe is heaven? Could it be hidden in dark matter? And if there is nothing important going on anywhere else in the vast Universe, what was the point of creating all this “stuff” in the first place—the trillions upon trillions of stars and planets?

Also, science tells us that if a planet has the basic elements in place—hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen—and if it is rocky, and if it is large enough so that gravity can hold its atmosphere in place, and if it is located in the goldilocks zone—not too hot and not too cold—and if water appears, then there is a pretty good chance that nature will do its thing, and given time—a few billion years here and a few billion there– life of some sort will appear and evolve. Maybe not life that looks like us but certainly life. Afterall, we now know that there is virtually no place on Earth where life does not exist. There are large sea worms living miles deep under the ocean where no light appears, and there is life in the pits of active volcanoes. Life can form anywhere if the conditions are right.

And what are the chances that there are planets in the Universe that might meet the threshold for life to exist and where life—possibly advanced life—does exist?

I would put my money on one hundred percent.

The point is, of course, that we don’t know  definitive answers to these questions, and we never will. This is where the questions asked by science and those asked by religion converge.

Some people are bothered by these questions and by the (sometimes partial) answers that science has provided, some of which would appear to be at odds with religious belief. Some people fear that even asking these questions risks falling into despair. Without God how could any of this have happened? Certainly, God must be behind all of this, they argue. The alternative surely would be atheism and resignation that the universe is purposeless and without meaning.

My own response is that it is time for a little humility on the part of us humans. I recall the great Carly Simon song, “You’re So Vain.” We homo sapiens on the planet Earth think we are so important and so smart that we must know all the answers. Please. We are a flawed species that has slogged our way to the top of the food chain and yet are now poised to destroy the very thing that has sustained us.

We need to accept that we will never know or understand the complete picture. We need to accept that this is ok. This should not pose a threat to a fundamental faith that meaning and purpose in life are real and attainable. We humans are by design  hard-wired to ask the question of why and hard-wired to seek meaning on a deeper level that we call spiritual. Some of us are a lot better at this than others. Organized religions have existed for centuries to provide structure for encouraging and facilitating our connections with the spiritual dimension of human life. They provide pathways. As I have said many times: One destination many pathways. Christianity, my religious tradition, points to a pathway of love of neighbor, forgiveness, reconciliation and, I believe, justice and peace on our small planet. This is enough for me; and who knows, just like the scientists who have postulated that dark energy must exist because without it, the universe would not be expanding at accelerating speeds, could one not also argue, that the spiritual dimension of human existence must be real because without it, we would not be fully human?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hey, boss, how come you just shot those two  guys? They didn’t say or  do anything to you did they?

Hell no. But they looked intimidating and  might have if I hadn’t shot ’em first. No worries though. I’ll just claim self defense.

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Reader alert: this post is a serious one.

This week in trying to locate a file hidden somewhere in my computer, this popped up. It was an essay I wrote at least a decade ago about our first child. I decided to share it again.

It was mid-October 1969. We were enjoying a quiet meal in Chapel Hill at the house of two our closest friends, a classmate at the School of City and Regional Planning, and his wife. Actually “enjoying” is probably not the right word. Embry and I were wiped out, having been on pins and needles all day as we nervously sat in the waiting room of University of North Carolina Hospital. Our daughter Katherine–ten and a half months old– was undergoing a heart operation to correct a birth defect.

By early evening we were finally able to relax. Late that afternoon the heart surgeon had appeared briefly with a smile on his face, and our cardiologist emerged to let us know the operation had gone well and that hopes for a recovery were very good. Having dinner with friends was a welcomed relief—almost a victory dinner.

After I graduated from Union Seminary in New York in 1968, we had moved to Chapel Hill where I enrolled in planning school at the University of North Carolina, and Embry had a job working for one of the planning professors as a computer programmer. We lived in rundown house in nearby Carrboro, in an African American neighborhood, close enough to bike to classes and to work.  We loved everything about Chapel Hill— the house and neighborhood, fellow planning students, a good job for Embry, a beautiful campus, a progressive university, and a relaxed, laidback atmosphere.

But most of all we loved Katherine.

Katherine was born Thanksgiving weekend in 1968. Allard Lowenstein, the famous social activist, and his wife,  Jenny,  were staying with us and sleeping on our couch in the living room when Embry went into labor. Around midnight we said a quick goodbye and charged off to Watts Hospital in Durham. Early the next morning Embry gave birth to a six-and-a-half-pound baby girl using hypnosis as a natural childbirth technique.

We were alerted that Katherine had a heart murmur shortly after her birth, but that this did not necessarily mean anything serious since often these symptoms disappear. We agreed we should not worry about it but would let the doctors know if we noticed anything unusual.  To us Katherine seemed perfectly normal. She was a pure delight, and I had never seen Embry happier. Not long after we first met, Embry mentioned casually that she loved children and would like to have at least four—maybe six. And Embry was a loving, joyful mother, beaming most of the time. We were lucky to find a kind woman with infant care experience who provided day care for the newborn children of planning school students. It was certainly one of the happiest times of our lives.

