Self Isolation sucks (4/27/2020)

I am an introvert. At least that is what all the tests tell me. By now in my sixth week of self-isolation I am starting to wonder if I am a charlatan, a master in fooling all these tests and if I am really an extrovert. I am sick and tired of being stuck at home. Yes, I go on daily walks around the neighborhood with my dogs and say hello the regular folks: dog walkers, exercisers and alike, social distancing of course. However, I can still count on both hands how many times I actually left home in my car and mingled among others.

Except for two restaurants take outs and three visits to the hardware store, it seems that the other visits I make are to my local Kroger store (the supermarket). I put on a mask get my Purell and go get bananas for my father-in-law, and while I am there, I might as well do some shopping for our own pantry. In all these stores you get to see people, but even there is no real interaction with these folks. You do not know if they laugh, smile frown, at least if they wear a mask. You avoid everyone like the plague; like ships passing in the dark. With the exception of the one lady who ran a shopping cart into my back and this young kid who could not help all the sudden stop in from of me and then when I passed him he stated coughing and he did not have a mask on. The other day I was struck by the idea, that finally an enterprising sixteen-year-old with a grey wig, a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, and a bandanna can finally buy beer at a grocery store with a self-checkout line.

I would say that 50 to 60% of the people at a grocery store or hardware store wear masks, and what amazes me is that most folks that wear masks are either older, which is good, or appear in good physical shape. Walking around these stores I look over the ones that do not wear a mask and many appear to be in their 40s and 50s and heavily overweight; struggling to walk. I cannot help thinking: “another dead man or woman walking.” If they do not have diabetes or heart trouble, they will soon have it and that is the population most affected by Covid-19.

But back to the extrovert introvert controversy. I like my solitude, being alone strolling along in nature in the woods; but I do miss that human interaction, the human touch, the exploring of new things. That is what I am missing after 6 weeks. Yes, I have my wife at home, but that is not enough. Introverts do like to be among humans, but it tires them out after a while, after which they need to recharge somehow by solitude. But solitude is different than being alone. Solitude is good, alone is not (I wrote about that in this post). I am wondering how many people are alone, these days; even when they are living with others.

Solitude is where you find solace. I find my solace from being with my bonsais, from walking in the woods, being out in nature, sailing, blogging, or even .just driving the backroads, all activities I do in solitude or that I can do with my wife. The problem is I have not been sailing much, for my blogging I need to get out and experience life, and self-isolation is not conducive to that or to aimlessly driving the back roads. While I can still enjoy retreating in the woods, I usually do not seek solace there. I do it because I am an introvert, a naturalist, a lover of nature and because of my nature deficit disorder. However, at times, I definitely have retreated into the solitude of the woods when I was sad and worried, in search of solace. But of late it is my little trees where I get lost in and dream about how to develop them, watching them as every leaf come out.

This is an azalea that I dug up from our yard last year.  It was planted by the previous owner more than 20 years ago.  It never bloomed, was abused by deer and was less than 5 inches tall.  This is the second spring in this pot and it is awarding me with this blossom.  After flowering it is training time for this plant.   

My Sermon (2): Liberation (4/5/2020)

As part of a group that takes a sermon writing class at our Unitarian Church, I am asked occasionally if I present a sermon on the days that our minister is either off or has a commitment elsewhere.  I relented and said I would do one.  Originally I was thinking of presenting a sermon on growing bonsai and spiritual growth and church growth; however, when the request came out, they asked me if I could do something on liberation.

So here it is:

It started with a low rumble in the distance which progressively grew louder. Of late this had been an ominous sign of another impending raid by marauding soldiers trying to escape north to the Sudan in advance of the liberators who were in the process of overthrowing the current government of the country. I remember it like yesterday, being liberated. 

Let me set the stage, it was May 1979 and my wife Donna, and I were living and working at a Leprosy Center in the eastern part of Uganda, a country that had been ruled by the ruthless dictator Idi Amin. We had been in the country for over a year, and I had been working at the Leprosy Center as a Farm Manager, managing a 2500-acre dairy farm, with close to a 1000 head of cattle, that was part of the Center. In January of that year, rebels with the assistance of Tanzania to the south had invaded the country in an effort to overthrow the government. In April, I think it was actually on Donna’s birthday or just before that, did Uganda’s capital Kampala fall. The Amin army fell apart, deserted and tried to flee to the Sudan to the north. The problem was our Leprosy Center was located just off the major highway to Sudan. We had been unable to evacuate in time and we were stuck at the center. During the past weeks we had been subject to the looting and harassment sprees of these fleeing soldiers. Moreover, while under siege for the past month to a month and a half we were running out of all things essential (sounds familiar?) and had to live on one candle a night; two or three matches a day; we only ate sweet potatoes and eggs three times a day; drank rainwater and locally distilled moonshine. I’m amazed that I still have a liver and my eyesight. 

