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https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/dcf0c7ab0efcc1a111de269f4e14004a.png
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Title
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40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: COVID-19
Description
An account of the resource
In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19.
The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism.
The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Liz Bradbury
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Michelle Dech
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_22.xml
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5.4 July 31, 2020 Michelle Dech, July 31, 2020 PH40_22 01:47:27 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- COVID-19 (Disease) Michelle Dech Liz Bradbury video/mpeg DechMichelle_20200731_video.mp4 1.0:|31(4)|58(4)|93(2)|128(4)|149(2)|170(9)|191(11)|212(6)|235(2)|256(3)|277(2)|302(4)|329(18)|348(14)|373(12)|396(19)|423(8)|450(2)|473(2)|498(6)|523(2)|550(2)|571(9)|594(11)|623(11)|648(13)|673(9)|698(19)|719(4)|740(11)|765(8)|788(12)|809(9)|834(14)|857(15)|884(9)|907(14)|934(4)|957(10)|978(7)|999(3)|1022(4)|1047(12)|1070(12)|1097(15)|1122(14)|1143(10)|1166(6)|1189(9)|1210(7)|1233(8)|1252(12)|1279(7)|1300(14)|1325(5)|1346(8)|1369(11)|1390(10)|1415(8)|1438(2)|1459(9)|1482(14)|1503(10)|1524(15)|1551(13)|1572(12)|1595(13)|1620(16)|1641(10)|1662(8)|1683(2)|1702(6)|1735(6)|1762(5)|1791(3)|1812(18)|1833(10)|1854(5)|1875(7)|1896(8)|1917(7)|1938(10)|1963(9)|1984(6)|2009(12)|2036(8)|2059(12)|2080(10)|2105(7)|2130(3)|2153(5)|2192(5)|2223(18)|2250(6)|2275(12)|2306(4)|2331(5)|2348(15)|2369(10)|2390(10)|2415(4)|2434(12)|2453(15)|2474(16)|2493(11)|2516(4)|2547(2)|2562(5) 0 https://youtu.be/RQKB7gdJbs4 YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction LIZ BRADBURY: Now I’m going to record. I also have an audio recording as a backup in case of messing up or something happening. Yesterday, for whatever happened, and this is the first time it’s happened, the Zoom signal dropped three times during the interview, and I have no idea whether it was that person’s thing. Then I -- or whether it was my connection, although I don’t think it was, but I don’t know what was happening. But I haven’t had that happen at all, and then it happened a whole bunch of times which is, you know, my biggest fear, that I’m going to be doing a training and it’ll go off, and I don’t even -- 
 ; MICHELLE DECH: Absolutely. 0 207 Life during the Pandemic
 ; LB: Here are some things. So this is all things that we -- I already wrote you about. You can think about things in general, but we worked -- we just began talking about our concerns about other places, and you were talking about your mother being in Florida. So, go on with that. 0 525 Work at the LGBT Center of Greater Reading during the Pandemic
 ; LB: I think you should describe your position in the LGBT community, because you’re certainly in a position of leadership. So talk about what your job is there.
 ; 
 ; MD: Sure, so I’m the executive director of the LGBT Center of Greater Reading. I’ve been in this position for just two years now. And boy, it’s been an interesting ride. [00:09:00] You know, we’ve been fortunate to see exponential growth within our organization over the last few years, and then COVID hit ; that’s presented some new challenges for us and for me personally. But we love what we do. [...] 0 678 Learning during the Pandemic LB: Trish was at the doctor a couple days ago, who was in Bethlehem, and Trish was talking about, you know, they’re talking about opening the schools. And Bethlehem school district is still talking about that, and the doctor said they’re not going to open the schools. They’re just not. It’s not going to happen. So stop worrying about it. It’s not going to happen. Because it’s just the numbers will go up, and we’ve already seen that. So how can they possibly justify that for young people in a school situation, particularly in school situations where because of the lack of funding for the inner city schools in both Bethlehem and Allentown they have very crowded -- they don’t have air conditioning. [...] 0 1076 Working from Home vs. at Work during the Pandemic LB: Yeah. Wow. So who is at home with you? When you’re at home you have who else in the household?
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 ; MD: So my wife and I are there, and we have a cat. So it’s the three of us, and she works for Johnson and Johnson and is working from home now pretty much one hundred percent, and I know for that company they’ve done a lot of work on this virus and they’re in the heart of this. Of course, studying and in the race for vaccine and working in that capacity. I mean, that’s a huge organization, Johnson and Johnson, with a lot of affiliates. And they’re going back at, like, fifteen percent. A few people are trickling in because it’s necessary that we’ve got some people on site there, you know, that they can do that. But for the most part everybody is working from home. So that’s been a big adjustment because I too was working for home during the heat of this. So the two of us were working from home, and I used to think we needed to downsize, our house was too big for us, but after both being home every day we’ve-- no, I’m just kidding. So I’m fortunate enough that I can come to my office and at least get out a little bit and do some work here. But we’re just grateful that we’re both able to continue to work. A lot of friends of ours and family have lost their jobs or were furloughed and haven’t been called back. We’ve been very fortunate in all of this. So we’re blessed. 0 1802 Zoom and Skype during the Pandemic
 ; LB: [...] So you were just saying you’re over Zoom, and I know you’re not really because you’re doing it all the time. But talk about that a little bit because I’m sure that you’re doing tons of Zoom work and other kinds of communications like that.
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 ; MD: Yes, absolutely. We are. And I will be very honest with you, when this started and we had to pivot to something different, a platform, I hadn’t heard of Zoom at all. Never heard of it. Really hadn’t had any experience with it. So it was a learning curve for me, especially, you know, I’m a little older, so not using that as an excuse by any means, but technology today is sometimes way beyond me. So I was a little bit nervous about it, and quite frankly it was easier than I thought it was going to be, but I’m still learning every day. Zoom has different features that we can do and things to use. But what we’re seeing, and what I’m hearing from the community is everybody pivoted to virtual platforms, whether it was Zoom or Microsoft Teams, whatever it may be, which is, it’s excellent. I mean, we all had to in order to survive at all and to keep serving. 0 2274 Unequal Access to Technology / Mental Health during the Pandemic MD: Absolutely. I’m finding the same thing. And you know, one thing that concerns me through all this and has been a concern from day one, this technology is great. Don’t get me wrong. Like you said, it’s a seesaw, right. I mean, [00:38:00] it’s the opportunity to get in touch with people and actually see a face and whatnot. [...] 0 2492 Controlling the Virus: New Zealand / The Choice to be In-Person or Virtual LB: There’s no reason for this, all this stuff that’s happening [inaudible] mitigated [inaudible] easily. And it has been in many other countries. There’s no question about that. I was talking to somebody yesterday whose wife is from New Zealand, which, they totally absolutely one hundred percent controlled the virus. No one has it. No one’s at risk for it. They did it by intelligent lockdown and then just limiting people who come into the country. If they do come into the country they have to be quarantined for two weeks. They just do it that way, and you know, everybody wears a mask. That’s the deal. Then they did that. Now nobody has it, and they’re back to normal except they don’t have any tourism, which is a big influx of cash for that country. But the leader of the country is brilliant, brilliant woman who made the intelligent decisions to do the right thing. 0 3011 Concerns for the Pandemic in the Future MD: [...] So going on that, it’s I think people are starting to get desperate for human connection in person, to be in a room. So I’m frightened about the fall because I think summer right now, but you can at least take a walk. You can take a bike ride. You can do things like that. It gets you out. But boy, when the fall and winter hit on top of flu season, I think it might be a really difficult time we’re looking at ahead of us. So I hope that everybody’s preparing accordingly. I don’t want to sound like the voice of doom today. I feel like I do. 0 3147 Transitioning to Life during the Pandemic
 ; MD: So I’m being very cautious, obviously, and as far as the store, I’m a little bit unique in that position where I hated the grocery store to begin with, despised it, actually. My wife will tell you and my mother will tell you that I have the MO of pulling them up to the front of the store and saying okay, I’ll be parked down there. Look for me when you’re done. I am just not a grocery store person. And oddly enough my father ran a grocery store for forty-one years. 0 3390 Knowing Someone Who has Died from Covid-19
 ; LB: Yeah. Do you know anybody who’s been sick from this or has died or -- 
 ; 
 ; MD: I do. And not direct family at all, but I’ve had two people that I know are new that contracted it, and both have passed away from it.
 ; 
 ; LB: Oh my God. 0 3604 The Fear of Feeling Sick during the Pandemic
 ; MD: Exactly. Or there’s a little morphine that they -- you know, depending upon what they’re suffering. This is not that. And this is really ugly and scary. And to know that you can’t be with the person, your family can’t be there. And you know, I don’t know if you know this or not, but when this whole thing broke out, I guess it was the beginning of April for us here, we had been quarantined for like two weeks already, or stay-at-home orders for two weeks, my wife, in the middle of the night, woke me up, which, I don’t sleep well, so she doesn’t ever wake me up unless there’s an emergency. So the minute I hear that I’m like what’s the matter? What’s wrong? And she said I don’t feel well. [...] 0 4141 Isolation during the Pandemic
 ; MD: Sure, and I think the first thing that comes to mind is probably just frustration of not being able to see family and friends freely as we’ve been accustomed. And boy, it makes you certainly appreciate that, right, what we did have. So for me that’s been frustrating. And even serving our community and conversations that I’m having with the queer community, it’s very much the same. People are frustrated. And we’re in a country, although you might not know it right now under our current leadership, we have tremendous freedom, right, or we’re supposed to anyway. And we’re not accustomed to people telling us no. You can’t do this. And you must stay isolated, and you must wear a mask, and you must do this and that. [...] 0 4342 Use of Dating Apps during the Pandemic
 ; LB: I think we’ve actually hit on pretty much, by the stuff that we’ve been talking about, pretty much everything that I’m not going to ask you whether you’re using a lot of dating apps right now. 
 ; 
 ; MD: [laughs] No. No, but other friends are. I do have friends that are doing that. That’s interesting you say that. So yeah, there are a few people who have turned to that. 
 ; 
 ; LB: I’ve interviewed people who have said that they’re doing it, and that they’re also saying not that I would go on a date. 0 4422 Greater Access/Public Outreach during the Pandemic
 ; MD: [...] So there are some positives in all of this. I mean, its’ really given us an opportunity to take a look at how we’re doing things and how can we do things differently, how can we serve more? And maybe there’s some things that we really need to change up and work on.
 ; 
 ; LB: That’s definitely true. I [01:14:00] think we’re certainly have a larger outreach in terms of -- 
 ; 
 ; MD: Absolutely.
 ; 
 ; LB: -- the (inaudible). And running certain things that people will see online. Thirty-seven thousand people have seen something that we put on there, so I’m like okay, that worked. 0 4556 Thoughts on Black Lives Matter LB: [...] So let me ask you two last things. The first thing is do you want to talk about [01:16:00] the Black Lives Matters? Because we can’t really talk about this without talking about that. So what do you think?