It was when Katherine was about three months old that we first noticed that when she got excited or particularly active, she seemed to turn slightly blue and lose her breath. After a couple of episodes we took her to the cardiologist at the UNC hospital for a series of tests, which revealed that there was in fact  a problem with a heart valve after all, but it did not appear to be imminently  life threatening and was fixable. The cardiologist recommended that if her condition continued to worsen, Katherine should undergo an operation to address the problem temporarily until she got to be somewhat older and could have it fixed permanently through open heart surgery. The operation was called a “Blaylock shunt” and involved rerouting vessels around the heart—a proven procedure with a very high success rate. And the hospital had a good pediatric heart surgeon. Of course, we were apprehensive, but given the diagnosis, generally hopeful and positive—just another one of those hurdles to overcome. It took several months of monitoring the situation and consulting with the cardiologist before the operation finally happened.

That is why when the phone rang at our friend’s house around ten pm just as we were ready to return home, I did not think much about it. “It is for you,” my friend said, turning to me, “and it is the hospital.”

I suddenly felt a cold chill come over me as I took the receiver. The person calling was the cardiologist, who said there had been some complications, and we should immediately come to the hospital. We quickly said our good byes and rushed to the hospital. Neither of us said a word.  We were met at the door by the doctor. He had been such a help to us during the entire experience—a kind and gentle person, who gave you the facts but let you know he was in your corner all the way. By the ashen expression on his face, we knew the news was not good.

The facts were that she had been doing fine– in fact doing so well she had been taken off the ventilator–but that suddenly at some point her heart had stopped. They had tried to revive her, and she was still alive, but things did not look good. There could be irreparable brain damage from lack of oxygen. We sat there in frozen disbelief. He then excused himself. The cardiac surgeon suddenly whisked past us with a frown on his face, did not say a word, and did not look us in the eye.  A few minutes later the cardiologist returned. He had tears in his eyes . Katherine had not made it.

I do not recall much that happened immediately after that. I do not think either of us got much sleep. The next day calls were to be made to family, relatives, and friends. Embry’s parents were on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean.  My parents said they would jump on the first plane.

Embry was despondent. There is something sacred about the bond between an infant and her mother that we men cannot fully understand. When that bond is broken, life for the mother will never be the same.

 I was doing the best I could to try to hold things together, without a great deal of success.

Before he left, the doctor had told me that we had been assigned a chaplain, who wanted to meet with us first thing the next day. Having had my fill of seminary and religion at that point, we had not even entered a church building in Chapel Hill and had no religious connections there.  My fears were confirmed when it turned out that the guy was an evangelical Southern Baptist. I could envision his first comment would be something like this was God’s will and we needed to accept it. Not taking any chances, I blurted out something to the effect that I was a seminary graduate, knew about God and religion, and had actually served as a hospital chaplain myself, and I did not want to hear one word about how this was God’s will. If he even suggested such a thing, I threatened that I would throw him out of the room.

He seemed to understand, blushed, and nodded. He turned out to be kind and supportive and honored my request regarding no religious “explanation.” I later felt guilty about giving him such a hard time at the outset.

When tragedies like this happen, people rally. The very next day food started appearing almost by the hour. Friends stopped by for tearful hugs and embraces.  The phone was constantly ringing. Our living room was full of people almost all the time.  Having family and friends present in situations like this makes all the difference. Nobody has to say a word. Just being there is what counts. The wife of the head of the planning school organized most of the food delivery effort, which resulted in enough food to feed us and our visitors for well over a week.

My parents arrived the next day. It was the first time I believe I ever saw my stalwart father wiping tears from his eyes. It took a couple of more days for Embry’s parents to get from their cruise ship to a plane to  the US and then to Chapel Hill.  I can’t remember all the people since so much remains a blur, but it seemed at the time that most of the people we loved and cared about were either there or with us by phone.  Several of our African American neighbors, whom we really did not know very well, stopped by. Without all the love and support we received, I do not know how we could have pulled through it.

The funeral was held in Davidson, and the idea was to have a small, family, graveside service at the cemetery where Katherine’s ashes would be buried in Embry’s family’s plot. When we arrived in Davidson and went to Embry’s parent’s house, we were astounded to see the living room–and virtually the entire house– packed with my planning school classmates. Practically the entire class was there, occupying every chair with most sitting on the floor. The school must have had to cancel classes.

I remember very little about the service itself except that it was short, and there was no mention that this was the will of God.

Of all the help we received, the most comforting probably came from the cardiologist. He was a real pro who had been through situations like this many times, yet for us there was no hint that he had lost his empathy and compassion. He said one thing that particularly stood out. It is the kind of thing that if said by someone else might be taken as a cheap shot.  But in his case it was profound. “Think about it, “he said in his soft, gentle voice, “Your daughter lived a wonderful though short life. She had loving parents and was until the very end, happy and cared for. In the fullness of time, all life is short. Eleven months?  A hundred years? Of course, on one level there is an enormous difference. But on another level—a more profound human level—the fact that she lived is what is important. For this you can be thankful.”

