Corona Virus Diary #2

Corona Virus Diary #2

All across the world the virus is raging. It is still in the exponential stage so at least for a few weeks it will continue growing. Here in Vancouver (and all of Washington and Oregon) we only supposed to leave our homes for necessaries like food at grocery stores. Restaurants often are doing take out or delivery only. Most parks are closed but those that are open can only be reached by car which technically would be illegal.

I’m taking long walks from my apartment to nowhere just to get out and a modicum of exercise. There is not much to see on these walks but they are much quieter. There are less cars on the road and construction is considered non-essential. That is a relief. There is much to noise wherever I am so any diminishing of it is welcome by me.

The republican president and his well-stocked senate are sending all Americans $1,200.00 as well as many benefits for the unemployed. They also are earmarking the larger portion of the two trillion dollar bailout for business. All of this money is coming from government coffers since the business community will not be providing assistance. Commerce and industry will be receiving it. Adam Smith would be rolling in his grave as would all of those gainsayers of programs like the New Deal.

The POTUS has been giving daily updates on television regarding the virus. He is doing what is his trademark and that is to obfuscate with absurdities and falsehoods. The medical coordinator for the country Dr. Anthony Fauci has to walk back idiotic things our commander in chief spouts and yet be loyal to him simultaneously. I think it is safe to say that Dr. Fauci will be heard from less and less in coming days. It is just like Mike Pence who as always, stands mute and loyal gaze upon the president, his master while the president does all the talking.

Perhaps the worst lie of all goes something like this, “We were blindsided, and this came out of nowhere”. Despite the fact that the entire genome for the disease was shared in February, China provided regional updates at least as far back as January. Meanwhile after significant budget cuts for NIH and CDC that have come during the tenure of this POTUS, rendered those health organizations behind the 8 Ball of what they knew would be coming. Much has been written about potential pandemics over the last 10 years. David Quammen’s Spillover outlined the details of how the pandemic would work and was recently interviewed in Orion magazine to re-affirm that we cannot say we were caught unawares.

All of this should surprise none of us. We have known who won the electoral vote in 2016 for nearly 4 years. We know that telling the truth is meaningless. We also have known that the Senate republicans were going to jump off a bridge in order to show their loyalty to both POTUS and their party at the cost of patriotism or love of country.

At any rate I am inconvenienced at worst and healthy. As I write this I can say the same for friends and families. I am also feeling optimistic that with the restrictions we are living with, that somewhere around May first our lives will return to normal. We will have received our $1,200.00 and will spend much less as entertainment venues have already been shut down for nearly 2 weeks.

Not that many people are in better condition than I am right now.

A Corona Virus Diary

Corona virus diary 1

A lot has happened regarding this pandemic during the last few weeks. It is difficult to assort all of the aspects of this on an international scale. Today I can only provide an overview. Since I want to keep track of how this affects me, my aim is to discuss my experiences more specifically.

Corona Virus is the latent issue with a disease that thus far has killed thousands. Having the virus does not mean that it is or will become manifest (at least as I understand it today March 21). When it blossoms into full blown disease it is known as Covid 19 and recently an article I was reading called it SARS-CoV-2. These different names may serve the discussion well among researchers and medical professionals, the several terms can be confusing (thus misleading) to the population in general. For the purposes of this diary I am going to refer to it as Corona Virus.

This venture is only directly about me and how the pandemic has impacted my life. That is for now and that may change in the future. Today I am thinking about it in broad and generic terms. There is too much information screaming at us currently to really distill much of it. We also must recognize the conspiracy theories for what they are. Likewise anyone downplaying the seriousness of it are either lying or simply foolish.

So today is March 21 and I do not have the disease, the virus or unique symptoms. No one that I know has any of these either. Hopefully it will remain so. I also can go grocery shopping though stores now have restricted hours-sensibly enough. The last time I ate out and associated with friends was March 10^th at the Heathen Brewery in Vancouver. This is mainly because on March 15^th all restaurants and bars have been closed. Some food establishments including food trucks, can provide food to go and many use one of those ride sharing companies to deliver it.

I was able to meet with an old friend in Portland on March 6 as he and his wife are visiting their daughter there. In Oregon as of today, the governor is strongly urging people to stay home. It is not a mandate at least not yet. On the Washington side of the Columbia where I live no such urging has occurred. So I am out in the field looking at birds and new buds as spring is here. We have had some splendid spring weather since the 15^th. I have been cooking (thus eating) too much for it is something to do.