Hearing the vehicles approaching in the distance meant that we needed to get ready to deal with another wave of obnoxious soldiers (corner me over a beer one of these days and I can tell you some stories, but this is not the place today) when all the sudden tanks and jeeps rolled in, very unlike the deserters who came in with stolen ramshackle cars. Here they announced that they were the liberators, the Tanzanians! It was unbelievable feeling of relief that moment, being liberated, we laughed, we cried, we knew we had made it. Let me tell you, there had been moments the past month that we thought we were not going to survive it. Really, being liberated never felt so good. On top of that, the evening of our liberation Radio Netherlands read an announcement over the shortwave radio in which it told the listeners that we were missing in Uganda and asked anyone who had heard of us or seen us to call the Netherlands foreign office, but that they feared the worst. 

But, we were liberated and we were alive, we could live again without fear! Almost everybody was rejoicing and celebrating; and that night we burned two candles and had a small get-together, followed by a center-wide party the weekend following. 

During that party, the flood gates opened, the people were finally able to express what they thought of Idi Amin’s reign and the past 10 years they had lived through. We heard more horror stories about the oppression, the difference between the haves and the have nots, how you could not even trust your closest relative, because they could rat you out and that could cost you your life. 

Living in Uganda and working with lepers, we were working with a part of society that were outcasts and heavily discriminated against. Nowadays we would call this social justice. Social justice is not a new thing, but unbeknownst to us we were practicing it. We were not using those words; we were there to help. Some could ask me why the hell we put ourselves in such danger to serve and work with these folks. It was a combination of a lot of things including compassion, empathy, naivety, and the thirst for adventure. I have always been a teacher at heart and in my way, I also was there to observe and teach. While we had already learned a lot about the difference between the ruling class and the common folks, it was then and there that we really appreciated the importance of liberty and being liberated. 

The center where we worked was sponsored by the Church of England and the local Bishop was on our board. He was a regular visitor to the center; however, he would return to his Ivory Tower after his visits. 

Other religious folks we encountered were the Dutch catholic priest and the Italian nuns. Those Catholics were a different breed all together. One of our favorite story was about father Meindert van Acht, the brother of the Dutch prime minister at the time, who we frequently visited. One day, just after we arrived at his remote village on the slopes of Mount Elgon, a 14,000-foot-tall volcano located between Uganda and Kenya, we sat on his porch and watched him exiting his church. He had just finished mass. There he came, walking towards us with the bible under one arm and a crowbar under the other, a sight to behold, a priest, the brother of the second most important person of the Netherlands, in a tattered and torn robe with these two items under his arms. We never asked him if and if so, how, he used the crowbar in his service. 

Father Meindert had one request, which was that he did not want any visitors on Tuesdays because that was his weekly whiskey night, so he did not need an excuse to drink. All other days were great. The guest room was always open, and, in the evening, he would break out the mass wine or some additional whiskey for his visitors and himself. During visit with the Italian nuns at a Leprosy Center in Jinja in north central Uganda we always enjoyed fine Italian wines and good conversation. 

But it was not always fun and games or drinking to excess. It was a form of stress relief in a country where it was very difficult to work in. It was a country where we saw a lot of murders, assassinations, political and social injustice, and where we all tried to work with those folks who were oppressed and looked down upon. We youngsters, in our early and mid-20s, were in awe at what the missionaries were doing, how they were living, coping, and surviving. They lived alone; we were in a group of 6 Dutch folks who could give each other at least some mutual support. They were outwardly happy, content, even keeled and at peace with themselves and their god. I guess that is what their belief did to them. 

In those days we had not yet learned about those words “social justice” or another word called “liberation theology” that Father Meindert and his compatriots were practicing in the villages of Uganda or elsewhere in the developing world. 