***

As I reread this account in my 80^th year, I think back about how fortunate we were to have had this child, even if for a short time. Next week Katherine would be celebrating her fifty-third birthday were she alive today. I can’t help wondering what her life would have been like. I wonder where she would have gone to college, whom her friends would have been, what kind of career she might have pursued, whom she might have married, and the children that she might have had. I know deep down that she would have been a kind, loving, and caring person, and that in the end is all that really counts.

I also know that tragedies happen all the time to a lot of people. It is part of the life that we humans must endure. Life on the planet Earth is not easy. It has never been easy; and as we now stare at the face of climate change, racial injustice and emerging authoritarianism, we slog through as best as we can, realizing that we are leaving our children and grandchildren a world with challenges far greater than the ones that we inherited.

But that is just one side of the coin. The other side is the joy we humans experience by simply being alive. We were blessed by our short time with Katherine and have been blessed by so many other things– by the two wonderful children that came after Katherine and their spouses and the four extraordinary grandchildren they have produced, now all teenagers or close to it. We have been blessed by the friends that we have, the careers we have pursued, good health, financial security, and the various pursuits that have enriched our lives—travel, singing, and hands-on volunteer work (Embry)–photography, writing and sailing (me). For all this and simply being alive on the planet Earth for almost 80 years, I am thankful beyond words.

 

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Have a great day in school today, Sweetie! Hey, are those national guard troops entering your building? Is there going to be a parade today?

Nope, pop, the school board is meeting this afternoon in our building.

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Note to readers: Given the length of my recent stories, I realize they are too long for a blog post and am working on gathering them all into a book. So back to Faux News and Fauxtoons.

 

Senator Manchin, I know that in opposing Build-Back-Better you feel you must represent the people of West Virginia where so many of us are poor and struggling. You say you must vote the way we would. But why do you think we would all be against universal pre-K, more affordable health care, paid parental leave, affordable childcare, more affordable housing, and higher wages?  And surely aren’t there  many in our state who, like me, believe that climate change is real and needs to be addressed?

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This story was written shortly after it occurred in the early 1980s and remains one of my favorites. It is all true.

My close encounter with a homeless family occurred in the 1980s in our neighborhood in Washington when a homeless family appeared one cold Saint Patrick’s Day, shivering, in front of our local drugstore.  Embry saw them first; and when I got home, she handed me a stack of blankets and directed me to see what I could do to help.  It was around nine o’clock in the evening, and the wind chill had to have been in the twenties.

I walked over to the drugstore, which was only a few minutes’ walk from our house, where in the dark shadows I saw a young couple and three small children huddled next to the entrance to the drug store. People were walking past them, not making eye contact. It is true that you never know what to do in situations like this. Should you give money to a beggar or not? What good does it really do? But they were not even begging, just sitting on the sidewalk, freezing. Well, I had these blankets, and I had to admit that the family was a pretty pitiful sight. So what do you say? What do you do?

I handed them the blankets and asked where they were planning to spend the night. The husband, probably around thirty, answered with a thick Spanish accent, “Church, señor.” Thank God, I thought. The idea of them freezing was bad enough, but the thought of them ending up in our house was out of the question. We all have limits. The very idea of a homeless family actually moving into our house sent chills down my spine—especially since my parents were planning to visit us and would arrive in about a week.

While I suspected he was not telling the truth, I was conflicted. I just couldn’t abandon them to the elements, but I surely could not invite them to spend the cold night in our house. So I came up with a brilliant compromise. They would have to be on their own for this night, but gong forward I could help. What they needed was money. I could give them money, but that would be condescending and not long lasting. What they needed even more was employment. I thought for a moment.  Our house always needed work. Maybe the guy could do a little painting. When I asked if he could paint, he nodded enthusiastically, yes, and we agreed to a plan. He would come by the next day, a Saturday, return the blankets, and I would pay him to do a little painting. I suggested he come by around mid morning and gave him our address. I smiled as I returned home and reported the successful outcome to Embry.

At six am the next day, we were awakened by a loud banging on the front door. I had no idea who could be knocking on our door so early on a Saturday, stumbled out of bed, and inched my way down the stairs trying to see who it might be. It was the homeless family. In the dawn I was able to get a better look at them. The guy was short and stocky and had a big mustache; and his wife had dark hair and rather pretty. She had the features of a native American and was quite pregnant. The three little ones in tow looked to me like they were about four, two and a few months old.

 “Here to paint, señor!”

“Well, yes, but it is a bit early…”

I was right. They really did not have a place to stay that night and ended up spending the night on the street. The guy’s name was José, and his wife was named Rosa. Rosa said that her husband was from El Salvador and she was part Sioux and part Seminole and grew up in New Mexico. They were very appreciative for the blankets, which she said probably saved their lives. She went on to say that they had found a place they could rent for $250 a month, which required a deposit. But they were flat broke. It was hard to understand José with his thick accent, but Rosa usually translated in understandable English. Oddly, she would repeat to José what I said in English, not Spanish.

