When 2020 started I thought it was going to be a good year. I entered the year with high energy because of my success as a public access producer at RVTV in Ashland, Oregon. I ended 2019 having produced over 60 show productions between all my various shows. I felt really good about what I had done. I figured to keep being active in 2020 with my various shows. I figured to produce at least 50+ more new show episodes between all my shows. I would continue to submit show productions to different film festivals. Continue to get the occasional film festival selection. I was on track to just keep building on my success and trying to secure a sale of one of my show concepts that would take me to Hollywood. That was the plan at least.
But apparently the Universe had other plans. 2019 ended with a new virus coming out of China. And news media reported how serious the condition was in China. And the potential danger it represented if it got out of China to the rest of the world. And as the the world moved into 2020 I looked at the situation as something to be concerned about. But I also looked at it as the level of concern that I gave when other virus epidemics occurred around the world. There have been epidemics of Ebola, Dengue Fever, and Zika Virus that were very concerning. And could have gone into full blown Pandemic status. But those situations seemed to always have gotten under control and never really reached the United States to any serious level. So this new COVID-19 was mostly likely going to be the same situation, right?
A year later the answer to that question was NO! It wound up not being the same situation. For me the beginning of 2020 started normally as I got my selection of production dates at RVTV. I started off the year producing my first new episodes of Rogue Artisans and Crafters where I profiled local artists Erin Linton and Dan Elster. And I kept to my schedule til near the end of March. But in between my first new shows of 2020 to my last shows of 2020 the COVID-19 came across from China to the United States. And it just started to spread. In great part due to the complete failure of the political leadership of our country to treat the threat seriously. A review of past epidemics will show that our nation’s political leadership took those epidemics very seriously and were fully engaged in what would be necessary to contain those epidemics.
The leadership in Washington D.C. this time around showed no interest in treating the COVID-19 threat seriously. They chose to not take any serious responsibility to try and contain the virus. They chose to treat the threat as a joke. They claimed the threat was not real. It was a fake emergency. Let the record show that the COVID-19 threat was such a fake emergency that our nation is coming upon 400,000 Americans dead from COVID-19. That’s an amazingly big fake emergency. 400,000 dead Americans due to a President who has no empathy in his soul. And who only cared about trying to deny the pandemic as a means to try and win re-election and hold on to power. That’s what’s called worthless leadership.
Near the end of March 2020 COVID-19 hit Oregon and our area. As a result Southern Oregon University basically shut itself down to try and contain the spread of COVID-19. That resulted in the RVTV studio being shut down as the studio is part of the Digital Media Center which is on the SOU campus. The end result was the end of my show production schedule. And the end of all show production by all RVTV producers. And that still remains the case even now.
From the end of March 2020 to now the lives of my mother and I has been changed. From being active to having a life that is more quiet, more sedentary, a life of stillness. A life that has a greater sense of a suspension of time. I no longer made any trips over from Medford to Ashland to produce my shows, and spending time with a wonderful group of RVTV producers who in time became great friends. How I miss that contact and experience with my friends. Instead now my life is about going out once a day for an hour, maybe 2, to take care of errands for my mother and I. Mostly going out to pickup groceries and prescriptions. Maybe the occasional other supplies at Fred Meyer or Walmart. All while wearing a mask everywhere I go.
Then I’m back home. I fix meals for my mother and I. We watch the news to stay up to date about the pandemic and whatever the hell President Trump was choosing to do or not do in regards to COVID-19 in our country. If we were not watching the news we would find a movie to watch. Occasionally we would find a movie on demand to watch. I exposed my mother to the joy of watching Howard the Duck. Together we discovered just how badly the movie Cats really was with so many great actors and actresses making their contribution to bad movie making. Even the visual of Taylor Swift singing as a sexy feline was not enough to recommend that movie to anyone. That is how bad that movie is.
For my mother her work from her office changed to working at home. Our dining room table became her desk. And only on occasion would she have to make it into her office for a day. Both my mother and I have various underlying health issues. Those issues make it imperative that we do what we can to avoid getting COVID-19. And so for my mother she became home bound. With only limited times when she goes out my mother tells me how she has missed the seasons. She has not really seen the spring, summer and fall over these last 10 months. It also means 10 months of not really having much in the way of human contact other than with me, and co-worker when she has had to make it into her office in person. But she does on occasion have the occasional ZOOM meeting with other co-workers.
2 of the things that have helped my mother and I keep some level of our sanity has been the presence of our animal family members. We don’t really use the term pets because that is too generic of who they are and what they mean to us. We have our Yorkie, Alie. For the record she is a knot head. But she does a fine job of helping my mother with her work and protecting her. And secondarily protecting me. Mostly by barking non stop whenever anyone or anything happens outside our front door.
We also have a cat. Her name is Penelope. She is sweet and a lug. Meaning she has some heft about her. Alie and Penelope conspire together to drive me crazy. I can’t prove it. Because they both keep a respectful distance from each other most of the time. And I have yet to catch them together in a conspiratorial meeting. But its the only reason to explain how well they together bug the hell out of me at times. And generally always when I am seriously focused on doing something at my laptop. Such as trying to write this story right now. Yeah, that’s the way it generally works.
That has been our life of 2020 for my mother and I. We both consider ourselves lucky to not have contracted COVID-19 during 2020. But my mother and I know many people that did contract it. And we know people who had family members of theirs die from COVID-19. The virus is real. Its very dangerous. And simply making the effort of social distancing and wearing a mask to protect yourself and the people around you should not be an issue. The fact that it became an issue shows how self-centered our society has become. That so many people can ignore the basic humanity of everyone else around them because they feel their freedom is endangered in some way I find disgusting. The act of protecting one’s self and the people around you by the most basic of measures during a pandemic to minimize exposure of disease, to minimize death of fellow citizens, fellow human beings, to me I think should be a basic action of respect. But so many citizens in this country seem unable to respect their fellow citizens at the most basic level. And I find that so incredibly disappointing. So much so that if I had the financial resources to do so, I would move my mother and I out of the country. If we could we would move to Great Britain, Canada, somewhere where we feel safe and more respected than we do now, here in our own country. Because its not possible to feel safe and respected here in the United States. Not right now. And that’s a sad state of affairs for our country.
Now we are in 2021. President Trump lost the election and then tried to execute an insurrection of our own government. All because he is a loser. He knows he is a loser, and he cannot handle being a loser. His actions were treasonous. That makes him a traitor to the nation. Soon our nation will be lead by a new President in Joe Biden, and new Vice-President Kamala Harris. Hopefully they will be able to tone down the rhetoric and calm the Trump followers that right now scare me with their levels of hate and desire to cause harm.
Hopefully, under the leadership of President Biden the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines will get effectively out to our citizenry. My mother and I hope to get our vaccines as soon as they can be distributed in our area. But honestly we don’t expect to see normalcy at any level til the end of 2021. All we can do is continue to be careful about our interactions in the world. And pray for a return to safer and more sane world than what exists right now. Because right now the world is more scary than I have ever seen it in my 57 years of living.
And that is my 2020 survival story.
About David “Glamour Dave” Nienow: David is a photographer, public access television producer, host of numerous shows at RVTV in Ashland, Oregon that includes the shows Rogue Artisans and Crafters and The So NOT So Late Night Glamour Dave Show. He retired to care give for his father for over 7 years. Then became an active producer of public access television programming after his father’s passing. Now he is resuming his career in photography and exploring new subjects and techniques for the next phase of his life in photography. He has a B.S. in Political Science from Southern Oregon University.
No comments:
Post a Comment