 ; 
 ; MD: Absolutely. Wow, how long overdue, right? And shame on us again. And I feel personally like this particular moment right now is different. I really feel as though it’s garnered more attention. And some of that attention’s been negative, I will tell you.[...] 0 5139 Discrimination against Marginalized Communities
 ; LB: And everybody -- and so that’s, you know, it’s a respectful thing to say okay, well, we’re going to talk about this in the meeting instead of just looking away and saying yeah, but we really want to talk about early detection because we want everyone to be included. No, it’s not just about black people. But the other thing that I went, in effect, I went to this meeting in Harrisburg and spent a lot of hours there [01:26:00] trying to get back on the Skype because I had to keep doing it. And yet I learned a piece of information that I’ve passed on to a number of other people. And I think that’s a really important piece of information.
 ; 
 ; MD: That’s huge, yeah. 0 5424 LGBT Center Logo LB: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love your logo. That’s a great logo.
 ; 
 ; MD: Thank you. It’s pretty cool. Yeah, I’m fond of that. But I will tell you, the six colors like that, it’s made for a little bit of difficulty when you’re trying to do shirts or banners. I didn’t think about it, but it does.
 ; 
 ; LB: I absolutely said to Adrian when we were deciding on logo for the center, I said when we had Pennsylvania University Network it had a rainbow flag in it. And I said you know, it actually doesn’t matter as much now as it used to because printing doesn’t matter quite as much with the colors then. But like t-shirts and banners where they’re saying well, each color is an additional cost (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) 0 5761 Hopes/Words for the Future 
 ; LB: Well, I ask everybody if there was, you know, this is an archive video, and it’s possible that people will see this in the future, many, many years from now, and they know what’s going to happen. They know who’s going to be elected. They know what’s going to happen with regard to that. If they’re still alive they know if the world was still in place. They know what’s going to happen with COVID. But they don’t know what individuals who are going through -- that’s why we made these things, they don’t know what individuals are talking about and how it was affecting them. And I think your interview has been fabulous in terms of the effectiveness of that. But do you have a sort of sound bite to tell those people in the future about what’s going on or what you hope for them or something like that or what you -- I don’t know. 0 5962 Thoughts on Dr. Rachel Levine LB: Yeah, that was beautiful. That was a great statement. I forgot to ask you, to make some comments about our secretary of health Rachel Levine, and I just want to throw in there that what you’re saying really talks to the heroes of our community, and certainly Dr. Levine is one of them. And I know a lot of our young people are -- a lot of our young people are really devastated by how cruel everyone has been to Dr. Levine solely because she’s transgender, not because she -- because we know that she’s a brilliant scientist and a brilliant -- And I want all of our young people to know that heroes have to deal with adversity that often has nothing to do with the good things that they’re doing all the time. 0 6422 Closing Remarks LB: It is. Well, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate you taking a lot of time, more time than I asked for, for this terrific interview. And you had such interesting insights, and I appreciate it, and I appreciate all the terrific work that you’re doing. Thank you very much. And I’m going to turn the recorder off, and thank you. 0 MovingImage Michelle Dech talks about how the current COVID19 pandemic is effecting her. She talks about being the Director of the LGBT Community Center of Reading/Berks County and some personal experiences with emergency hospital visiting at the very height of the first part of the pandemic. Michelle Dech2020-07-31 LIZ BRADBURY: Now I'm going to record. I also have an audio recording as a backup in case of messing up or something happening. Yesterday, for whatever happened, and this is the first time it's happened, the Zoom signal dropped three times during the interview, and I have no idea whether it was that person's thing. Then I -- or whether it was my connection, although I don't think it was, but I don't know what was happening. But I haven't had that happen at all, and then it happened a whole bunch of times which is, you know, my biggest fear, that I'm going to be doing a training and it'll go off, and I don't even -- MICHELLE DECH: Absolutely. LB: You know, and people are like -- Okay, so now I have to start this again, ugh. Let's see. With this project Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center, the Trexler Library of Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating local LGBT experiences from HIV/ADS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury, and I'm here with Michelle Dech to talk about her experiences in the greater Lehigh Valley LGBT community during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. We're meeting on Zoom on July 31, 2020. Thank you so much for -- I have to be sure the recording light's on, yes. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today. To start, could you please state your full name and spell it for me> ; MD: Sure, you're welcome, Liz, and thank you for having me. My name is Michelle, two Ls, and M-I-C-H-E-L-L-E. Last name is Dech, D-E-C-H. LB: And will you please share your birthdate? MD: March 28, 1966, but don't tell anyone. LB: Somebody I interviewed yesterday has your exact same birthday. MD: Wow, wow. LB: Interesting. Sure, yeah. So what town are you in? MD: I'm in Reading, Pennsylvania. LB: And now it says check to be sure it's really recording. Yes, okay. So, this is a consent portion. Do you consent to this interview today? MD: Yes, I do. LB: Great. Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable formats? MD: Yes. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including films, articles, websites, presentations, and other formats we may not even know about today? MD: Yes, I do. LB: Do you understand that you will have thirty days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview, identify any parts you'd like to delete, and/or you could withdraw your entire interview from the project? MD: Yes. LB: What zip code are you in? MD: 19605. LB: Now, it does say what is your age? MD: Fifty-four. LB: Okay. Ah, you're a baby. I guess that's an ageist thing to say, so that's kind of rude. But how do you identify within the LGBT community, trans, gay, lesbian, bi, pan? MD: Lesbian. LB: Okay. And cisgender? MD: Yes. LB: Here are some things. So this is all things that we -- I already wrote you about. You can think about things in general, but we worked -- we just began talking about our concerns about other places, and you were talking about your mother being in Florida. So, go on with that. MD: Yes, thank you. So yes, my mother's in Florida. She lives in Port Orange, which is just south of Daytona Beach. And I'm pretty concerned obviously. Florida right now is the hot spot, one of the hot spots in the United States. And you know, she's certainly a high-risk category. She's in her mid-seventies. And her health is fair. So even going to the grocery store poses a great risk for her. And so it's been a little difficult to be here and not really be able to -- you know, we're close, but living far apart is difficult at this time. And so you know, when this pandemic began really raging through the states it was located more in the northeast with the higher numbers and whatnot. It was New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, high numbers. And Florida wasn't seeing that at that point. And you know, I had some conversations with her then trying to share the information along the, you know, this'll be your way. It's coming. Right now it's on us. And she, like many people, had the thought process of I can't stop living my life, and she actually still works. She's a hairdresser, and she works within her retirement community. And so she said I have these people that I serve, and I can't just stop life. However, since the flow has now turned the tide and Florida is a hotspot she's backtracked on a lot of that, and I'm thankful that she recognizes how deadly this can be and dangerous it is, but it's just affected everything that we're doing. I mean, personally, professionally across the board. LB: Yeah, so we have a place in Amelia Island, Florida. And so that's just up the coast from Daytona. And it is interesting because we have a niece and nephew there who are actually older than Trish. Trish's niece and nephew. And they -- while they know and they're being quite careful because they're very at risk, particularly the niece, they're married to each other, that they say they don't know anybody who has had this, and truthfully that's not really true. I mean, there's no way that they don't know anybody. It's just that Florida there's a concerted effort to underreport everything that's happening. And yet, you know, they're having what, fifteen-thousand new -- it's some huge number a day of new cases. I think it was one thousand nine hundred new cases a day and throughout the state. It's a very big state, but it's happening all over the state. And we've had -- heard directly from people we really know about direct harassment of people who were wearing masks, like young people who were wearing masks where people would come up and drive up to them and scream at them and try to pull off their masks and spit on them and stuff. It's just ridiculous, crazy stuff in this little town where we have a condo. Like, really? MD: Yeah, that's crazy. And frightening, right? I mean, it's frightening enough this whole pandemic by itself carries a lot of fear of what it can do, but then you have people that are -- it's almost willful ignorance to a point with the masks, in my opinion, with the masks. You know, when you choose specifically not to do so, I just don't, I don't get it. I truly don't understand. You know, I've had some friends that were anti-mask and still are anti-mask and a few conversations, and it's been interesting to see. I can honestly say that there seems to be a whole different culture right now that's just, the meanness, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry. It's like everybody's gotten a license to just let loose, and, you know, it's ugly. It's really ugly. And I think it can be overwhelming, even for mental health, for people that suffer from mental health disparities and whatnot. This adds a whole other element to it. And then you also have people that are anti-mask, and they're really been disparaging to other people. I don't understand. It's overwhelming. I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel yet, and that's frightening for me, honestly. LB: I think you should describe your position in the LGBT community, because you're certainly in a position of leadership. So talk about what your job is there. MD: Sure, so I'm the executive director of the LGBT Center of Greater Reading. I've been in this position for just two years now. And boy, it's been an interesting ride. You know, we've been fortunate to see exponential growth within our organization over the last few years, and then COVID hit. And so that's presented some new challenges for us and for me personally. So, but we love what we do. Our mission is strong. We're making some great progress, serving a lot of different people, and I think that even more so now people are in need across the board. So we're here, we're not going anywhere. We've been open through this, and when I say open I mean we moved everything to a virtual platform. So we've been serving the community that way, and we just did recently allow our youth program -- we meet two days a week with youth. And we have been doing them Tuesdays and Thursdays via Zoom. And so I jumped on one of their Zoom meetings a few weeks ago and just kind of get caught up and see how everyone was doing. And I kind of floated the idea of what would you think about coming back on site one day a week, just one day following social distancing protocol? And oh my gosh, they jumped at this. They were just so anxious. And they're kids that are in unsupportive homes. So to get them out for an hour here, it outweighs anything else right now for us. So we made the decision to do that, and hopefully it's making an impact on them. And it's been a challenge, as I've said a few times now. Social distancing protocols, but we've got everything in place, and everybody has been willing to follow those without issue. So that's the only thing that we're doing in the center right now. I mean I'm here every day working, but that's the only thing that we're really open to do at this point. We were hoping for something maybe in August or September, but it's not looking so good right now, no, yeah. So yeah. LB: Trish was at the doctor a couple days ago, who was in Bethlehem, and Trish was talking about, you know, they're talking about opening the schools. And Bethlehem school district is still talking about that, and the doctor said they're not going to open the schools. They're just not. It's not going to happen. So stop worrying about it. It's not going to happen. Because it's just the numbers will go up, and we've already seen that. So how can they possibly justify that for young people in a school situation, particularly in school situations where because of the lack of funding for the inner city schools in both Bethlehem and Allentown they have very crowded -- they don't have air conditioning. In the summer when it's very hot they put people, large, large numbers of youth, into small areas where there's air conditioning to combat the fact that some of the rooms don't have air conditioning. I was interviewing somebody who was a (inaudible) teacher, and he said there's just no way they can do this. And he gave me all these reasons. One of the things was he said, he was a music teacher, and in an eight-day period he comes in contact with every single student at the school. MD: Wow. LB: So I mean, not only would he be at risk, but if he were positive he could be commuting this to every single