Okay, I thought, we at least have a baseline number to work from. If I could give José a painting job for $250, that would solve the housing problem. They could put down the deposit for the apartment. There was still an issue regarding food, but at least they would have a roof over their heads, and it would be a start. So, I proposed to José that he paint our master bedroom for $250 and that I would even advance him the money so that he could secure the apartment that day.  And I also agreed to buy all the painting supplies. I had recent estimates for painting a room, and the $250 I negotiated was about the right number. Pretty fair deal—we would get a room painted, and José and his family would get shelter and a start on the road to employment.

Day One started off well. Andrew, our seventeen year old son, and his thirteen year old sister, Jessica, were a bit puzzled to find a rag tag family in our living room when they came down for breakfast but seemed to understand what was going on and why we were doing this. I took José to the hardware store where we got all the supplies; and he enthusiastically started to paint the bedroom while his wife watched the children, who by now were running, crawling or toddling around the house terrifying our dog and cat. Shortly after lunch everyone disappeared, presumably to put down the $250 on the apartment.

By six o’clock they had not returned, and I naturally assumed they were warmly tucked away in their new apartment. In fact, I was feeling so good about the situation, I offered to treat everyone to pizza at one of our neighborhood restaurants. As the four of us munched away, I used the occasion as a teaching moment. I had always tried to be a role model for our children, to set an example. I pointed out how I was empowering this poor, homeless family and not just giving them a handout, how actions like this could change the world, and how proud they should be to have a father who really got it, who understood how to make a positive impact in the world.

I noticed some skeptical, puzzled looks but got generally approving nods.

On the way back home, as I turned into our driveway, I almost ran into the back of a car with the motor running, parked in our driveway. On the back window was a sticker which read “Dartmouth College.” I figured the car belonged to a friend of the teenage children of our neighbors, who were always blocking the shared driveway. After muttering a few curse words, I got out of my car and walked over to the car with the Dartmouth College sticker.  As I got closer, I could see that two people were in the front seat and several smaller bodies were squirming around in the back. It was José. What was he doing with this car? Why was he in our driveway?

“Oh, just parking, señor,” he cheerfully replied. His children were crying and whimpering  in the back seat.

“But where did you get the car?”

His wife translated his broken English, “He says he bought it today. Good value. $250 down.”

Well, so much for the nice, cozy apartment. But where were they going to sleep tonight? His wife said that they were going to sleep in the car but added that it was bitter cold and that she was afraid the children would get sick.

Okay, back to square one. In the course of history many decisions have been made that upon historical reflection and hindsight were strategic errors. They were decisions that set a course of action which no one had predicted but that would ultimately result in tragic failure. Napoleon’s foray into Russia, resulting in Waterloo, comes to mind. The start of World War I. The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. There are many. The decision I was about to make falls into this category.

I took a deep breath and asked timidly, “Well, why don’t you just stay here for the night?” My family had remained in our car and were observing the action with great interest.

José protested unconvincingly that sleeping in the car was fine. His wife pleaded for him to let them come in; and before I could walk back to my car to fill everyone in on what was happening, the entire family was on our front porch, shivering and anxious to get in. “God bless, God bless,” said Rosa several times. The dye was cast.

This happened on the evening of Day One. There are two things you need to know. First, Embry was leaving on Sunday, the very next day, for a business trip to California and taking Jessica with her and would not return for several days. Second, my parents were arriving the day after Embry and Jessica returned to spend the week before Easter with us as was their custom. They had nonrefundable plane tickets. My parents were wonderful, tolerant people, but they were also of the older generation. To cohabitate with a homeless family would have sent them to an early grave. But on that cold Saturday evening, all that seemed in the distant future.

So, on Day Two, on Sunday afternoon, I took Embry and Jessica to the airport. We talked about the situation at length in the car. That morning Rosa had confided to Jessica that she was terrified of her husband, that he beat her constantly and that she had to escape. Jessica considered giving her all her savings from odd jobs. Both Embry and Jessica were very supportive and understanding. But they both were headed to sunny California. Their last words of encouragement were that they hoped I would be able to work it all out. I grimly headed back to the house.

I had offered the homeless family the use of our bedroom in the basement, which we used as a guest room and where my parents usually stayed. That is where the homeless family slept, but when I got home it was obvious that they had the run of the house. The living room was a wreck, and the house had the smell of a zoo with soiled pampers rolled up in virtually every available wastebasket.  Andrew had disappeared as had our dog and cat. I concluded that my best hope for survival was to avoid the house as much as possible. I went directly to the bedroom, shut the door and collapsed in bed. I could not help noticing that only a very small portion of one wall had been painted and that no progress had been made since around ten o’clock when he started. José was not even at the house when I returned.

The next day, Day Three, I got up as early as possible, left a note that I hoped José would finish the work that day. If the house was a wreck on Day Two, on the morning of Day Three it was in shambles. Having a bowl of cereal—the only food I could find in the house–I bumped into Andrew, who was getting ready to leave for school.

“Dad,” he said cheerfully. “I think what you are doing is really good, and I support it. When you get it all worked out and the family is gone, let me know. Until then I am moving in with Bronson.” Bronson was Andrew’s best friend.