Liberation Theology was first introduced by the Uruguayan Priest Juan Luis Segundo Gutiérrez in 1971. In his book “A Theology of Liberation” Gutiérrez proposed that the true task of theology was not to declare pristine abstract truths, rather ‘only by doing this truth will our faith be “verified.”’ At that time Gutiérrez and other liberation theologists in Africa, Central and South America were struggling to bridge the gulf between divine justice and social justice, trying to address the reality of human suffering and confront their own discipline. Some of them were trying to approach the Bible from the perspective of the powerless. 

In the opinion of the liberation theologists, the church should be a movement for those who were denied their rights and plunged into such poverty. Folk that were deprived of their full status as human beings. Liberation theologists were of the opinion that the poor should take the example of Jesus and use it to bring about a just society. 

A common way in which priests and nuns showed their solidarity with the poor was to move from religious houses into poverty-stricken areas to share the living conditions of their flock. The nuns that operated the leprosy center in Jinja and the Dutch fathers that were operating the boys orphanage in Mbale a town to the south of us or father Meindert on Mount Elgon, were working with folks that were either down on their luck, from a tribe that was on the fringes of society, the poor and the sick, or just simple outcasts. They were not the pious religious priests from my memory growing up on a Caribbean island, but real down to earth people who served the communities they were working in. They were not there to save souls; at least they never expressed that to us. 

Regretfully, we did see some missionaries from some other denominations in Kenya whose interest seemed only to be there to save souls in an effort to stroke themselves, somehow still living in their ivory tower, and seemed less interested in social justice. 

Most controversially, the Liberationists said the church should act to bring about social change and should ally itself with the working class to do so. Some radical priests became involved in politics and trade unions; others even aligned themselves with violent revolutionary movements. They were often accused of spreading or at least preaching the revolution, socialism or even worse, communism. As the Argentine theologian José Míguez Bonino said it was the revolutionary challenge of those who boldly proclaimed: “Jesus Christ is Che Guevara.” Liberation theologists were often not accepted by their regular church and told to shape up. Some tried to moderate it a bit with statements such as: “love for the poor should be preferential, not exclusive.” Things finally changed a little bit with the new Pope who led a less opulent lifestyle and paid more attention to the poor and sick. 

Although we live in a free country, even here in the US there are different levels of being free, isn’t there? If you are white, have money and often if you are male (especially a white male), you seem to be freer then others. It should therefore not be a surprise that even here in the U.S. liberation theology took root. The Protestant African-American theologian James Cone wrote in his 1970 book entitled A Black Theology of Liberation: ‘If God is not for us, if God is not against white racists, then God is a murderer and we had better kill God.’ Black religion, Cone asserted, began not with an abstraction but with the acknowledgment that ‘God is Black’ and present in the experience of black people, from the slave auction block to the urban ghetto. Others argue that that the Bible assigning a male gender to God was the original justification for the patriarchy. This was discussed by the feminist theologian Mary Daly in her book Beyond God the Father which was published in 1973. 

I travel a lot around the state and get to see the economically and environmentally depressed areas of the state, both black and white. The inner city and the Appalachian region. This is one of those things we have been trying to address this in our community as part of our social justice commitment. Here at the UUFP we have a social justice table that we can visit during coffee hours and find out about worthwhile causes. We go to marches; we have a black lives matter banner outside; you name it. But let’s not forget the other causes out there as well. 

We UUs have a rich history of social justice, ranging from our stand against slavery, to the voter registration in the south in 60s and 70s, to our support of the Black Lives Matter movement, to our push for gender equality, equal rights, marriage equality, and to the social justice committees that you find in almost all the UU churches and fellowships throughout the country. Social justice does not stop there, we are also concerned about environmental justice. 

After working in the 3rd world, the freedom to move around, to think what you want, to express it to friends and family, freedom of association, or even think to yourself and not be in doubt. All the things that makes me so happy to be a citizen of this country, to be a member of our UU religion, and especially of this fellowship. The UU’s 6th Principle which promotes: THE GOAL OF WORLD COMMUNITY WITH PEACE, LIBERTY, AND JUSTICE FOR ALL is so darn important to me after what we experienced in Uganda and the other countries, we have worked in. It also makes me scared of the things I see happening around me or what has happened, but at the same time hopeful about the countercurrent that is occurring as well. 