kid. And he said how do I not do that? And he said as a music teacher, what do we teach them? I can't do singing. We can't have percussion instruments because there's a rule that you can't hand out things to everybody. You can hand out two items and then clean them. So he said what do you do? It's like you hand out, like, two maracas. And then what do you do in the classroom? What, do I show a video? We can do that online. We can just have them go online to do that. So he said it's a ridiculous situation. It's not going to work for lots of kids. There's some programs maybe that could work, and I talked to somebody yesterday whose school system is saying that they're going to open, but they're not going to open. They're just not. I mean, they might have some kind of thing, but they're having her do, the youth do sports practice because she's on a team, and she's going every day for that and wearing a mask outside running around. And, you know, you can do that. It's not that hard to do that. But that's outside. And it's risky. I mean, this person was saying she's older. She's over fifty. And she's saying you know, it's scary when she comes back because she's been with all these kids. And they're not little. In some instances they're saying little kids might be less likely to have it, but she's fourteen. She might as well be an adult. This is not a little (inaudible). MD: Yeah, I mean, think about major league baseball. To me that was a good example of the school system to a degree of they started back. They gave it a shot. Without fans they opened up their seasons, and I'm speaking just of the Phillies in particular because my wife is a huge Phillies fan, so I know this stuff. But they started, had one game, and it all came crashing down now because they had many players that, I guess from the team that they were playing that -- it might have been the marlins from Florida, actually or someone. But anyway, they contracted it, and now Phillies players have it. They're testing, and there's a new one every day that tests positive. So they started the season and already it's stopped. It's halted. They've had to halt their season. To me with school if they do attempt to go back, I mean, Reading's saying the same thing. They've offered three different potential platforms to go on. One is obviously back in full onsite. One is a hybrid where it's half and half, and the other is online. And Reading High is enormous. I mean, thousands and thousands of kids in this high school. So, if they do get to that point to go back I believe it's only going to be a short time until it rages within the schools. And they're going to have to go backward anyway. So we'll see, but you're right, I don't see how it's even possible to do that. It really -- and why even attempt that? Why even take that risk, I guess, you know? LB: I mean, we can't get people in a store who are in a store for twenty minutes to wear masks. How are we going to get three thousand teenagers to wear masks? MD: Exactly. LB: And not talk close to each other. MD: Right, I was going to say and stay away from each other, yeah. LB: And they're overcrowded anyway. But the terrible thing is, and it's definitely true for Reading and Allentown, they're both similar in that the funding for people in terms of, you know, somebody like in the Parkland High School system or maybe West Reading or some other more affluent areas where everybody has internet access, everybody has a computer, everybody has, or almost everybody. And then you have Allentown school district where a huge number of Reading (inaudible) who are a large, large number of people's families are essential workers. They may be traveling into New York to work or something like that because they travel long distance or into Philadelphia. And they don't have internet access. There's just no internet access. So I could say well, you know, the kids can do this on computer. Well, that's fine for a bunch of rich kids who have computers or even middle income, but when you're talking about the circumstance of Reading where you have the least likely areas of places both in Allentown and Reading where people are going to be in whole areas where they're not going to be able to access computers at all. They don't have them, you know. MD: Absolutely. Like I said, it's just, it's affecting every aspect, I think, of everything we do. So it's certainly been an eye-opener. I got to tell you. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that we'd be going through something like this, although I guess when I take a real hard look at it I'm not surprised. The writing's been on the wall, you know. But yeah, it's been an interesting ride. LB: Yeah. Wow. So who is at home with you? When you're at home you have who else in the household? MD: So my wife and I are there, and we have a cat. So it's the three of us, and she works for Johnson and Johnson and is working from home now pretty much one hundred percent, and I know for that company they've done a lot of -- and they're in the heart of this. Of course studying and in the race for vaccine and working in that capacity. I mean, that's a huge organization, Johnson and Johnson, with a lot of affiliates. And they're going back at, like, fifteen percent. A few people are trickling in because it's necessary that we've got some people on site there, you know, that they can do that. But for the most part everybody is working from home. So that's been a big adjustment because I too was working for home during the heat of this. So the two of us were working from home, and I used to think we needed to downsize, our house was too big for us, but after both being home every day we're day -- no, I'm just kidding. So I'm fortunate enough that I can come to my office and at least get out a little bit and do some work here. But we're just grateful that we're both able to continue to work. A lot of friends of ours and family have lost their jobs or were furloughed and haven't been called back. We've been very fortunate in all of this. So we're blessed. LB: Here's an interesting piece of information. I was interviewing Steve Libby and Gary Gaugler yesterday, and they produce Gaydar or (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) magazine, and they also have regular day jobs. And Gary's job is at a big factory. It's a very, very big factory, one of the biggest producers of certain kind of pipe fighting sort of stuff that they've convinced the world is essential workers because they produce sprinkler heads and stuff like that. Although they don't produce them, according to Gary, in Pennsylvania. So, but he's in a huge factory. And he's worked there for a long time. He's worked there for fourteen years. And apparently they're requiring everyone to come back even though people working from home have actually increased productivity of the ability to get this work done. And it's interesting too. I think that, you know, when you're going to your office to work you're working when you're at work. When you're at home you're working when you're working. MD: Exactly. LB: And so it's actually more productivity. So but they're still requiring everybody to come back because there is apparently, because of certain funding and grants, and since they've talked people into believing that they're an essential company, they can only get huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge beneficial loans, which they're not really due apparently, unless they have 100 percent of the workforce come back. MD: Oh wow. LB: So they're forcing one hundred percent of the workforce to come back even though there's no reason for them go come back. They're actually doing a better job at home. They're safer at home. And they said if you don't come back it's your resignation because, the implication is, that this is a privately held company, they will get millions and millions and millions of dollars of loans of our tax money if they make everybody come back even though they really don't need to. And apparently, and I've heard from several people that that's an issue all over the country. So good for Johnson and Johnson because they would be in that position too probably. MD: I would think. LB: But it sounds as though they are making a very intelligent effort to understand that it's not going to help productivity. It's going to make some people leave their jobs. I've talked to at least three people. For COVID, this is my twentieth interview. I've actually interviewed a couple of couples. Our grant was to interview twenty people who are for the COVID interviews, and ten for HIV/AIDS, so people who lived through the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and ninties. So I did those first. I'm not -- so this is thirty. And I talked to those people about COVID too. And I've talked to a number of people who actually actively quit a job that they had been in for a long time where they were making good money and doing good stuff because it was too dangerous there and their company was forcing them to do something that was very, very risky. Even people who, I mean, I can think of four people that I've interviewed that have said yeah, I left this job. I was in management, and I just, they were making me do things. It was putting other people at risk. I couldn't do it. And so I just quit. It's an interesting thing to have that level of ethics. MD: I mean, I guess my question on all of that, and I knew that there were some companies that were doing that, of course. I don't think I knew it was widespread. But I'm not surprised, yeah. But I guess the first thing that my mind goes to is there's got to be some kind of liability there I would think. If you're forced into coming back and you contract this and that can be traced to you going back for that, does the liability outweigh the -- you know, I mean, where do you draw the line? Where do you ethically -- LB: Well, there's no question that these people have said I've reported this company over and over again. We've talked to somebody whose -- I talked to the mother of a person who's very, very at risk, and she's considered an essential worker because she's a waitress. I mean because she's a good server, and the mom that I was speaking to is part of our long-term LGBT support allies who ran PFLAG in the Strasburg area for years and still does, for years and years and years, said that her daughter is really, really at risk. She has a congenital heart issue and stuff like that. And they said you have to come in. And she said you're not following any of the protocols. You people aren't wearing masks. You're not asking people to wear a mask. I mean, talk about a dangerous circumstance where a waitress is going from table to table. MD: Absolutely. How? LB: (inaudible) imagine that and to know that behind the scenes no one is wearing a mask, no one's wearing a mask in the kitchen. It's just a cesspool of danger. And then yet if she says I'm not going to come in anymore they say well, that's your resignation, then she won't get unemployment. She's resigning. She's quitting her job. And how stressful that is for this mom who's saying -- and it's not like she's making tons of money. It's not like she's a doctor and she's making one hundred thousand dollars or three hundred thousand a year or two hundred thousand or even a nurse who's getting a pretty good living wage and making fifty thousand dollars or sixty thousand dollars a year. This person is making what, you know, less than poverty rate and probably significantly less because less people are going to restaurants. I mean, it seems to a lot of people who are staying home that everybody's out there going to work except for people who are staying home. And everybody that I've interviewed are drastically staying home. And it's a wide variety of people, different ages, different demographics, different races, different socioeconomic circumstances, and different parts of the queer community. And they were all staying home. They're all really avoiding it. They're not going to bars. They're not going to restaurants. They're very, very concerned they're developing agoraphobia. You know, the whole thing. And they think that everybody else is going out. Because they're not going out they can't see. Truthfully that's not really happening so that when people go to a restaurant they say we were the only ones in the restaurant. And it still wasn't comfortable, you know. So we wonder. We're not going to go back. And I talked to one guy, [Bob Jacobs?], or he posted that he was in a restaurant in Palmerton. And he said the waitress came to the table without a mask on. MD: Oh wow. LB: You know what I mean? Like, really? And the first thing that Trish did, said was did he stay there? I mean, I would just get up and walk out. MD: Exactly, that's what I was thinking. LB: So but I know that there's some people, there's some restaurants that think that this is exactly the way to be, and we've heard about that and stuff like that. MD: I think that it's pretty incredible, if you really think about this. You were talking about the waitress that had to resign from the job or, you know, was forced to basically resign, and those people that we consider essential workers, right, the value that we placed on them previously, just from my opinion, was low. We didn't really value what they do. Maybe we didn't understand fully all that they put on the line every day. So I think this has been a great opportunity. It's one of the better things that, for me anyway, that's come out of this is it really helped me to pause for a minute and take a look at well -- and not that I treated anyone poorly at all or thought of anyone any differently, but I think our essential workers, we take them for granted. We totally take them for granted. They're paid peanuts. Most of our essential workers are paid poverty line salaries. And we've got others that are doing jobs making lots of money that really there's such an imbalance. And this is really, I think, given us a good baseline to work off of, you know, we really need to think about this and restructure how we're doing things and put some value and pay people for that value and what they're bringing to the table. And shame on us that it's taken us all this time and a pandemic to maybe get a few of us to take a hard look and say that we need to change this. We truly need to step up and make some changes. LB: And you know, think about increasing the minimum