It is probably only the beginning of the demand that we do not do anything that will further the spread. Containment is the most crucial step today. While it takes much of the joy away from daily life, it is not some sort of draconian hardship forced upon us by some real or simply believed in, enemy. So many have endured much more difficult times historically and today it is nonsense to think that not having 100% freedom to do whatever enters our mind (and is legal) is disastrous.

Here are what somepeople who are far more well-known than I describe their own experiences.

These things occurred to me during the winter of 2020

This winter has easily been the mildest that I have ever experienced. The coldest day was January 15 when the day time high was about 33 degrees. We had far more 50 degree days than ones in the 40s and we topped 60 degrees on several occasions. We had our many rainy days but there have been enough sunny ones to offset the dreariness that I felt the first two winters out here. One day in early January I was in the midst of some mild flurries but since the ground was too warm, they disappeared upon landing. One other morning I saw that the cars had a dusting of snow so light that simply moving the vehicle blew that residue off. On January 5^th at 2:48 am we were at our perihelion for all of you record keepers reading this.

Well I wrote that on March 13^th imagining that the temperatures predicted for the next 5 days would bear out in be in the upper 40s and low 50s. It did not and when I woke up on Saturday, the 14^th I saw about two inches of snow covering while it continued to fall until about 11:00 am. Mainly the ground was too warm and the snow melted immediately. It looked like a blizzard most of the morning and since the snow couldn’t melt fast enough we did end up with several inches. Yet it continues to melt and so we wade through slush to get to our cars. It is also staying in the low 40s and overcast so what snow we have is deign to leave as early as I wish it would.

First snow at our community garden

With the exception of a very early winter trip (see below), I stayed pretty close to home. I did go up to Seattle. Hannah’s son Ali, grows exponentially to those of us who do not see him every day. When I go up again in early April he’ll probably be shooting baskets with his dad.

Ali at 6 weeks

Ali a few weeks later

As with everyone on earth we are affected by the coronavirus. Its effects on daily life rapidly have become bothersome. Not only are restrictions severe but they provide an ominous foreboding. It reminds of the few days post 9/11 where much of America wondered what would happen next.

So as of March 15^th the local schools are closed for 6 weeks which probably thrills local parents. Several major employers are granting leaves to employees or allowing them to work from home if that option works for all. To a large extent that leaves many with no income. I wonder if they can get unemployment benefits. I suspect not. 

The museums and libraries are all closed until further notice. No public place can have over 250 people there at any one time. I wonder how that will work at big box stores such as Target. My plans to fly to Baltimore in late April now pend.

So it not only is a discomfort it also may be the onset of a pandemic killing millions worldwide like the 1918 flu.

The baseball season openers set for March 26 are postponed maybe for the entire season. While I enjoy the library and museums my needs are pretty unaffected by the current restrictions. I don’t like them but I am not really suffering. My income will continue despite the corona virus.

It is likely to worsen before it subsides as viruses do. Listen and read science based information rather than POTUS who is more concerned with the stock market or Fox News which will only feed the viewer propaganda.

This winter I took a couple of courses at the community college. The first in late January was a one evening cooking course. I often take these. This one was focused on Ethiopian cuisine. Though in my lifetime I have probably not eaten ten times at Ethiopian, I have always enjoyed them a lot. Not only is it an exotic food but in all cases the atmosphere was similar. They were small places in which all elegance was in the multiples spices whose aroma confused the air. The rooms always dimly lit and the food served in small crocks of savory meats, lentils and/or vegetables stewed in the mixtures of spices that constitute the air that I just mentioned. All is eaten with the injera that is the bread permanently associated with this food. Everything is gracious and nothing is ostentatious.

But the class was not performed in a restaurant but in the “cooking class” room at Clark College. It is a good instructional setting but that means lots of light and stainless steel. The instructor was an Ethiopian woman probably in her 40s though I am not good at judging ages. She was diminutive and soft spoken which is not good for this old man whose hearing is ebbing away.

There were about 20 students of various ages and ethnicities. Only a few were male. So we learned how to prepare and cook a variety of vegetarian dishes and actually cook the injera. Since that bread takes more than a day to prepare, the instructor brought with her a large batch of the prepared ingredients and each student actually fried two or three large pancake sized pieces. 