Remember, today social justice can mean different things for different religions and we need to watch out for false prophets. For example, some will even claim that preventing a woman’s right to choose is a form of social justice. Competing claims of being on God’s or at least the right side are testing the limits of a liberal social order straining to accommodate militant believers. Our fourth principle tells us that we: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This is something many dogmatic religions don’t allow; it is something totalitarian governments try to suppress, like the one we experienced in Uganda. Let’s use it wisely in defending it and applying to our efforts in social and environmental justice. 

That is what I try to do throughout my life, and I know many of you do. I had the privilege to get an education, but I try never to be condescending to anyone and share my knowledge with all who want to hear it. We are not rich but contribute to the church and other worthwhile causes both monetarily and by volunteering. We are socially active when we can and marched for women, for science, the environment and for gun control. All I can say is to stay true to yourself, like father Meindert, the Italian nuns, and the many liberation theologists and try to address the human suffering around us and in particular the suffering of those who are socially, economically, environmentally and racially disadvantaged. 

I believe we all can learn from the example the liberation theologists gave us and incorporate them in the way we live our UU faith.

Donna and I visiting one of the male nurses and his family at his home in the village in Uganda

Invocation:

Rev. Karen G. Johnston

Do not be alone right now...

Gathering together grows courage...

These things add up: your one thing & my one thing; his one thing & their one thing & her one thing…

Do not be alone right now. Do not let me be alone. Any liberation – all liberation — is collective liberation. My freedom is bound with yours and yours with mine. Inextricably...

Reading:
The Gift— Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky

We have not come here to take prisoners,
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.

We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.

Run my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings.

Run like hell my dear,
From anyone likely
To put a sharp knife
Into the sacred, tender vision
Of your beautiful heart.

We have a duty to befriend
Those aspects of obedience
That stand outside of our house
And shout to our reason
’O please, O please,
Come out and play.’

For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,

But to experience ever and ever more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom, and Light!”


Benediction:Barack Obama

Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
We are the change that we seek.

So how is your first pandemic going? (3/30/2020)

So how is your first pandemic going? At least for many of us it is, unless you are 102 years old and reading this darn blog, and if you do, you are out of your mind. I guess I am not counting HIV, SARS, Ebola and whatever else we had between 1918 and now. I am not telling you that those were not severe, but this one eats the cake. 

I have been social distancing for two weeks and a couple of days now. At least I get to see my wife at the end of the day. When I walk the dog, I get to see the regular folks walking down the street, and we greet each other from a distance. I also get to say hello to my coworkers every day during our check-in. This weekend we had a virtual dinner date with friends where we sat down on “WhatsApp” and had dinner together. Then we had a Zoom church service and a Zoom church meeting afterwards. While fun, rewarding and satisfying, nothing beats a one on one meeting with friends or colleagues. So, euphemistically, I will keep calling it house arrest. 

So how else do I cope with it all? I noticed that I am reading more. I am really enjoying a book entitled “The Invention of Nature, Alexander von Humboldt’s new world” by Andrea Wulf. I have increased my time on the social networks, watch more bonsai video podcasts and while in the beginning I did watch more news, that has diminished somewhat over time. I know the drill now, I know it will be a matter of time we are all going to get Covid-19, or the Corona virus. 

Why am I so certain about catching the darn virus? I think it is unavoidable. I just hope that I don’t catch it when the virus is at its peak, and I need to fight someone for a ventilator. I also hope that when I get it, they figured out what the medicine is to treat it, or maybe that they have developed a vaccine. Lastly, viruses that don’t mutate very fast, and this one does not seem to do that, are supposed to lose their potency or virulence after some time; that is after replicating in other people’s body over and over. In other words, the famous flattening of the curve. But enough of that. I want to report how my life in the pandemic is going. 

It was nice this week to be able to get out twice. I quickly ran out to mail two letters, get fertilizer for my bonsais and medicine for Jake the dog. It was nice to see people in real life, let me tell you. The second time was to take my father-in-law to the ophthalmologist. I stayed in the car but managed to sneak away to the Starbucks drive through for a cup of coffee. A real treat after two weeks without a Starbucks visit! It felt awkward to drive; the roads were relatively empty, except of course the drive-through at Starbucks. I think it took me 10 or 15 minutes to get through it. But it was worth it. 