wage, increasing the circumstance of universal healthcare because in many ways that was the perpetuation of the pandemic from the beginning, that people couldn't take time off because they didn't have healthcare or they didn't have time off with healthcare. If they took days off for being sick they just wouldn't be paid. And so they chose not to do that because they couldn't afford to take four days off of work because they were coughing. And wait a minute. You know, that was one of the big perpetrators and the amplifiers of the virus at the beginning. And so we can see that now. It's trackable. And to say that that wasn't true is just putting your head in the sand. So you were just saying you're over Zoom, and I know you're not really because you're doing it all the time. But talk about that a little bit because I'm sure that you're doing tons of Zoom work and other kinds of communications like that. MD: Yes, absolutely. We are. And I will be very honest with you, when this started and we had to pivot to something different, a platform, I didn't ever hear of Zoom at all. Never hear of it. Really hadn't had any experience with it. So it was a learning curve for me, especially, you know, I'm a little older, so not using that as an excuse by any means, but technology today is sometimes way beyond me. So I was a little bit nervous about it, and quite frankly it was easier than I thought it was going to be, but I'm still learning every day. Zoom has different features that we can do and things to use. But what we're seeing, and what I'm hearing from the community is everybody pivoted to virtual platforms, whether it was Zoom or Microsoft Teams, whatever it may be, which is, it's excellent. I mean, we all had to in order to survive at all and to keep serving. However in doing so we oversaturated our community right now with information and events. And so I started hearing from different people that were on a lot of our events and a lot of different things, programming that we offered, and we started doing a little bit of a poll after each one, you know, just your normal, regular poll of was this impactful for you? And one of the questions we asked was, you know, how was your experience using Zoom? And some of the responses we got back really spoke to Zoom fatigue. Like, I enjoyed it, but I have to be honest with you, it's Zoom fatigue right now. There's just so much going on. And one of the comments we had was from somebody that actually volunteers for us but who was on as somebody who was just on to sign in and see what we were doing and to participate. And she said to me, she said you know, the event was great. The programming was awesome. But I have to admit a few times I found myself just kind of off and, you know, gazing out the window or something. And she said it had nothing to do with what you were producing but really more with just the same sitting and watching a computer screen. And I think a lot of us, those of us who were able to continue working. And especially, like a great example is my wife, okay. She works all day long on the computer, and they have Zoom meetings all day long. And so they're doing that seven out of eight hours of the day. And then in the evening I say oh, we've got an event tonight or we're doing this tonight, and it's Zoom, and you know, she said to me oh my gosh, I just spent seven hours staring at that computer screen. I don't know if I can do two hours tonight on top of it yet. So it's really not about what we're offering and what we're doing. It's more about people just being Zoomed out, so to speak. And you know, summer, I think summertime too there are people that are tempting fate, and they are vacationing, not at the rates that we typically vacation, so I think in a combination of summer and Zoom fatigue we're not seeing as much activity as we had been initially. And I think that's, for our organization, though, I'm not sure for you guys up there in Allentown, but for our organization that's kind of typical of what we've seen over the last couple years, that summer's a little tougher, you know, as far as participation goes. We still have people, but it's definitely a little bit lighter. So yeah, so Zoom was interesting. It's been a blessing, thankfully, that we can at least have that kind of communication and gathering, so to speak. So we're lucky. LB: Yeah, I'm on the statewide task force for Alzheimer's and related disease. It's a government task force, a governor's task force, and I've been serving on that for quite a few years, and yesterday morning I was at a conference. I did a conference in Harrisburg. So normally I would have had to go to Harrisburg to do this, and I've done that many times. And it started at ten, but they usually have a check-in at nine for the commissioners, or whatever it's called, the committee members. And so I would have to get up and leave at, you know, what, six thirty to be sure that I got there through rush hour. I'm so paranoid that I'm going to get stuck in traffic. So I'd leave at six thirty, and I'd be there. They'd have a horrible lunch that I really couldn't eat, that just wouldn't fit into my needs. And then I would be there, and then (inaudible). I'd get home by the end of the day. I'd get home by five even though it ended at noon. MD: Wow. LB: Because, you know, it just takes forever to do that. And so it was joyous for me to not have to do that. The problem was that they did the meeting on Skype. And it was some kind of Skype for business or something, and my connection with them dropped three times during the meeting. I couldn't see anybody. I couldn't do it on my computer because my computer's a little too old to run Skype. I have no problem with Zoom. So I had to do it on my iPad, but my iPad doesn't allow you to see the gallery view. You can only see with this Skype -- with Skype with business. For some reason you can't do it. And they kept saying well, you just click on the top button. I said yeah, it's not there on iPad. And then somebody else said yeah, it's not there on iPad. It doesn't work on iPad. You can see us. So I can only see the person. So the frustration of that aspect of it and the lack of ability to network and stuff was lost. So there was a real seesaw of like, yippee, I don't have to drive to Harrisburg and spend twelve hours doing that and gas and all that stress, and it's long day. And then the next day you're kind of messed up and you miss everything. It's the (inaudible) stuff. But then the other hand is that the meeting in many ways wasn't very successful. And I was talking to somebody who is actually running, he's in charge of a big bed and breakfast, historic bed and breakfast in Bethlehem, and she's been working all the way through, but at times she was running the entire thing herself, making the breakfast, cleaning the rooms, because she had to lay off her people. And they still had people. And then they asked her to actually house doctors who didn't want to go home and potentially infect their families. And she said, you know, I'm at really high risk, so I'm thinking do I want to do this? (inaudible) this whole thing. But they do have, she has a board and she has whole bunch of people. It's actually not for profit, and there's all kinds of stuff. And she said we've had so many Zoom meetings that I got off a meeting and think that could have been done with a text. MD: Absolutely. I'm finding the same thing. And you know, one thing that concerns me through all this and has been a concern from day one, this technology is great. Don't get me wrong. Like you said, it's a seesaw, right. I mean, it's the opportunity to get in touch with people and actually see a face and whatnot. But as you well know, the queer community in general, there's a lot of us that are isolated under regular circumstances, normal circumstances, right, and many don't have a computer. Many don't have internet. And so there is a huge group of people, chunk of people that we're missing in serving right now. You know, we were doing some calls. I have some volunteers that were making calls from home just checking on people. But it's really limiting. And it's frightening for those of us that are serving those people and those that are suffering through it. It's great, but not everybody's able to do that. I mean, there's one gentleman that we serve in particular, he is disabled, but he gets around pretty well. And he has a flip phone, an old flip phone. And he said I think I'm going to buy a computer, and I'm going to try this Zoom stuff. And I said well, I'll have somebody else help you because forget it for me. Fucking, I can't do that for you. But he did. I mean, he invested in the computer, and we had some help to get him set up, and that's wonderful. But most people aren't in a position to do that. And so you know, it's really frightening and challenging of how do we serve those that are even more isolated now and suffering from mental illness and what not to begin with? And speaking on that, I guess I sound like Debbie Downer today, and I don't mean that at all. However, one thing that I think is important to know and that I've discovered through all this, and I'm just going to be authentic and put it out here, be vulnerable in this, you know, personally I've been fortunate enough never really to suffer from anxiety or depression, other than, you know, you have a bad day once in a while. But I have to be honest with you, I'm starting to feel a little bit overwhelmed in all of this, and not about what we're doing as an organization or even me personally at home or anything like that. I just mean the state that we're in right now, and if I'm feeling that way I know that others are feeling the same, and there are people who have been long-term suffers of depression and anxiety their whole lives. And I can't even imagine what they're feeling now, you know. This has also been something that has caused me to pause and say, you know, wow. I have a new appreciation for those that suffer from these things and what they must go through every day. And so it's been interesting. And it's been an eye-opener in a lot of ways. So I like to think there's some good that comes out of everything and things happen for a reason and all those things. So I'm hopeful, but I believe in all of that unless it's politics. Then I don't know why this happened right now. Right? LB: There's no reason for this, all this stuff that's happening (inaudible) mitigated (inaudible) easily. And it has been in many other countries. There's no question about that. I was talking to somebody yesterday whose wife is from New Zealand, which, they totally absolutely one hundred percent controlled the virus. No one has it. No one's at risk for it. They did it by intelligent lockdown and then just limiting people who come into the country. If they do come into the country they have to be quarantined for two weeks. They just do it that way, and you know, everybody wears a mask. That's the deal. Then they did that. Now nobody has it, and they're back to normal except they don't have any tourism, which is a big influx of cash for that country. But the leader of the country is brilliant, brilliant woman who made the intelligent decisions to do the right thing. And here's a, you know, since you were talking about that in terms of that isolation, and I frequently an older person, and I've been running these different groups in Allentown for twenty-five years, that we always had people who would be like, they really like the Valley Gay Press when we mailed it to them, and then when we said well, you know, people said you could do this online, I could say well, yeah, but we have a significant number of people who don't have that capability, and a lot of younger believe or people who are not at the nuts and bolts level of an organization believe that everyone is online, everyone can access information with their phone, everyone can get an email. Well, at least you can get an email. It's like, you know, really the people -- MD: That's not the case. LB: -- the most vulnerable people who are the people we should do the most to serve, are the ones we can't serve that way. And I've had far more info (inaudible) calls. We've been running that for 25 years. So but one thing that happened, and this is true. We have a book club or a book group, community group. And we averaged about like nine or ten, maybe eight or nine people, ten people sometimes. We've had meetings with fifteen people, and some of the people, I said to Trish I just saw so-and-so. I haven't seen her for four years. MD: Wow. LB: And I really think she's not comfortable going out to groups, but, you know, you're really in control on a Zoom call. Because you want to leave, you don't even have to excuse yourself. MD: You're right. You just hit that little button. And you can turn yourself off. Yeah, you don't have to be on camera, yeah. LB: Totally in control. You don't have to care. But you can say well, I can only phone in, so I don't want people to see me, you know. And so some of our groups, we've given our groups, I'll say a lot of different groups, the opportunity to decide whether they want to meet in public because we have a big enough space that we can fit about twenty people still six feet from each other. I wouldn't do it though. I wouldn't go in. I'm too much at risk. And Trish is too much at risk. So I wouldn't do it. And I won't run a group like that. So I mean it's tough to ask people to do that. But several of the groups said no, we want to keep doing it on Zoom because we're actually getting more people and different people and people who aren't comfortable coming out. So that's been an interesting thing, I think. It's both sides of the coin. It really is, you know. But you're right about the ones who are really at risk. So when people call I answer them because like, you know, and I'll talk to somebody for a long time because I know many people are really isolated. And they have the same situation. And the first thing I say is that, you know, can you go online? And they'll frequently say well, yeah, they used to say I can go to the library and do it. MD: You know, I just had a conversation yesterday with another organization that I can't announce yet, but they were looking to partner in what they're doing and our end of it would simply be to provide space and a computer and social distance protocol put into place where someone could come in to our