Okay, I could understand that. So now it was just me, José and his family. Day Three was not getting off to a good start. I tore up the note and rewrote it saying that the job had to get done now or else. I returned home at the end of Day Three around nine in the evening, anxious to see what work had been done in the master bedroom.  The homeless family did not seem to be around, and there was a note scribbled on a typewriter sheet taped to the bedroom door. “Dad, I don’t think you want to go in here. See you when it’s over. Love, Andrew.” He must have had to come back to pick up something.

With a trembling hand I slowly opened the door. The room looked like it had been hit by a tornado. José had taken all my clothes out of the closet and thrown them on the bed; and in painting the room, he had splattered paint everywhere—on the bed, on the rug, on the floor, and most unfortunate, on all my clothes. He had poured the paint into a pan in order to use a roller, and the animals had walked across the pan leaving paw prints everywhere. This was actually a positive sign that the pets were still alive since I had no idea where they were hiding. Well, I had to admit: José had gotten the message, he was finally painting the room. I guessed he was about half finished. I slept in Andrew’s room in the attic where to my relief I found both the dog and the cat cowering in the corner.

So, on the morning of Day Four I admitted that I had a problem. I remember hearing somewhere that the first step in any 12-step recovery program is to fess up, to realize your shortcomings, then to act. I also was aware that on or about Day Eight, my parents would arrive. Should the homeless family still be ensconced in the Howell house at that time, it would be a nuclear event, as in nuclear bomb. The clock was ticketing.

I conferred with several of my colleagues at work. After all, I was a consultant in developing affordable housing. We should know how to handle homeless issues, right? Everyone suggested that I should get them into a homeless shelter. The problem was that at that time there were few options in D.C. for homeless families, only for homeless single people. With some calls I determined that there was one shelter for homeless families called “The Pitts.” Since it was in a decent neighborhood not too far from our house, I decided to drive over and give it a look. The name was derived from its former use, “The Pitts Hotel,” and someone I talked to in my search described it as something of a stop gap measure, “not in the best of shape.” That was putting it mildly. Its name said it all. The building was rundown and decrepit with paint coming off the sides, a couple of broken windows, trash everywhere, and graffiti on the walls.

I paused and looked at it again: “Hey,” I said to myself, “looks like a pretty good option to me.”

So, when I got home, I was pleased to find José, though he did not appear to be doing any painting and the room remained as I had left it–half painted except my clothes, now quite colorful with blue and green splotches, had been moved to the floor.

“José,” I replied, “Have you ever considered living in a homeless shelter? I understand that many are quite nice. In fact there is one very near here, the Pitts.”

“No Pitts, man, no shelter. Shelter no good.”

I encouraged him to be open minded and told him I was making a call to the Pitts to see if they have any openings.  A pleasant enough person answered the phone and replied that they did have room for homeless families. I explained that I had a very nice family temporarily living with me and would like to bring them over to look at the place.

“Well, don’t waste your time,” she exclaimed, “We are not taking the Chavez family. They are disruptive and we have already evicted them twice. They are banned from the premises forever.”

I was stunned. She had not even given me a chance to provide additional information about the family. “Wait a minute,” I argued, “I didn’t say who they were. I don’t even know what their last name is.”

The woman replied in a weary and borderline sarcastic tone, “The guy, is he a Mexican with a mustache and short?”

He was from El Salvador, but he was short and had a mustache.

“Wife, some kind of American Indian, pregnant?”

“Well, yes.”

“Three tiny kids?”

“Now hold on one minute.” I turned to José. “José, what is your last name?”

“Chavez.”

I sadly reported to her that it did seem to be the Chavez family after all. She told me not to feel too bad since I was the fifth family who had tried to bring them in over the past year. “Where do you live anyway, Georgetown?”  I told her Cleveland Park.

 “That figures, “she said, “But Georgetown is their favorite.”

When I asked her how I could get them out of my house, she said except for the Pitts, there were no shelters for homeless families with vacancies in D.C.; and if there were, they would not take the Chavez family. They were blacklisted. Maybe I should try one of the surrounding counties where the family was not known.

I thanked her for her time and immediately called Fairfax County, explaining that I had a very nice, temporarily homeless family staying with me and wondered if they had space available. “Absolutely,” she replied proudly, “Fairfax County has a brand-new facility, state of the art, and there is plenty of room. Bring them in.”

I felt an enormous weight lifted from my shoulders. Thank God, I thought, at last a break. I told her I would bring them by in about an hour. All she needed was a little information starting with my address. When I told her I lived on Macomb Street, she paused for a moment and said that it did not seem like a Fairfax County address. I told her it was in D.C.

“Sorry, we only take homeless Fairfax County families. You must take them to a shelter in D.C. You will find that policy applies everywhere.”

 I explained my desperate situation, to which she volunteered, “Well, you can bring them across the bridge and then dump them. Then call 911 and high tail it back to D.C. They will probably end up here that way.”

And that is how Day Four ended. Work on the room continued to be at a standstill.

