Page 59 - ActsCOVID-19_and_Me

COVID-19: The Invisible Catastrophe!
By Ray VanHorn Bayleigh Chase
It’s March 2020. I am 80 years old and I can no longer leave my cottage and go. I am retired and have places I want to go to and people I want to visit, but I am sheltering in place! All sports are gone. Friends and family are sheltering-in-place. My retirement portfolio fell 30% in twenty days. Why?
COVID-19, the invisible catastrophe.
By July I’ve celebrated my 81st birthday with friends and family.
I can leave my cottage every day if I desire and stay away for two nights. Golf is back on TV—without a gallery—and I can play whenever I want. My daughter just came by for a visit, though she cannot spend the night. I can now visit friends and my portfolio is up 5% year-to-date.
Lessons learned from the last four months: social distancing; flatten the curve; wear a mask. I can get by without a haircut for three months.
New initiatives I have pursued during the last four months: walked 10,000 steps every day with a new friend who recently moved to Bayleigh Chase; built a table from a 3-foot x 4-inch slab of walnut provided from my son’s forest in the Nashville area, and refinished it by hand under the guidance of another friend who had a fine furniture business.
I spend an average of three hours a day reading, digesting, and forwarding emails. This I consider productive in that I keep in contact with friends and share information I believe is useful during these challenging times.
A weekly bridge game is a big event. My living room handles six people with six-foot spacing. We learned of an online bridge app, BBO, which allows us to play bridge with our selected partners on a computer or iPad. After eating dinner, which we bring with us
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