location and use that computer and the internet service that we provide in order to connect with the other group if they don't have that at home. And you know, so I thought you know what, that's probably a really great idea. And I looked over it and gave it some thought and talking to our board about it. And if it can be done, you know, obviously it needs to be done in a smart fashion, and since we are actually closed technically we can provide a room. We've got several different rooms that have doors and locks and whatnot, so someone could certainly come in and utilize some of our equipment and our internet service to have this appointment, and if they don't have that option at home. So I'm considering that, and again, it's a tough call of it's opening it up to have somebody come in, and I don't know much about them and their background, you know, those kinds of things. And even if you do know about them we don't know who's been -- like I said, even going to the grocery store we're all at risk. We've all been exposed one way or another, I think, so we're trying to make these decisions on a really measured, slow progress of how do we still serve people, and what's the best way to do that? So I really like that idea, and I think that we could probably do that safely. And so we're probably going to pursue that and maybe look to other places that might need a hand in that way, do the same. So we're always evolving, and we're always seeking more. And you mentioned the zoom thing, and you're right. It's a toss-up. We're doing interviews right now for board positions that we have available, and we have several applicants to see, and so I put out a note giving them the option. We can meet via Zoom, or if you would prefer in-person we're considering how do we do that, social distance. We have access to much larger rooms where we can really spread some people out. And so out of so far I've called eight people. There's more to call, but out of eight, seven requested in person. LB: Really? MD: Yes, one person said I just had surgery, I'd prefer to do Zoom. I couldn't believe it, honestly. I was expecting it to be the opposite direction, most people would want to do it Zoom. And so we held, last night we held four interviews. And we had them spaced far enough, used a larger room, all social distancing protocol in place, and one of the last people that we interviewed said you know, I originally had typed out that I'd prefer to do this Zoom. And she said but I changed my mind while I was typing. She said I personally just needed to get out of my house and be around other people how be it wearing a mask and sitting way further than six feet apart just to be in a room with some other people. So when she left she said I really appreciated this time. She said just knowing that we were going to do everything as safely as humanly possible. And even that we realize, that's not one hundred percent. There's no guarantee, you know. So going on that, it's I think people are starting to get desperate for human connection in person, to be in a room. So I'm frightened about the fall because I think summer right now, but you can at least take a walk. You can take a bike ride. You can do things like that. It gets you out. But boy, when the fall and winter hit on top of flu season, I think it might be a really difficult time we're looking at ahead of us. So I hope that everybody's preparing accordingly. I don't want to sound like the voice of doom today. I feel like I do. LB: I don't think that's unrealistic. I think that people have to recognize that the way we're all behaving across the United States, I mean, as a collective group, the likelihood of a second surge is so high. And it's true for other major pandemics. It was true for the flu epidemic of 1918. I mean, the first part, and that flu was so deadly, the first part was similar to what our first part is. The second half was the killer. And they had to shut everything down. Everybody knew someone who had died. And you know, millions and millions and millions of people died. Fifty million people died in that flu. And so it's really a thing that affected everybody. Nobody didn't know somebody who had -- I mean, one out of three people in the world were sick from it. So everybody knew somebody had it. And right a very few people or a lot of people don't know somebody who has had it or has been seriously ill by it that's close to them. It's potential that if we have a second wave, particularly with sending kids to school -- and the only way where that's not going to happen is if we keep everything shut down. So you're going to have to wonder, like, you know. But there is a desperation. Human beings are social beings, and that's the deal. What are you doing in terms of going out? Like, do you go to the store? What do you do? MD: So I'm being very cautious, obviously, and as far as the store, I'm a little bit unique in that position where I hated the grocery store to begin with, despised it, actually. My wife will tell you and my mother will tell you that I have the MO of pulling them up to the front of the store and saying okay, I'll be parked down there. Look for me when you're done. I am just not a grocery store person. And oddly enough my father ran a grocery store for forty-one years. LB: I think that's a connection there. MD: Maybe, maybe. You know, he passed seven years ago, so I'm glad he's not hearing me say this right now about hating the grocery stores. But I have been in, of course. And I'm very cognizant about my surroundings and people coming down the aisle that I'm in, and are they wearing a mask, are they not wearing a mask? And I haven't really had any poor experience with that because it is limited in the grocery store in particular. I will tell you that we have gone out to eat twice, three times so far just recently. This is more recent. And again, I've been fortunate that the waitress or waiter is wearing a mask, and everybody seems to be following the protocol that's been in place. But I do know that there are other people that have gone out, like you said, that waitresses aren't wearing them. The servers are not social distancing. The cooks, if you get a quick glimpse into the back of the kitchen, I had a friend of mine who said they went to a local chain restaurant outside. They were outside, which is something I should say. We've been out. I've gone out to eat, but it's only been outside. LB: Oh okay, yeah. MD: So I haven't been in anywhere. But even outside, you know, walking to get outside this friend of mine said he got a glimpse of the kitchen on the way out, and he said he looked and no one was in a mask in the kitchen. And so he turned around to the person that was seating him and he said, you know, I'm sorry, I just saw that no one's wearing a mask back there, and I'm not comfortable with that. So I'm going to take my business elsewhere, and he walked out. So I'm getting out, nowhere near to the amount that I had been initially. You know, this position, as you're well aware of, requires a lot of community engagement. And so I'm an extravert by nature anyway, and with the position there was something almost every night that I was doing, some kind of event, something to attend. And that's been difficult for me. And I was tired, so the first two weeks, Liz, of this whole thing I was like, huh, this is okay, you know. But thinking that it's going to be over, right, in a few weeks. So I got some rest, and I got caught up on some work and things like that and did a couple things around the house. And then I found myself, like, twiddling my thumbs of like, okay. Now what? I'm ready. Get me back in. So it's been challenging to lead a normal life, as everybody else knows. So yeah. Much more time to -- I'm reading more, which isn't a bad thing. Spending more time with my wife, which is not a bad thing. And saving some money, actually, by being home more. We just had that conversation last night of like hey, you know, we're actually saving more money. So we're fortunate. I look at all the people, like I said earlier, that don't have jobs. Some people have lost their homes, losing their apartments, and so I'm faring very well. So I'm lucky. LB: Yeah. Do you know anybody who's been sick from this or has died or -- MD: I do. And not direct family at all, but I've had two people that I know are new that contracted it, and both have passed away from it. LB: Oh my God. MD: They were a little bit older than me. And yeah, and you know, until it happens I think to someone you know, even if it's in the outer circle of somebody you know, if it's a friend of a friend or a friend's family member, something like that, I think it's more surreal. Until you can actually identify somebody like oh my gosh, you know, she passed away with this. And you know, I have a few friends that work in the medical field, and even my personal care physician who I just saw a couple weeks ago, we talk. We're pretty tight. And during that conversation I asked her what are you guys seeing? How does it look for you? How do you feel about the future, the fall and whatnot? And I got to tell you, it was probably one of the most profound conversations I've ever had with her, and I've known her for eighteen years I've been going to the same person. So we talk pretty freely and openly. And so she said to me, she said at her practice there's a bunch of doctors, and they have to all take a rotation at the hospital, local hospital, and the older physicians in that practice don't have to do the COVID round because they're -- LB: At risk. MD: -- more likely to be infected. So she didn't have to do the COVID round, but she looked at me and she said you know, two months into this she said one of our younger doctors did his COVID round in the hospital over the weekend. And she said he came in on Monday, and she asked him all right, tell me, what did you see? Where are we? How does this look? What can you bring back for us? And she said she looked in his eyes and the look in his eyes, he was not the same person, over the weekend. Like, she said he looked at her and he said I can't even put into words what I witnessed this weekend. And this was at the height when it was really bad here in Berks. And he went on to say that witnessing several people pass away and the method and how this happens to people, it is ugly. And it is frightening. And this is coming from -- and I think what moved me the most was probably that this is coming from a doctor who's in there, who puts their selves on the line every day. And when you have a physician that's looking at you, and she said the look in his eyes was just amazing and frightening. She said he's never going to be the same. He's never going to be the same. You know, he said the process of dying from this that especially older people are seeing and middle aged now too, it's not one of those things where -- no death if you're ill is pleasant, obviously. There's suffering and pain and whatever. LB: Some people drift away. MD: Exactly. Or there's a little morphine that they -- you know, depending upon what they're suffering. This is not that. And this is really ugly and scary. And to know that you can't be with the person, your family can't be there. And you know, I don't know if you know this or not, but when this whole thing broke out, I guess it was the beginning of April for us here, we had been quarantined for like two weeks already, or stay-at-home orders for two weeks, my wife, in the middle of the night, woke me up, which, I don't sleep well, so she doesn't ever wake me up unless there's an emergency. So the minute I hear that I'm like what's the matter? What's wrong? And she said I don't feel well. And so by the time I sat up she was already seated on the floor against the bed. And so I said what's going on? What's happening? And she said I'm dizzy. I have pain. I am sweating. And I said oh my God, you're having a heart attack. Well, I need to call 911. And she was adamant don't you dare touch that phone. Just give me a minute to get myself together, you know. And I ended up sitting on the floor with her for about forty-five minutes. I ran downstairs and got a soda and got some kind of candy. She doesn't suffer from any sugar issues, but I didn't know what to do to help and thought maybe that could be. So she had a few sips of the soda and had the piece of candy, and we sat there for forty-five minutes. And there was one point in time during that 45 minutes, and I really only mention this to good friends of ours, so I guess I'm really going to blow it out here this way, but she got very quiet, you know. And she just sat. And she was kind of staring off at the door. And so I said something to her about I really think we need to go. Instead of calling an ambulance I'll drive you. Let me help you get down the steps. And she didn't answer me. And her gaze was just fixed on the door. And for a split second, honest to God, Liz, I thought she died, for a split second. So I said, "Deb!" And scared her to death, you know. And she said I'm okay, I'm okay. Just hold on a minute. And so she refused to go anywhere that night at all because of COVID, because we knew our hospitals were just inundated with patients at the time. And so I will tell you what's even more profound about this whole thing was the morning after, you know, we're chatting, and I said Deb, you may have had a heart attack, and there could be damage. You really need to get checked out. And I had also called some family and friends that morning and just said this is what happened. And so they got on the phone with her as well and said you know, Deb, you really, just go. You got to go do this. It's important. So she agreed. So I drove her over to St. Joseph's Hospital here in Berks County. And I pulled into this parking lot that I hadn't seen under the COVID, right, pandemic. It looked like I pulled into a nuclear waste site, okay. There were tents everywhere. There were people in hazmat suits. It was just unreal. And so I parked the car, walked with her up to the curb, to the first tent, and people didn't even come out of the tent. They stayed back. And they're talking to you from way further than six feet. And why are you here? What are your symptoms? And they go through the COVID questions at that point, of course. And so they said okay, we need to scan you for a fever, which they did. She did not have. So they said you can go in the emergency room where