The next day, Day Five, when I briefed my colleagues at the office on the latest events, someone gave me the name of a good landlord/tenant lawyer, whom I called immediately. I explained the situation and asked him what my options were. The key issue, he said, is whether I actually invited them into my house. Well, yes, I told him that it was very cold, and I did actually invite them in.

“Bottom line, sir, they own your house. We have the strongest tenant-favored laws in the nation in Washington; and if you invite them in, they stay until they are ready to leave. Even if the law were in your favor, it would take six months to get to a judge to rule, and he would probably rule against you. They are now yours, baby.”

I am not sure whether I had ever experienced a panic attack before, but what I was feeling then was something between a heart attack and a nervous breakdown. I considered calling 911.

That was pretty much the end of Day Five. I returned home around nine, avoided the Chavez family, fed the pets in the upstairs attic, walked the dog, avoided opening the door to the master bedroom, and collapsed in Andrew’s bed, hoping I would wake up the next day to find that all this was just a bizarre nightmare.

On Day Six, I awoke somewhat refreshed but with the somber realization that I had only two days to get them out of the house by whatever means necessary. I took off from work. My sole objective was to make this happen, recognizing that I had virtually nothing left in my arsenal. I had no option but to throw myself at José’s feet and beg for mercy.

Around ten am José wandered upstairs with a paint brush in hand. This was a good sign. When I asked him if he thought he would be able to finish he muttered something about stopping work. Rosa, who accompanied him up the stairs, replied that because he had not been paid, he was stopping work.

“Not been paid? I gave José $250 and have nothing to show for it except ruined clothes!”

José mumbled something else, then translated by Rosa.

“True,” she agreed, “but my husband says he has worked more hours and needs more money to finish.”

 Enraged, I regained my self control and told Rosa to tell him I would pay him $12 an hour to finish up.

Hearing that, José screamed at me, “$12 an hour? You no good sheet! You are a no good sheet! $18 an hour they pay in California!”

Rosa translated, “He says you are a no-good shit.”

“Okay, forget the hourly rate. Let’s discuss how much money total it will take for you to finish up the room and clean up everything.”

 José calmed down and did some calculations in his head and said something in Spanish. His wife translated that it would be $1,500.

This time it was my turn to lose it. I exploded. “This is a complete outrage! I got an estimate a month ago to paint the room from a professional painter, and it was $250. I have already paid you $250, and what do I have? The room is only half painted. Paint is everywhere—on the rugs, the floor, my clothes are ruined. You have eaten me out of house and home. Soiled pampers are in every corner of the house. The house is a complete wreck. My dog and cat are hiding in terror. My wife has left me. My daughter has left me. My son has left me. And even if I had $1,500 in the bank to give you, which I do not have, I wouldn’t give it to you. You have destroyed my life….” I was trembling before I finished.

I am not sure how much he could understand. But he turned his back and charged down the stairs. Rosa followed him then returned to inform me that I had hurt his feelings. I sat at the top of the stairs, alone, feeling a little better that I had gotten it off my chest, though as a practical matter I was still in deep trouble. The nuclear event was now on a three-day countdown mode.

A few minutes later, he trudged up the stairs with Rosa. “Okay, señor, $1,000, I finish paint.”

“Do you swear, do you swear on a Bible and on your mother’s grave…” I really had no idea what this meant, but it sounded like it might mean something to a Salvadorian. “Do you swear on your mother’s grave that you will finish and clean up everything and be out of this house by Sunday at the latest? Do you swear?”

The “mother’s grave” part must have worked. He nodded, yes.

I breathed a deep sigh. At last, we seemed to be getting somewhere.

He wanted the cash in advance, so I raced to the ATM a block from our house and took out all the money allowed, $400. I was panting as I charged up the stairs to the bedroom, then handed the money to José. Jose shouted something in Spanish, which Rosa translated as “He wants payment in full or he won’t work. He does not trust you.”

“He does not trust me?” I shouted back. “Tell him that is all the money the bank will let me take out and they are not open on Sundays. Tell him I am going to call the police, tell him I am going crazy, tell him I am at the end of my rope, tell him….” I was almost weeping before I had finished.

Rosa looked at me with an expression of shock and compassion. She was beginning to get the gist of how serious this had become. She patted me on my wrist and took the hand of José, who was still fuming, and led him to the other bedroom where they huddled for a few minutes, whispering. When they returned, she smiled and said, “Okay. He will do it.” Frowning, José put the $400 in his pocket and then tromped down the stairs.

Rosa assured me it was fine, that Jose had gone to get a friend to help.

I returned to the half-painted bedroom, sat down on the paint-splattered bead and waited with my head in my hands.

About an hour later José returned, this time smiling, with a friend, who miraculously actually knew how to paint. Four hours later the job was finished, and the room mostly cleaned up.

The only problem was that José wanted the $600 balance, which I explained to Rosa that I would get to him as soon as the banks opened on Monday. That set him off again as he went into his “you no good sheet” routine, but Rosa managed to calm him down and drag him off to their car parked in my driveway. I had no idea where they would be staying, but they packed up their clothes and with the kids in tow hopped in the car and drove off.