My experiences in restaurants has been that the final product of whatever meal is being eaten are quite stew like in that it is actually a soup like concoction. In the class however, our lentil concoctions were pasty and dry. This was regardless of whether it was the split peas in turmeric sauce called Atir Kik Alicha, the green beans and carrots called Fossolia or the Miser Wot (Red lentil stew). The spice blends were quite aromatic but required locating a store that sells them and mixing a blend together.

Finally the injera which cooks in about one minute, takes a lengthy process that includes fermenting. It is saner to make a large base and keep it available for use while adding ingredients while the process continues. The instructor used a variety of flours that she undoubtedly keeps on hand but most students will have to find the stores that sell them. The flours used in the class made the color sort of like toasted white bread. The same spongy and porous texture I expect from restaurants was maintained but nowhere near as pretty as what is served in other settings than this class room.

It is not likely that I will ever buy the special ingredients required for these recipes since Ethiopian cooking is never going to be a standard for me. More likely I will explore one of several restaurants clustered on Killingworth and Martin Luther King Drive.

The other class was a two month long, one day per week and the subject was Memoir Writing. I had been thinking about writing something like that and it reached a higher pitch when my daughter recently gave birth. I want to leave a legacy since it is not likely that I will be around by his adulthood or that of any other grandchildren that may be born later. I did not have a method for organizing this endeavor. I also am not sure that my writing is as clear to others as it is to me. I had hoped to get some expository criticism. I really did not get what I sought except in very small and scattered doses. However, I really enjoyed it and am able to organize a process for rendering 75 pages or so to a readable rendition of how I see myself. The instructor used what he called “prompts” which give the writer a nudge to remember aspects of their life that they would like to describe or elaborate on.

This is a subjective undertaking which is not my strong suit. It clearly was what my classroom peers thrived on. I know this because each week we prepared about a 3 page story to share with the class and get feedback from them as well as the instructor. That feedback was rarely constructive regarding anything specific. The most common line was “I want to know more”. It was so oft stated that it became one of a few tropes used in formulaic suggestions. I could almost predict the words of many of those offering criticism.

I like to think all of my stories were interesting though it is not for me to judges things like that. I do know that a lot of the stories were damned interesting and on the last day of class, one was so funny that everyone had tears of laughter streaming including the narrator. Some of them were clever takes on experiences. A few of them were simply awful and would be awarded the grade of C in an 8^th grade English course. Some were poorly written and sophomoric, some poorly written and intriguing.

I selected one of those that I prepared for class and posted it on line.

It was a very good way to spend 2 ½ hours every Tuesday for two months. I think I will be looking for other classes to help bolster what I hope will be my product in the fairly near future. I did enjoy the company of most of my peers and the instructor as well but in order to fine tuning of this venture will require some examination of style for instance, rather than my emotional input. I already understand the latter.

Lucie came down from Seattle for a visit with friends in Portland and she and I spent several hours together on January 18^th. We went out to Multnomah Falls which was only about 30 miles to the east.

I had planned on going to see the falls shortly after moving here but only about 6 weeks after my arrival forest fires raced through the Columbia Gorge and access denied to the public for quite a while. When Lucie suggested that we go out there I agreed. It was a quick trip and when we arrived we found weather conditions significantly different.

It was overcast and in the mid-40s in Portland. It always is this time of year. It was not much different at the falls but there was significant snow. The above freezing temperature created significant fog and since the area froze at night, there was significant ice one the walkways which made much hiking not to our liking. It was especially difficult to go down since we inadvertently skated on several occasions as did many of the other visitors to this very popular place.

Anyways, Multnomah Falls is pretty majestic and on a less icy surface taking the path to its top would be doable though perhaps arduous as it winds to well over 100 feet. Above it is a bridge and you can see walkers more intrepid than I.

Multnomah Falls

We did not stay more than half an hour or so and then went to another visitor’s sight nearby. I cannot think of what it is called but it was high enough and closed enough that we only stayed a few minutes. The visibility nearly nothing due to thick fog but also a pretty swift wind made it not so comfortable. With no respite via an open building we gave this venture about 5 minutes of our time.

We finished up our visit over some Mexican food almost next door to where she was staying.

I did several days over the Holidays along the Oregon Coast which brought me as far south as Coos Bay during this trip. It is already online for all to see (if they choose to).