there was a police officer standing at the door that would not allow you in if you did not have the permission to get in. LB: Wow. MD: And so I started walking with her, and the lady in the tent, her voice, you know, she got a little louder, and she said, "Ma'am, you can't go. You can't go in." And I knew that. I even knew that driving her over there, that I'm not going to be able to go in, you know. But let me tell you something, until you're standing on a curb in front of a tent with people in a hazmat suit telling you you can't go in with your loved one when they're experiencing a trauma and potentially fatal trauma, right, at this point, you have no idea how that sits and how that feels. And so I looked at her, and I'm just going to reveal, and I said well, that sucks. And she thought I was going to be defensive, of course. And so she got defensive, and she said oh, you know, this is just for you. We can't. It's for safety. And I said oh, no, no. I get it. I understand. I really do know all that, but boy does it really hit home when you're in that position. So imagine your loved one having contracted COVID, being in the hospital and being on a ventilator, and you've got to do it via phone or iPad or something. So I sat in the parking lot waiting for her. And before she sent me a text that told me she was being evaluated and tests and whatnot. And I put a little post on Facebook about this called the view from the parking lot because I just watched the same thing happen to at least a dozen people during the time that I was there. And I saw their faces when the people that were in my position turned around to come back to their car because we were told you can wait in your car or you go home and we'll call you. And so I waited right there in the car. LB: Oh, yeah, because -- MD: Right? And then but what I saw not only the people that were in my position walk away and the look on their faces of just despair, it was just despair, were the people that were coming in that were fearful that they had COVID because they were sent to another tent outside that was open that I could watch them being tested for it. I could see that. Every single one of them looked so ill, gravely ill. It was a really devastating day. And luckily enough for us the tests came back fine on my wife. She's fine. We're not sure what it was. It really could have been a sugar incident. But the point of that is, is that, you know, many people didn't seek help for other issues they were having because of this, you know, because of this pandemic. So I mean, it's been life altering. And we've had some experiences in it that have just really been quite unique and very frightening. LB: Yeah. Wow, that's an amazing story, an incredibly important story that I think (inaudible) told us that because I think people need to understand how serious that kind of stuff -- I've been in a situation where Trish was in a very, very dangerous situation, got knocked out, and they took her to the hospital, and they wouldn't let me in because I wasn't next of kin. And I actually had in my pocket my power of attorney in my pocket, which I carried with me everywhere I go. I still carry it with me everywhere I go, and our marriage license in case we knock into somebody who says well, I don't think you're really married, and it just tends to be -- could just be somebody like that. But when I was able to get in they didn't keep me from being with her, and I think that's something that people need to know. I think that's pretty important. So let's see. Wow. I (inaudible). So I can see all these things though. So there you go. I mean, there's an enormous amount of frustration and concern. And what about general frustration? This is so watered down compared to the story you just told me. But like, in general frustrations or fears, you know, that's more broad? MD: Sure, and I think the first thing that comes to mind is probably just frustration of not being able to see family and friends freely as we've been accustomed. And boy, it makes you certainly appreciate that, right, what we did have. So for me that's been frustrating. And even serving our community and conversations that I'm having with the queer community, it's very much the same. People are frustrated. And we're in a country, although you might not know it right now under our current leadership, we have tremendous freedom, right, or we're supposed to anyway. And we're not accustomed to people telling us no. You can't do this. And you must stay isolated, and you must wear a mask, and you must do this and that. And so that's been frustrating, I think, to me and other people in our community just because we've been so incredibly fortunate enough to be somewhere where we can pretty much chose our path. And now where there's obstacles in that path and a great example of that is events that we're doing or that we used to do here. We had one that we were going to roll out in August that would be outside, large area. It was a really cool kind of thing that we came up with to do, out of the box trying to come up with things. And recently spoke to local officials about doing that somewhere within city realm and were told no, we're going backwards a little bit here, so we're going to hold off on some of that stuff. And we've got to kind of put a cap on some of these things right now because of what we're seeing. So it's been frustrating. And on a person note, and my wife will tell you this, I don't like to be told no, period, right. So it's been more difficult for myself and for others that are just used to doing as we please within the realm of law, of course. So that's a frustration. And you know, from my position here, and I said it earlier, I think one of the biggest frustrations that I have is not being able to serve everybody equally right now in the same fashion. I mean, we're working to do that, but I guess I'm my worst critic and hardest on myself as I just feel like those who are able to jump on a Zoom conference or able to get on a call at any time are much more fortunate in this than those who can't. And so that's frustrating for me is feeling like we're not -- and I know we are. We're doing all we can and above that in a lot of instances, but I just feel like we're missing out on a whole other group of people that are in need right now. And we're trying. We're doing our best. LB: I think we've actually hit on pretty much, by the stuff that we've been talking about, pretty much everything that I'm not going to ask you whether you're using a lot of dating apps right now. MD: [laughs] No. No, but other friends are. I do have friends that are doing that. That's interesting you say that. So yeah, there are a few people who have turned to that. LB: I've interviewed people who have said that they're doing it, and that they're also saying not that I would go on a date. MD: Right. [laughter] LB: What kind of person would go on a date then the chances of even getting sick from them are awfully high if they're dating lots of people. But they're having conversations and stuff or whatever, online dates with people that have been something. And I think that that's true. But I haven't really talked to anybody who said sure, I'm hooking up with people or (inaudible) before. I don't think if it was even true they'd be admitting it. MD: Exactly. I mean, I do have one person that I know that started doing the online dating thing, and the person that she was seeing, so to speak, they watched a movie. They stream a movie into Zoom and watched this movie together. And I thought, how clever? I mean, so I think people are really being innovative and stepping outside the box. I know we're doing that as an organization. And you guys are too, you know, of what you can do and how to do it because we've been kind of forced to do that. So there are some positives in all of this. I mean, its' really given us an opportunity to take a look at how we're doing things and how can we do things differently, how can we serve more? And maybe there's some things that we really need to change up and work on. LB: That's definitely true. I think we're certainly have a larger outreach in terms of -- MD: Absolutely. LB: -- the (inaudible). And running certain things that people will see online. Thirty-seven thousand people have seen something that we put on there, so I'm like okay, that worked. MD: Exactly, you know, that's a big Zoom plus, I have to tell you. I mean, you know, in some of the pogroms that we've done and we have here on site, we get a lot of Berks County residence, of course, and some Lebanon County and Schuylkill Counties but never really outside of this area too far. Boy, you put it on Zoom though and it opens a world really. I mean, you know, even our website, honestly, I get a notification anytime anybody visits our website, and it just tells me where they're from. Doesn't give me -- it just says the country or whatever. I mean, I'm seeing an uptick from I've seen Italy, Finland. I've seen France, Russia, really. That's been a plus, so the outreach is really spreading a bit. So that's a good thing. LB: So in some ways people who are in rural circumstances that were very, very, very isolated, they could read about the programs we would have, but they couldn't come to the programs we would have because they were in Beaver County or something like that. They are now able to do that. So our Pride festival is going to have this global outreach and stuff, and we're very much excited about that. So there's that too, and I think that that's been a significant thing we've done. We were able to do an equal number of interviews or surveys for our health survey even during this time. And I know you were part of that as well. So let me ask you two last things. The first thing is do you want to talk about the Black Lives Matters? Because we can't really talk about this without talking about that. So what do you think? MD: Absolutely. Wow, how long overdue, right? And shame on us again. And I feel personally like this particular moment right now is different. I really feel as though it's garnered more attention. And some of that attention's been negative, I will tell you. You know, I mean, it's out there. We've seen some protests turn ugly and whatnot, and no matter who's doing the looting and whatnot, you don't want to see that period or have it come to that, obviously. But what's more important than that is the people and what we've done over 400 years to people and in general and especially to those from the black community and people of color, indigenous people. I think Black Lives Matter speaks to all of that. Even though it's centered on black community I think it really has a wider girth, and I think that I'm excited in it to a point of I think it's got some attention, and it's got the potential to maybe carry change and really make some systemic change. And that's not going to be easy. I know that. I mean, you know, and it's not going to happen overnight. But I think that there's a good number of people who are working in the, what you called earlier the nuts and bolts of things in policy and legislation that are woke right now, maybe for the first time ever. And I even know for myself and for my circle of friends, closer circle of friends, and one of them said it last night to me, you know, that she's used this time to really immerse herself in the history and doing some research and really understanding and educating herself about this movement and about what it means and about what we've done and how much we don't even know because it's been kind of written off. You know, if you look back in history, what I studied anyway through school, a lot of it doesn't include a whole other large community of people and their struggle. So it's unfathomable that it's come to this. For this day and age it's disheartening for me because I like to think we've made progress over the years, and especially in the queer community we think okay, yeah, we made great strides. We take one step forward and three back, and we know it's an ongoing process, right. But when you're faced with something like this I think it really puts in a different perspective that we should be so far ahead of this, and I'm disheartened that we're not. And I take onus of a part of that that I perpetuated that just by unconscious bias that I have. So I'm learning. I'm researching. I'm immersing myself in that as well. And I'm an ally, and I'm an anti-racist and I'm doing what I can in my power, anyway, to support the community and to build a better diverse community in general that has equity for everybody. But it's not going to be an easy battle, and it. And it's sad that it's not. And I think that's what's -- that's tough to take and overwhelming that why isn't it already happening? And okay, let's take onus on it that we've done this all these years. Now let's make the changes. Why is that difficult? Why is that hard? Why can't that be done, okay, you know, bang? So it's a journey, and but I think it's a super important one that takes precedence. And I'm proud to stand with my black community and people of color. You know, Reading has a lot of diversity, just like Allentown, right. We're a mixed bad, a melting pot, and it's super important for me as a white cis woman to recognize that even in our own organization and our own families, even in my own circle of friends I believe I'm diverse. I believe I'm open to everybody and accepting, but yet when I look around I think okay, I have a handful of black, indigenous, people of color as friends. Why is that only a handful, like, you know? So it's been an eye-opening thing, and I think it's important that we take a stand. It's no longer okay to sit quietly. And there are people that are behind the scenes that do some work behind the scenes, and one of them I spoke to this morning. He's a good friend of mine. And he said, you know, he read the front page of our paper today, and there was an article in there that was just horrific to see, and it was regarding Dr. Levine, actually. It wasn't about the Black Lives Matter, but it's kind of interconnected, really, right. So yeah, and he said to me, he said I feel like I need to voice a response. I feel like I need to write an article, a letter to the editor, or do something. And this is a person who doesn't normally speak out. He's a definite ally. He's anti-racist. He works behind the scenes, you know. And then he second guessed