Finally!  My first store bought Starbucks in a cardboard cup in two weeks!  I missed that face so much.

At home, life has changed; I have graduated from weekend cook to almost fulltime cook. I bake bread whenever I think it is needed. In the past it was mostly on Fridays. I am now the main dog walker and do not have any issue getting my daily 10,000 steps in. 

The latest bread I made: an 80% biga bread.  We are really enjoying this one.

While as a boy from the tropics I do like the heat, I don’t like it that it is getting warm that quickly, because it means that tick and mosquito season is almost here. It means that our back yard and the woods behind our home are going to be that haven for those pesky critters again. It means either pesticides on your body or no more walks in the woods until sometime in October. No we do not treat our yard, because we have bees. It means walking through the neighborhood with all its excitement as I mentioned in a previous blog post <here>. But truthfully walking in the neighborhood is fun. You learn a lot about talking with your neighbors; you need some social interaction. 

Probably the strangest thing is that I have taken up the routine of showering around 4 pm in the afternoon. It was something my mother used to do, and I am not sure if it is genetically ingrained or why it is. There are not many things that my mother did that I am particularly proud off and would like to mimic. However, it allows us to sleep a little later, get the coffee going and my wife of to work and get my day started. On top of that I always remember overhearing Jo-Jo, a female co-worker of mine in the 1990s telling Kathrine, another female co-worker how she would never allow a man sleep in her bed who had not showered before getting in bed. Moreover, if he blew his nose in the shower (without a tissue I assume), he would be kicked out of the house immediately; I am not sure if she even allowed him to put his clothes on. The idea of getting in bed clean always stood with me; I wonder if that is why my mother did it. But sorry, I do blow my nose in the shower; I know, this is too much information. 

I have cleared this nose in plenty of showers and sinks in my life and will continue doing so.

Oh well, just reaching out to all my readers about my (and your) fucking first pandemic experiences. Are we worried? Not for ourselves as much as for our 93-year-old father-in-law who is getting more and more depressed in self isolation. Hope you are all doing well medically, physically and mentally. Hope you all have enough toilet paper and have not yet killed a spouse, kid, pet or other loved one (canary?). Stay tuned and let me know how things are going with you.

Spring is springing (3/26/2020)

Spring is springing and it is springing more crap than I had ever hoped for:

1. Yes, we have the regular allergies and pollen raining down. The world is slowly turning yellow. It is raining and our runoff leaves a yellow ring around the collar (or the high-water marks).
2. Of course, we are all impacted by the corona virus. Whatever you think about it, who’s fault it is, you name it. I have my biases and I may hint about them below (but then if you are a regular reader it should not surprise you). 
3. As part of the virus and my age, I am stuck at home, teleworking 5 days a week. This is a different experience. 
4. For a person my age, I have been sort of ordered form the Governor that I should shelter in place and not get out unless completely necessary. This brave person went out for the first time this past Saturday after 10 days “house arrest” and again the other morning to pick up medicine for Jake, who is still hanging on. 
5. And now for the kicker, word came down that we need to start using the hotel points that we accumulate during our travels for the state to book hotel stays for the state, instead of using for our own. 

It is this last point that has me bent out of shape today. It seems to be the result of a complaint by and unethical employee who was fired because of her unethical conduct. Now the State Inspector General seems to be changing the policy for all state employees because of the complaint by one unethical person who obviously had a grudge. Again, it seems to be a complaint filed by an anonymous employee as way to get even. She is as disgruntled employee; and remember to get fired from the state is difficult; you can murder someone and not get fired. 

So, I had to work on a spreadsheet detailing all the points I had accumulated over time. Moreover, now I am being issued a state credit card so I cannot even accumulate points for my travel on my personal credit card. 

Yes, I am sure there will be a lot of you who will be pulling out that tinny violin out for me and start playing it, telling me that if I don’t like it, to get the hell out off Dodge. When I was working for industry, I never had to do that; I was allowed, actually encouraged, to use my hotel points for private travel. And yes, I guess I should go back to industry and go from protecting the environment to not giving a damn or at least being cavalier about it; or maybe I should retire. Retirement would be great, were it not for a presidential mismanagement of a Corona virus pandemic; mismanagement that somehow screwed up my retirement plans. So, fuck you all, I’ll be occupying a job of some unemployed guy until me IRA is back to the level it was a month ago, unless the Corona virus gets me first. That is even though I don’t get free hotel stays any longer for being away from home night after night. 