For the first time in almost a week I could feel a smile come over my face and tossing a used pamper in the waste basket collapsed on the couch in the living room.

The next morning, Day Seven, José banged on the door at six and I stumbled down the stairs and told him to wait until the bank opened. He sat down in the swing on our front porch until nine when we went to the bank to get the balance I owed him, which he stuffed in his pocket and then stomped off not saying a word, which I considered a victory of sorts since he did not call me a “no good sheet.”

That afternoon Embry and Jessica returned from California, Andrew returned from his friend’s house, and our pets ventured downstairs for the first time in a week. Working together we managed to straighten and clean up the ransacked house hours before my parents arrived the next afternoon for their Easter visit. I do not recall that we said a word to them about the Chavez family or how unknowingly they had dodged a bullet.

Life returned to normal on Macomb Street.  However, this was the last time I invited a homeless family to stay in our home.

But I am sad to report that life was not so good for the Chavez family, whom I saw upon occasion pan handling on various street corners downtown. When spotting them I either turned around and walked in the opposite direction or jaywalked to the other side of the street. They finally even made the news when a story appeared in the Style Section of the Washington Post, “Whatever Happened to the Chavez Family?” which was not complimentary and essentially accused the parents of child abuse. Shortly after that they disappeared from the downtown sidewalks. I have no idea what happened but fear the ending for them was not a happy one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Here is installment two. I wrote this in 1981 following the incident which you are about to read. Some 40 years later I remember every detail like it happened yesterday.

 

Okay, I admit it: I have yearned for respect most of my adult life and have watched others being honored hoping one day I too might have such an opportunity.

Of course, being honored does not happen often to anyone, but the opportunity happened to me in the hot summer of 1981.

It all started with a phone call from an acquaintance from my former job where I worked as a developer of affordable housing. I hardly knew the guy, but he got right to the point. “Joe,  I  just wanted to call and tell you how much I respect you and how important you were to me when we worked together.”

I couldn’t believe it. Me? Important to a guy I really didn’t know? It just goes to show, you never know when you are having a positive influence on someone. 

He went on to say that he respected and liked me so much, he was having a party in my honor and was going to invite a lot of his housing friends and people at HUD. It was going to be fun—but it was not just for me, it was also for my wife–and there would not be a party unless we both could attend. He had never met Embry and I do not believe even knew her name.

“The party is going to be on Wednesday, July 18. Can you and your wife make it?”

 I checked with Embry. I could make it. She couldn’t. I was disappointed. Here was a guy having a party in my honor, and I couldn’t make it. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity lost. I expressed my regrets, thinking how wonderful it would have been to be the center of attention.

“Oh, that’s ok, we can move it to the next Wednesday,”   he cheerfully replied.

The guy wouldn’t give up. I must have had quite an influence on him. The conversation went on like this with several other dates proposed until we found one that worked. Wednesday, August 9. Oddly, all the dates suggested were Wednesdays. His last words were that it was really going to be fun, that I would meet a lot of affordable housing people, and that it was very, very important that we get there on time and that my wife accompany me.  He gave me the address of his apartment, conveniently located only a couple of miles from our house in northwest Washington.

Since the party was almost a month away, I did not give it a great deal of thought, though when I did, I could not conceal my pride and sense of satisfaction. Being honored like this does not happen to many people. It was not that I did not deserve this kind of recognition. It is just that  it had never happened.

About a week before the event, my excitement was starting to build. I got a call from my friend reminding me of the party in my honor and verifying that both I and my wife would be present and on time. He stressed that we should be there at seven at the latest.

There are two other things that you should know. First, I had just started up my own consulting practice (in affordable and seniors housing) and was desperate for clients; and second, August 9, 1981, the day of the party, could well have been the hottest and most unpleasant day in the history of Washington, with sweltering humidity and temperatures near 100 degrees.

The reason the first fact is important is that on that day I was in New York City consulting with one of my few clients. I had planned to catch the two o’clock shuttle flight allowing me to get home in plenty of time for the party. My client asked if I could stay another day to finish the  work on the assignment. Rule number one in consulting: you never turn down a client’s request, especially if he is your only client. I turned him down. I could not miss the party in my honor, after all the planning that must have gone into it. I just could not do this to my friend or, for that matter, to myself. I caught the two pm shuttle, which was delayed, but did get into National Airport around five-thirty, allowing time to get home, take a shower, get dressed and still make it by seven. But I had to hurry. I did not have a minute to waste

I told the cab driver to step on it, arrived home around six, and stumbled out of the air-conditioned cab. The heat almost knocked me out. I raced up our front stairs, announcing that I was home and that we had only minutes to get ready. There was no answer. Embry was nowhere to be found. Puzzling, I thought. Before I had left for my business trip, I had reminded her how important the event was and how we had to be on time. Oh well, I thought, she will surely be here soon. The babysitter showed up minutes later.