In the days preceding this blog, the entire world has become gripped with the effects of the pandemic labeled Corona Virus 19. Those infected are dying like the oldest and slowest zebra on a savanna. The compromised old and babies who have not yet developed immune defenses. Since it is such a rapid spreading virus the whole earth has suffered some consequences of it. Trump's stock holding share owners are worried about their Wall Street dividends but most of the rest of the world is first concerned with the survival of themselves and their loved ones.

Last Friday a friend and I had lunch in Portland and had a beer at another establishment without hardly a thought of the virus. By Monday all bars and restaurants in this region are closed. The service industry workers which include my daughter, are at best temporarily out of work.

Most stores and entertainment venues are closed. Non-emergency or critical health services are on hold. Traffic and undoubtedly air quality are improving. Whether we like it or not we are saving money.

I am going to post blogs regarding my experiences in this quagmire every week or so and sooner should some crashing new item merit comment.

https://respectfulempiricist.blogspot.com/2020/03/memoir-1.html

https://respectfulempiricist.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-yuletide-coastal-trip.html

A Yuletide coastal trip

Shortly after the winter solstice comes the yule and I have become inclined to travel at least for a few days, to entertain myself with non-Christmas events. This year I went to the Oregon coast as far south as Coos Bay. That was on December 23^rd.

I took I 5 to Eugene, the college town. It may be a nice place but I’ll have to learn that some other time. From there I got on state road 126 west to Florence where my motel for the next three nights was. This is quite a pretty drive once you get about 10 miles out of greater Eugene. During those 10 miles there is a traffic light about every 9 feet.

Conde B. McCullough Memorial Bridge

Then it winds through the Siuslaw National Forest which is gorgeous for about 45 miles. It climbs into the Coastal Cascades and into many diverse ecosystems including wetlands, vast sand dunes and what may a rain forest. It certainly appeared to be during that drive as a hazy mist lingered above the ground as sunlight peeked between the small breaks in the forest canopy. Green moss clung to every surface possible.

There were many tracts of marshland which if brackish, I think would make them salt marshes with all of the ecological benefits therein. They looked very much like those wetlands I had become so accustomed to near the Chesapeake Bay. 

The last few miles into Florence was along a small river (or large creek I suppose). There were plenty of private docks. I saw no human activity on this water but it looks perfect for a place to be on a summer day.

I made it to Florence too early to check in so I cruised this resort town for a while in order to establish some first impressions.

The next day I was up before 6:30 after falling asleep before 10 the night before. It is rare for me to get a good night’s rest on the first one of any trip. I took advantage of being well rested that night.

Breakfasts in most motel lobbies are more or less identical to each other. The eggs are essentially scrambled yolks forced into a standardized mold and cooked (baked?) into a rubbery, barely palatable disc. There are toasters and a variety of bread like products including actual bread as well as a bagel variety, some number of bagels and English muffins. Juice is poured into a glass by an electronic dispenser. The yogurts are small, highly sugared conveniences closer to pudding than to a “healthy” food. There is usually a pot of oatmeal and 4 or 5 choices of cold cereal in individual packages. Individual packaging has become a mainstay for American consumers. Often there is a pot of gravy that makes for one component for a biscuit and gravy meal. There are sausages and or thin slices of lean bacon.

That is pretty much the fare at the motel I am spending these holidays at in Florence, Oregon. One difference was that the eggs are scrambled such as you might fry at home. They were laid out in stainless steel containers with lids and sterno lights to keep them warm(ish). I ate and headed out for Coos Bay, a historical shipping port about 50 miles south from the motel along coastal highway 101.

I drove through the miles of seaside dunes stopping often. The dunes buffer both sides of the highway from the Pacific to the west and spans across for many miles. At times the grand forests of Douglas fir and a large number of lakes can be seen to the east. There also are two historic bridges one over the Smith River and the other crossing Coos Bay. I stopped several times to take photos. Sometimes it was raining so I merely pulled over for a view.

There were rises along the coastal range of the Cascades followed by dips so it kept the drive lively. Occasionally during the drive, I could over look gorges and valleys. Unfortunately there were no turn offs of scenic viewing so it’s left to memory rather than recorded digitally.

That is how I spent Christmas Eve of 2019.

12/25

I woke up early and took a long walk around the deserted town of Florence. There were holiday decorations but apparently all were still tucked into bed for their long winter nap when I walked. I intended to drive about 50 miles north to Newport which was my most southern point in my last coastal trip. I was waylaid by the stunning glory of the natural beauty of the coastal mountains, rampaging Pacific waves and more rolling dunes. I only got about 25 miles north since I stopped too many times to count in order to absorb all of the wonders around me.