himself, and he said well, I don't know that I should. I probably do better when I'm working to make these things happen. I don't have to speak out. And I said, you know what, yes, you do. I said and I appreciate all you're doing behind the scenes. I get that, and I'm so appreciative of that, we all are, but it's no longer okay for any of us to stay quiet. And there's no reason why you can't continue to do those things behind the scene but also take a public stand of that. This is not okay. And you know, I think when we see more people doing that, that builds momentum. And so I encourage everybody, you know, with any kind of integrity, I guess, with everything that's going on from Black Lives Matter to transphobia and bigotry and hatred and all of those things that we're facing in our community in general, you know, stand up. Speak out. We all need allies. We know that there are so many people that are supportive, or we believe that there are so many people that are supportive, but actions speak much louder than words. So let's show it. Let's do it. And do it respectfully. And I say that with grace that, you know, I believe you get further along in accomplishing, maybe in gaining solution and promoting change doing it in a fashion that is respectful to everybody involved. We don't have to agree on policy. We don't have to agree on, you know, your politics, my politics, or beliefs or anything like that, but there's no reason that we can't have a conversation and be civil and work to bridge those gaps and make an impact and make some change. It's time. It's way overdue time. LB: Yeah. I was at this meeting that had to do with the Alzheimer's task force yesterday, and they were talking about a big event that we're going to have in May, in November that we have every year. And they wanted the keynote speaker to be somebody who was going to be talking about early detection and stuff. And frankly they do that every year. They always talk about that. Because there's nothing else to talk about. There's no cure, so there's (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible). So they talk about various different ways of caring for people and early detection. But this time we do have people and a new black person that's part of this task force, and other people that are on the task force that are black people are all appointed by the governor. At one point somebody said you know, because they were talking a lot about the issue of Alzheimer's with regard to the people of color community, and one of the people, the white people who's the leader of this, they're actually the liaison of the government said maybe the keynote speaker should be talking about that, should be talking about dementia, the dementia treatment and care with regard to the black community and the people of color community. So here's an interesting piece of information that I didn't know until yesterday, and that is that black people and people who are Latino are twice as likely to get Alzheimer's disease and to have Alzheimer's disease than white people. MD: Wow. And kudos to him for stepping up and saying that, yeah. LB: And everybody -- and so that's, you know, it's a respectful thing to say okay, well, we're going to talk about this in the meeting instead of just looking away and saying yeah, but we really want to talk about early detection because we want everyone to be included. No, it's not just about black people. But the other thing that I went, in effect, I went to this meeting in Harrisburg and spent a lot of hours there trying to get back on the Skype because I had to keep doing it. And yet I learned a piece of information that I've passed on to a number of other people. And I think that's a really important piece of information. MD: That's huge, yeah. LB: And then I was able to add because they were talking about communities that don't get care because they're minorities, and I'm on that committee because I'm representing the queer community, so I said I would like to add that the LGBT community and also the LGBT community of color is in danger by the federal government of being removed from the American Care Act. And I think we need to talk about that. And so I said when you talk about removing a group of people from -- there's intersectionality where it will affect the black and people of color community and indigenous people community as well. And so one way to remove people from care is to -- there's intersectional circumstance. And I said black transgendered people are one of the highest levels of discrimination. And trans people are often routinely removed from care, get [disparate?] care, and now we're saying if they're black and they have dementia, you know, and they're (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) get dementia. So let's talk about that. That's a really interesting thing. And instead of just that kind of tired thing of well, yeah, it really sucks to get Alzheimer's disease. Well, we know that. MD: You make a great point, Liz. And I want to thank you for what you do, for all that you do. You know, I like to think of you of somebody that's an agent of change, and you just gave a great example there where you're able to bring that knowledge and experience you have to other communities and to plant seeds. We're all planting seeds and educating, which is, I think, is the baseline for everything. A lot of this ignorance -- a lot of it is ignorance. LB: I've always thought that one of our primary positions as activists like you and I, and you've done a fabulous job in Reading, and since you've been leading that organization all your input into it has just been so evident that it's made such a difference to the community. MD: Thank you. LB: But I think that education, education is absolutely the primary thing. For our own community, so if somebody calls up and says well, do I need to get married? Let's talk about what this means for you. And I just had a long conversation with somebody who has a kid who's been together for a long time. I said do you own your house together? Do you realize that you're in enormous risk if you're not legally married? I mean, you need to think about why you're not legally married, and have that whole conversation. I had a whole conversation with somebody about what the laws say or discrimination or advocacy or something like that. And it's primarily -- it's information. I think that's really, really -- and education that we have to even do for our own community. And that's a huge important part of a community center is educating our own community. MD: Absolutely, and you know, we would probably think that that wouldn't be necessary, like, you know, but it's -- you're absolutely right. We see that time and time again where people that we serve, you know, they lack the knowledge. They lack the know-how. They're got questions, and rightfully so. That's fine. There's no judgment on that. It's just this is what we're here to do. And so whether it's in the community or without in our local areas and cities and towns, I agree education is our baseline across the board. It's where you got to start, and you build that foundation from there. LB: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love your logo. That's a great logo. MD: Thank you. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I'm fond of that. But I will tell you, the six colors like that, it's made for a little bit of difficulty when you're trying to do shirts or banners. I didn't think about it, but it does. LB: I absolutely said to Adrienne when we were deciding on logo for the center, I said when we had Pennsylvania University Network it had a rainbow flag in it. And I said you know, it actually doesn't matter as much now as it used to because printing doesn't matter quite as much with the colors then. But like t-shirts and banners where they're saying well, each color is an additional cost (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) MD: Exactly, and just to get t-shirts printed, you know, they want one thousand dollars for a couple t-shirts, and I -- what? LB: I know. I know. So I said to Adrienne we have to make our logo a two-color logo, essentially on black and white, but black and another color. So you can do that. Make it (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) MD: Smart. LB: Well, and it was only from years and years of experience of the ridiculous cost. The Valley Gay Press logo had pink in it too which was a whole other cost just -- MD: Oh yeah. LB: Because it's not a standard color. So oh my God I just, I thought the problem with us is we're too fabulous. MD: There you go, right? LB: Two colors aren't enough. MD: That is not. LB: And PFLAG had a really, it just had like two colors, and I thought God, that is so -- we got to remember this. And I was looking at your logo and saying it's more beautiful than our sports logo, which we were called [the squirt?]. And we actually thought about having each one of the little squirty thing be a different color, and I said it's just going to cost us too much money. I know I would look so much better if we were doing it, but -- MD: No, I understand. LB: (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) you know that would have cost a fortune, oh my. MD: I never thought about it ever. It didn't even cross my mind until I made the calls to do that and said holy cow, you know. LB: We thought of that for twenty years. MD: Wow. LB: (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) gala had that too, and then the Valley Gay Press had it, and I just couldn't get -- and then we finally got into this I said it's really going to make -- we have to think about having -- just make it two colors or we're just going to be sorry forever. And I also said make it look okay in black and white too because there are some logos, and I actually, when I was firs doing the paper and stuff where they would give us a color logo, and it was in black and white, the paper was in black and white, and the whole logo, you couldn't even read the logo at all. It just looked like a gray blob. MD: Oh wow. LB: I think it was because all the colors were so close in range that even though in color it was very vibrant, you know, there was like a pink and red and a green and stuff like that, (inaudible) looked like a gray square, you know. And I thought wow, your graphic designer was not paying attention when they created this thing. I once had to redo an entire poster for the summer games for FACT, which was a beautiful poster, but the colors were so similar that you couldn't even tell what the poster said. MD: Wow, it gets lost. LB: (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) lettering was on a color, but the value of the gray in the letter was exactly the same as the value of the pink background or the rose background. You just couldn't see the letters at all. And I thought, you know, they're going to be so mad at me if I do this and not (inaudible). But it's a beautiful logo, and I think it's such a tradeoff. I like the lettering too. I like the style of the lettering. That's a really nice -- what font is that in the LGBT (inaudible)? MD: You know, honestly I don't remember what we chose for that font. We've been trying different fonts, just kind of playing with a little bit, and that was a banner. There's a place here in Berks County for Berks County organizations that they do one free banner to any nonprofit in the county a year, and I heard about this, and I thought well, let's try, because we do the holiday parade here. We participate as an organization, and we usually carry the banner, and we've had some banners that have been horrible, really horrible. So I thought let me try this, and it came in, and there's no holiday parade this year, obviously. So I thought I'm going to put it on the wall and see how it looks. And so actually it looks pretty good up there, and we were working on getting shirts. We've got some polos that we've done, and oddly enough we've done the lettering in black, and we took the logo into white, just did white with it on a couple to try it. And although I like the rainbow colors, obviously, the white looks just as good. I mean, so we're fortunate that it works, but I hear you with the price is incredible. It's, you know, when they say that's six different colors, and there's, you know. LB: (inaudible) it's actually because it's blended it's an overlay, oh my gosh. And yet it's all about fabulous, so that's the thing. MD: It is, right? (laughter) LB: Well, I ask everybody if there was, you know, this is an archive video, and it's possible that people will see this in the future, many, many years from now, and they know what's going to happen. They know who's going to be elected. They know what's going to happen with regard to that. If they're still alive they know if the world was still in place. They know what's going to happen with COVID. But they don't know what individuals who are going through -- that's why we made these things, they don't know what individuals are talking about and how it was affecting them. And I think your interview has been fabulous in terms of the effectiveness of that. But do you have a sort of sound bite to tell those people in the future about what's going on or what you hope for them or something like that or what you -- I don't know. MD: Sure. I really didn't think about that, but that's a great question. I like to have that opportunity. And I guess I would probably say it might sound cliché, a bit, but how you react in the face of adversity is super important and that the challenges that you face on a daily basis, on a yearly basis, you know, they shape who you become, who you are, the community around you, your family, your friends. And so it's important, I think, to really live authentically and to walk in light, in love, and always stay on the positive side of trouble. And John Lewis, an icon that we just lost here, civil rights icon, you know, get into good trouble is one of the things that he said, and so I would urge everybody to take that step forward and get into good trouble. Once you find your purpose and passion, which you can find at the age of twenty or you can find at the age of sixty, me, I just found it a few years ago, quite honestly, and it's what I'm doing now. And so I really, I speak from experience when I say this is that nothing has been more fulfilling for me in my life tan to actually step forward out of