At six-thirty I was showered, dressed, and ready to go. It would take about fifteen minutes to get to his apartment, plenty of time. No Embry. At six forty-five, still no Embry. By this time I was pacing the floor of our front porch scanning the sidewalk, sweating, and furious. How could she do this to me? At exactly five minutes to seven, I saw her. She was smiling, with our six-year-old daughter in tow and had on her swimming suit. They had been for a refreshing swim at the neighborhood pool.  She was casually walking toward the house.

“Do you  know what time it is and where we have to be?” I must have sounded desperate. Several passersby on the sidewalk gave me a puzzled look. Embry’s smile changed to a puzzled frown.

“What’s the big deal? It is unbearably hot. We went to the pool.” she said, “I’ll be ready in a couple of minutes….”

A couple of minutes? I was ruined. It was already seven, and we would be at least a half hour late. I can’t remember exactly what I said to her next, but she replied, “Are you crazy? You don’t even know this guy!”

Around seven-thirty she reappeared. By this time I had calmed down a bit, realizing that the damage had been done, and there was nothing I could do about it. Maybe my friend would be a little upset, but it was not the end of the world.  I jumped in the car and motioned to Embry  to get in. How could she be so slow? I stepped on the gas as we raced up Connecticut Avenue, thankful that there were no cops around to nail us for speeding. We did not say one word to each other on the way to the party.

Now that we were finally moving, I was finally able to relax a bit. I envisioned what it would be like when we did arrive. We would be warmly greeted. My friend would introduce us to everyone. There would be a presentation where he would say a lot of nice things about me. There would be great food, beer and wine, and probably some good music in the background. I would feign humility and bask in the limelight, maybe even say a few words myself. All would be good. I managed to smile at Embry, who despite her look of bewilderment, managed to smile back.

I had his address on a sheet of paper—an apartment building on Connecticut Avenue, apartment 603. We pulled into a side street, found a parking space; and I leaped out of the car, pulling Embry along. Panting, we arrived at the front door of the apartment building, which thankfully was unlocked.  It was now almost eight, and the elevator took forever to get down to the first floor. As the elevator door opened on floor six, I bounded toward apartment 603 and found it only a few doors away. Oddly, there was no sound coming from inside the apartment—no noise or laughter or music. I must have written down the address wrong. I paused for a long moment. Embry suggested I should just knock and see what would happen.

I knocked. The door opened immediately, and we gazed into a room packed with probably thirty or forty people, all stone silent and sitting on the floor. The room was suffocating. Air conditioners are not equipped to cool an apartment packed with people when it is over 100 degrees outside. All eyes turned to us. There was a man standing in front of the group, probably around 40, and wearing a dark suit and tie. He had a dead serious look on his face. My friend was nowhere to be seen.

“The Howells I presume?” he said in a sarcastic tone, “We have your place reserved on the front row. You are one hour late.”

My friend suddenly appeared and escorted us to a spot in the front as we tried to avoid stepping on anyone. We sat down on the floor as people shuffled around trying to make room for us.

 I had no idea what was happening or where we were. I immediately thought of Franz Kafka. Was this some kind of purgatory? Was this a bad joke? Was it some kind of torture? Was it a precursor to an execution? Or was it just a nightmare, which would fade into memory when I woke up?

 Confused, I could not focus on what the guy was saying.

After a couple of minutes, I did begin to get my wits about me and was able to see what he was doing. He had an easel and was drawing a pyramid with dollar signs all over it.

Wait a minute! I had seen this picture before. An out-of-town, old friend from high school had showed up at our house a few years before, supposedly for dinner, but had immediately brought in an easel on which he drew a pyramid with dollar signs and insisted on talking about some hair-brained, get rich scheme selling toothpaste and laundry detergent. I had told him I had no interest in selling toothpaste or laundry detergent. He said, I didn’t have to sell anything, just enlist six friends, and I would be guaranteed riches.  He was representing a company I had never heard of called Amway. When I told him we were not interested in riches and that we should just have dinner and talk about old times, he left in a huff, not even staying for dinner. Embry thought the guy was nuts. I never saw or heard from him again.

What I was watching seemed all too familiar.

I quietly turned to the woman next to me, who seemed to be spellbound by whatever the presenter in the dark suit was saying, and asked in a whisper, “Amway?”

She nodded yes, smiling.

I glanced briefly at Embry. Initially she had a horrified look on her face, quickly changing to a devilish grin.

Then in a stage whisper heard by everyone in the room, she exclaimed with the voice of authority: “Joe Howell, I have been married to you for a long time and I have put up with a lot of shit, but I am not putting up with this shit for one instant.” She stood up and headed for the door.

There was a hushed silence. Then everyone stared at me. The presenter looked as if he did not know what to do.

Without a moment’s hesitation, I stood up , waved my hand, and with an embarrassed smile managed to say, “Bye bye,” then bolted for the door, trying not to step on anyone.

Someone opened the door but not before I was able to notice the look of horror on the face of my friend. The door slammed shut, and Embry and I stood alone in the dim hallway. We looked at each other for a moment and burst out laughing.

So much for being respected and honored, I thought. But life could be a lot worse. I could be selling toothpaste and laundry detergent.

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