Highway 101 Oregon Coast

While heading north much of the road was surrounded by either cliffs which exuded waterfalls at times, or 150 foot Douglas firs or both. After several hours I drove back to Florence and this time explored the town a bit. It is a major resort town during the warm seasons. I thought maybe I would have a late lunch. It also was a major holiday so finding a good local restaurant was easy. Finding one that was open not so easy. I went back to the motel and ate food that I had brought with me in the event that fate would bar me from eating out.

During this trip I learned about the Oregon National Dunes and saw so many lakes that I was reminded of the rural parts of Michigan that I would see during family road trips. When I got up the next day I lolled around until rush hour was past and returned to Vancouver using the same route I took to get down there. Before leaving I wrote down a list of things I wanted to look up in geology field guides or want to prioritize for my next Oregon Coast trip probably next September. 

Oregon Dunes with Pacific in background

Other than a few day trips and going up to Seattle, this accounts for my trips during the winter of 2020.

Memoir # 1

Since I recently took a memoir writing course at the community college I decided to occasionally add a snippet of my life, as only I can see it, to these pages. Here is the first installment.

Despite a non-stellar academic life in high school, I was an avid reader. I read biographies and learned that describing the life of most noteworthy people was rarely any better than hagiography. Otherwise I read novels, mostly old ones. I did have a really ardor for Jack Kerouac who died only months after my graduation, at age 46. I also read much Phillip Roth who lived longer.

I loved the beat generation aura, initially provided to me in Kerouac’s novels of the mid-50s. I read about jazz bars in Greenwich Village amongst many other things, about Village life and that in San Francisco as well. There were road trips described while careening to one side of the country to the other. I read about forbidden fruits like marijuana or dilaudid and it was the former that reached my neighborhood by 1967.

But it was the musicians that the beat writers told us of that intrigued me most. Charlie Parker and Charles Mingus, Miles Davis and John Coltrane all were invisible characters that were brought to life. Yet we did not hear them on the radio or see them on Ed Sullivan on any Sunday night.

Our top 40 radio station did play occasional jazz pieces and I loved them. Astrud Gilberto embodying the Girl from Ipanema to Stan Getz’ alto sax; Take Five by Dave Brubeck. Cannonball Adderley belting out Have Mercy on Me on the tenor; Lee Morgan’s Side Winder were about the only jazz records anyone could hear on the AM radio which was the main option for radio listeners in those days. It was typically the only band we could get on a car radio.

I came home from college during the winter break of my freshman year. I was depressed and doing poorly in my first swing at higher education. I didn’t do badly because of academic rigor but for the excessive partying that was such an attraction of my peers and myself.

I sat alone in the basement on a winter Sunday, watching the small black and white television my eight living siblings eschewed, leaving me to brood in solidarity. On the news I saw a military plane at Wilmington with caskets of soldiers whose lights went out in Viet Nam were removed. I thought, I’m heading there next at the rate I am living.

After the news I turned to the public television station and watched an interview program called Soul and saw that Pharaoh Sanders was the guest. He talked much of his tutelage under John Coltrane and I felt inspired. The next morning I drove into the heart of Detroit to a record store and purchased Sanders’ latest album as well as a Thelonious Monk recording. I was now not only enamored by these faceless artists I knew from novels, but began to learn their music as well. For the next many years I bought about 2 albums per month and amassed a vast collection.

It was about 1969 that I first got a radio that played the FM signal and could hear WJZZ a commercial station, and listened mostly to new recordings by the likes of Herbie Hancock whose song Tell me a Bedtime Story played at exactly 7:00 am every morning and functioned as my alarm. Then I discovered WDET the public radio station that focused on jazz both historic and current. I could also get that station in Ann Arbor where I lived, and went to school. In the evening the disc jockey held a jazz history class which I listened to at every chance. It was a great day for me. Not only did I find a new joy but also rebounded as a student and academics became a genuine love for me as well.

It was sort of a great era for jazz too. In Ann Arbor the bars that did not specialize in jazz music like Del Rios, would have special jazz periods like Sunday evening at Mr. Flood’s Party for example. New specialty bars like the Blind Pig with its selection of about 4 beers and hundreds of wines played only jazz. The performers were all local musicians and unknown outside of their own gigs. It was a hot time. Then King Pleasure opened up in the basement of the Beefeater’s Restaurant. The place had a large statue of a steer on its roof. King Pleasure drew nationally known musicians such as Charles Lloyd and Sonny Stitt who I got to see the first of many times at this local establishment.