One of the ponds behind our home.  You can see the yellow pollen ring around the the base of the trees growing in the water.

Well some spring it is. Although I am under “house arrest” I can go for walks in the abandoned woods in the back of our home. My outdoors bonsais have all been repotted, nature is awakening, fresh bread came out of the oven, I am teleworking, and I still have innovative ideas. I just need to make sure that I get credit for those new ideas (but more about that some other time). There still is a lot to celebrate in these anxious times. Let me know how you are doing! To all my readers, wash your hands, try to be positive, love thy neighbors, stay healthy, and be well.

My little quince cutting that I have been trying to grow is finally taking off and is flowering this spring.  Crazy but fun.

Hotels 2: Lynchburg (3/13/2020)

Another trip out into the hinterlands of Virginia. This time I graced Lynchburg with a visit. Lynchburg’s claim to fame of course is Liberty University which was started by the reverent Jerry Falwell. Passing by Lynchburg over the past 20 years has been an amazing sight; that university has grown by leaps and bounds and is now ready to enter the big league. 

From what I understand, the university has its religious quirks. I am not sure about it all, and I will not describe it here, but as I understand it there seems to have a fairly strict religious ethical code and people are required to go to general assembly and religious gatherings. It is really interesting and almost perversely sexy to visit the local Starbucks and watch all the young college girls studying or discussing the bible; something this atheist does not encounter in many Starbucks shops around the State; and let me tell you, I visit a lot of Starbucks stores. 

All the conservative (read Republican) presidential candidates with any ambition make sure to stop by Liberty University and give a speech. Old Jerry died and Jerry Jr. is now in charge of the University; but they still pay their respect to the president of Liberty University. Recently, Mr. Falwell was in the news when he did not like the newly democratic state legislature and in particular their stance on gun control. Mr. Falwell suggested that parts of Virginia that did not agree with their decisions should succeed and join West Virginia. This made him the laughingstock of the state. Oh well. 

I took this photograph during my walk through downtown Lynchburg.  They have a great elevated walk, almost like a boardwalk but without the beach and the boards that overlook the James River valley.  There are all kinds of warehouses along the trail that are being reclaimed for more useful purposes including restaurants, shops, offices and condos(?).  I took this picture to mock the succession talks and to show I was still in Virginia.

So here I had to spend two nights in Lynchburg. I always used to stay at the Holiday Inn downtown. It is not the best place, but it is ok. I really love the downtown of Lynchburg; it has character, great restaurants, and safe to walk. I got an email from Holiday Inn about a month before my visit that they had broken ties with that particular hotel and the hotel was no longer part of the Holiday Inn chain. Since I accumulate loyalty points I decided to look if there was a Hilton downtown, the other hotel chain that I use. 

Hilton had a hotel downtown, the Virginian. The hotel is part of the Curio chain, something I had never tried. Well, I was not disappointed! This was a great place to hang out and to stay. What luxury. The hotel has a nice breakfast (and lunch?) counter with a restaurant bar on the roof. There is a nice restaurant on the lower level. I only tried the breakfast area and enjoyed it. The rooms are luxurious. You even get a robe although I really did not need it. The bed was great and in one-word, things were good. Being in town in a taller building traffic noise was somewhat amplified but it was all very tolerable. 

My "Hopper shot" of the motel room at the Curio by Hilton that I was staying in.  Again, I was very happy and satisfied with my stay at the hotel and in Lynchburg. 

The room without me and a better view of the bed.

The first night I ate alone at Bootleggers. This was the second time I ate there, and the food was good. Thank goodness they had something else than burgers on the menu. Their beer selection was great. The Depot grill was on tap for my second night. I was joined by my friend and colleague Doug, who lives in Lynchburg.  I had been avoiding this place since a disappointing visit 6 years ago. Funny how you do that. Well, they redeemed themselves. Dinner was enjoyable and the waitstaff was great. In all, I had a good two day visit to Lynchburg. 

Now for some depressing news. This will be my last trip for 30 days. The department I work for has cancelled all classes (and trips) for the next 30 days as part of the state of emergency in the effort to slow down the spread of the Corona virus and the associated COVID-19. So, my young hotel series is going on a hiatus. I will continue blogging and hopefully will come out alive on the other end.