Despite the big names and a reasonable cover charge, this venue only existed for about six months and one complaint that I heard from fellow jazz enthusiasts was that they could not find the place. I knew from the flyers that while they gave the address, it was the same as Beefeaters, there was no street level signage for King Pleasure and no mention of a giant cow on the roof. I never knew for certain what caused the business to fail but I blamed the poorly planned advertising flyers.

From the radio I would hear about jazz venues in Detroit and occasionally in a suburb and frequented them when my schedule allowed. They were forty miles plus from Ann Arbor so it was not until I graduated and moved back to “The City” did I attend them regularly. The best one for national names was Baker’s Keyboard Lounge which I went to about twice a month and saw players such as Mose Allison, and Detroit’s Kenny Burrell to name two of about a hundred. That lounge still exists today and apparently is a hangout for Detroit’s politically elite. It only provides music from local players today.

I only lived in Detroit for about 18 months at that juncture, and left it for the last time to take on a job in Grand Rapids about a hundred and fifty miles to the northwest. This town and the surrounding suburbs were founded by Dutch Reformed ex-patriots from the Netherlands. They came to the new world to escape what they perceived as the religious persecution from the Catholic majority and to set up a local theocracy of their own. I arrived there about a hundred and seventy years later, but the descendants maintain the faith and jazz remained in the mid-1970s, largely an industry of sin and was sequestered into only a few venues downtown. I haunted all of them and despite the cultural restrictions there were many good local musicians. There was another bar about 15 miles out of town that played my music. It was also not so easy to continue my habit of purchasing about two albums per month…but I did.

Two years in Grand Rapids was enough for me and so I moved back to Ann Arbor for a year, got married and planned for grad school where I went a year later. It was 1979 and I was in Bowling Green, Ohio which as you may suspect, was not known for its jazz music scene. Toledo about 30 miles north did have a station that played my kind of music for a few hours a week and some downtown bars there would feature a big name a few times a year. We discovered a jazz forum in the town of Maumee that a group of us stumbled on after a Toledo Mud Hens baseball game. I still had my albums now well over a thousand but I was too busy with academics and projects to devote a lot of time to my love. I did make some semi-converts among some of my class mates and the woman I was married to but the ardor waned some for the time spent on other things.

Once degreed at Bowling Green we headed for Baltimore for a new life. Baltimore has a rich jazz tradition but by 1981 when I got there, the local scene was pretty tamed compared to Detroit. Only one station played jazz but this was about the same time this tepid and banal genre of “smooth jazz” was nascent and has largely taken over what many term as jazz. A few times a year one of my favorites would come to town. Freddie Hubbard played at ArtScape, and annual outdoor event in Baltimore. I saw Pharaoh Sanders playing at a local mall where he walked amongst shoppers in a very peculiar presentation. It was not the same.

Jazz was the prominent but not the only sound that was played in our home. Two daughters were born a year and a half apart in the late 1980s. When the younger one, Lucie who was five, came home and put the CD of John Coltrane’s version of My Favorite Things on the moment she walked in the door from a rough day of kindergarten. She said that she had to hear it right then. Her sister Hannah when she was eighteen, took a road trip to Chattanooga and south from there to the Mississippi Delta in order to see live performances of Delta Blues and jazz at various juke joints. She also went to historic music venues like Sun Records.

Neither of them lists jazz as their favorite form today though each listens with some regularity. Both have bragged to me that when asked, they tell their friends that jazz is what they grew up with. Lucie currently plays bass with a local metal band in Seattle. I’ve heard that term –metal band, and guess that it means that is loud but I really don’t know.

In the late 1990s I digitized all of my records-over 2400 albums. It took a couple of years but I shrunk the physical size of my collection to a slightly more portable CD Rom size and could sometimes get more than one record on one CD. Then a few years prior to my planned move to the Northwest, I copied about a thousand of those recordings onto thumb drives shrinking the burden of transport even more significantly.

That is the story of a nearly lifelong obsession with jazz music. My interests in other genres has grown. About the time my kids were born attending live music performances abated dramatically and today I still listen to music quite a bit and listen to classical and Gaelic folk as well, but my first love in terms of music has always been jazz.