my comfort zone, pretty much every single day, honestly, and do what it is I was meant to do and serve, however that may be for those coming behind us anyway. It was my hope that we would leave this planet a better planet for those coming behind us, Liz. Unfortunately we're not there, and I'm not sure we're going to be there throughout lifetime. So part of me wants to apologize, you know, for some of the damage we've done as a culture, as a community, as a nation to our own planet and to our people in general. So I really wish those coming behind us the best, and I'm hopeful that life for them is filled with less challenge and angst than we're experiencing right now. LB: Yeah, that was beautiful. That was a great statement. I forgot to ask you, to make some comments about our secretary of health Rachel Levine, and I just want to throw in there that what you're saying really talks to the heroes of our community, and certainly Dr. Levine is one of them. And I know a lot of our young people are -- a lot of our young people are really devastated by how cruel everyone has been to Dr. Levine solely because she's transgender, not because she -- because we know that she's a brilliant scientist and a brilliant -- And I want all of our young people to know that heroes have to deal with adversity that often has nothing to do with the good things that they're doing all the time. It was true for Superman and Batman, for heaven's sakes. And certainly Dr. Levine is our hero. And you, Michelle, are also our hero. I think that's definitely a true, a hero in Berks County and a hero in the city of Reading doing amazing work. And I think that you're speaking to that as well, and I think you might want to speak just to a couple things about Dr. Levine, and then we'll be done. MD: Yes, absolutely, Liz. And thank you for that, and you should know that -- right back at you. You're that hero as well. As far as Dr. Levine is concerned, you know, you're right. Brilliant scientist, brilliant doctor, wonderful person, and tragically just disrespected. And I'm having a difficulty finding the right words to even describe what's happening with her. And it's just disgusting. And it's really disheartening to see. And it's not just her. And you made that point, and so did she when she just came out and spoke about these disparaging remarks that have been made. You know, the remarks have been coldhearted and nasty ugly. And I will tell you, I often watch the briefings that they do for COVID during the day, and one of the things I found myself doing just a couple days ago was paying more attention to what was scrolling of the comments. And I was overwhelmed, completely overwhelmed and felt like I didn't even know where to begin, so to speak, in combating the hatred that was coming out. And this is a woman who has led us through the, you know, a historic pandemic that we're still in the midst of who gets up there every day and does her thing and is passionate about keeping us safe. And how incredibly vile to attack somebody based on transphobia and hatred. And you know, it's okay to absolutely disagree with somebody and have a difference of opinion, difference of policy. I get that. But where did it become okay to personally attack people with hatred and really harassment? When I read through that, that's kind of what hit my mind was this is harassment. And the second thought that went through my mind is I really hope she doesn't see this. I really hope she doesn't even see it. And at the end of the day what you and I talked about early as education being the vehicle for change, that's what it is. I come back to that as -- and there are going to be people, and there are people, that we can't educate because they don't want to be educated. They don't. It's not going to happen. And that's unfortunate. So I hope that the next generation and other generations coming through have a bit more compassion and respect and tolerance. And I don't even like the word tolerance, to be honest with you. I'm not a fan of that word, so to speak, but in this instance perhaps it fits that we take a step back and we don't need to personally attack people. If you want to have, voice a difference of opinion or have an argument, a constructive argument on something, that's fine, but don't attack people for how they identify, who they are, who they love, any of those things. She doesn't deserve that, and no one does. And I think what people don't realize, and any people with any type of moral, in my opinion, morals or ethics would think wow. Think of the damage this person is doing and the devastation that they're plotting with so many young transgender people out there that are seeing that and who are already facing discrimination and maybe horrific circumstances at home or whatever it may be. You know, the queer community has been discriminated against since the beginning of time, right. We know that. We fought the fight, and we continue to fight it every day. But this is our youth. These are our kids. These are our people. These are human beings. Whether you're a person of color, you're black, indigenous, gay, transgender, however you identify and whoever you are, you know, we're all human beings. We're all human beings. And so we all should treat one another with a bit of compassion. And so I'm really disheartened over this with Dr. Levine, and I will tell that as an organization and for me personally this only fuels me more and ignites a deeper passion in me that we've got work to do. And we've got to change this dialogue, and we got to get busy because there's a lot to do. LB: Well, that's good for you. That's exactly the response that needs to happen, I think, that when you have that kind of attack, well, certainly you point to it and say well, this is a group of people who cannot attack the person based on the intelligent things they say. They don't want to acknowledge what they're saying is true, so they attack a person in the personal way. And that's what's happened to every minority, every disenfranchised class ever. That's what the -- lack of intelligence always attacks somebody from the personal. MD: Absolutely. LB: -- level from how they look, something like that, has nothing to do with the actual things that they're doing and why they're doing it and stuff like that and the information that she's bringing to people. People don't want her. They don't want this to be true. MD: Exactly. LB: They don't want this to be true. They don't want it to be true that there is this pandemic and that the only way to stop it is to wear masks and stay inside and get a vaccine, probably soon, and social distance. They just don't want it to be true. MD: It's willful ignorance, right. It is willful ignorance, and that's pretty damn dangerous, honestly, in my opinion, you know. LB: It is. Well, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate you taking a lot of time, more time than I asked for, for this terrific interview. And you had such interesting insights, and I appreciate it, and I appreciate all the terrific work that you're doing. Thank you very much. And I'm going to turn the recorder off, and thank you. MD: Thank you, Liz. Thank you. I really appreciated being here. Thanks for your time. LB: Great. END OF VIDEO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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01:47:27
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Title
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Michelle Dech, July 31, 2020
Description
An account of the resource
Michelle Dech talks about how the current COVID19 pandemic is effecting her. She talks about being the Director of the LGBT Community Center of Reading/Berks County and some personal experiences with emergency hospital visiting at the very height of the first part of the pandemic.
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PH40_22
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COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-
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2020-07-31
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/1d61ac6ef3f0f8bcae686300c73d532e.png
78e898278eab0a2c3ab24f918654ec8f
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40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: COVID-19
Description
An account of the resource
In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19.
The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism.
The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Liz Bradbury
Interviewee
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Marianne Cutler
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_23.xml
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5.4 July 30, 2020 Marianne Cutler, July 30, 2020 PH40_23 01:49:47 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- COVID-19 (Disease) Marianne Cutler Liz Bradbury video/mpeg CutlerMarianne_20200730_video.mp4 1.0:|45(2)|70(13)|101(8)|138(7)|165(8)|184(9)|207(12)|228(5)|253(4)|286(3)|313(7)|340(11)|355(12)|378(12)|401(6)|426(12)|455(16)|476(14)|499(9)|526(8)|553(8)|578(10)|605(7)|628(10)|653(14)|676(4)|695(2)|720(3)|739(9)|758(3)|781(13)|798(14)|823(14)|850(3)|879(9)|906(15)|931(2)|954(6)|983(8)|1010(2)|1035(8)|1066(13)|1089(5)|1106(13)|1129(12)|1158(11)|1185(3)|1214(13)|1235(7)|1256(8)|1281(18)|1302(11)|1325(3)|1346(8)|1371(11)|1396(2)|1423(13)|1444(13)|1473(12)|1494(2)|1527(4)|1554(18)|1575(6)|1602(5)|1629(9)|1656(2)|1677(14)|1698(13)|1723(4)|1744(3)|1767(11)|1796(16)|1819(7)|1840(2)|1863(4)|1884(11)|1907(8)|1932(8)|1957(5)|1978(8)|1999(5)|2026(3)|2049(13)|2074(9)|2103(4)|2132(14)|2161(16)|2184(4)|2205(7)|2230(7)|2257(13)|2290(2)|2313(14)|2336(12)|2363(11)|2384(7)|2411(5)|2438(3)|2463(2)|2486(9)|2511(7)|2532(4)|2551(6)|2568(2)|2593(5)|2614(5)|2641(7)|2668(2)|2683(15)|2708(5) 0 https://youtu.be/CIjppMgCfFs YouTube video 0 Working Out Technical Issues LIZ BRADBURY: We even have a backup audio one in case the video doesn’t work for some reason. 
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 ; MARIANNE CUTLER: The little recorder icon has come on. 
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 ; LB: I can see that. Are you able to twist that a little bit so you don’t have so much space above your head? Because it would be a little bit better. 
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 ; MC: Well -- I can. Hang on one second. 
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 ; LB: Okay. 
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 ; MC: I’m sorry. You’re recording and now I need to do this. Liz Bradbury ; Marianne Cutler ; Record ; Tech 0 271 Going Out During the Pandemic MC: Well I’m going out as little as possible just like lots of other people. And when I am out, I am hyper-conscious of where other people are in relation to me. 
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 ; LB: Yeah. 
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 ; MC: So when I’m in the supermarket, when I’m at Wegmans, or, at Lowes, I’m very conscious of not only where other people in relation to me, but also whether other people seem to be conscious of where they are in relation to other people. As far as the ones who are just blithely moving along. I’m very sort of conscious of that. But in terms of the actual places, I mean literally Wegmans, Lowes for home improvement related things. Couple of trips to CVS. And -- Oh and the post office I think twice. 
 ; CVS ; Liz Bradbury ; Lowes ; Marianne Cutler ; Wegmans 0 373 Her Children's Lives During the Pandemic MC: She is hoping to make the high school team. She’ll be going into high school at the end of August. And she’s hoping to make their team, because as of right now they’re still declared intention of the Board that governs athletics as if there will be a fall season. At this moment, that’s the view they’re taking. So, they’re having optional workouts right now. The team. And she’s doing them so I take her to and from them. They’re wearing masks. They’re doing social distancing and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that all of that is happening the way it should. You know. It’s like, you know you lay everything out and you think what’s the relative benefit versus the relative risk here. And then, you know my partner and I both have been really pretty hyper-vigilant about things. But we’re at that point where we need to start making some decisions that might push that a little bit.
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 ; LB: Yeah. 
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 ; MC: And in terms of relative benefit and risk, the benefit of [Kai?] participating in this. We decided it was the potential risks of it. So Kai is my daughter. I also, last May, we call them, “The Guys.” A male couple who, one of whom I had known since I was 18. We were on the same floor of our dorm together. Actually he was our donor for Kai. And he and his partner, of you know, probably approaching 30 years at this point. They are very involved with Kai’s life. They live in Boston. They’re very much involved with Kai’s life as family members. Not as Dad or anything like that. But we made the decision because they’re hyper-vigilant because one of them is quite, he is actually fairly high risk due to age, that we would join our bubbles. We did that in May, actually. They came down here for Kai’s birthday. And everything was fine. But they have a place in Provincetown. 
 ; Athletics ; Boston ; High School ; Kai ; Liz Bradbury ; Marianne Cutler ; Provincetown 0 570 Life in Provincetown MC: They really are.
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 ; LB: But, did you find that people in Provincetown were much more, or enough of them were okay? Or, what did you think? 
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 ; MC: You know, it was a very -- I go every summer at least once. And I love it. I love just the spectacle. It totally recharges my queer. I just love it. It’s a fun, happy place. But it was not the same P-town that I’ve visited so many times before. I was there during what would have been Bear Week, and I don’t know if you’ve ever been there during Bear Week. 
 ; Bear Week ; Liz Bradbury ; Marianne Cutler ; Provincetown 0 704 Provincetown and Its Community MC: And you know they’d be doing some -- You know I like a good old fashioned now and again. Bourbon now and again. You know, visiting certain spots along commercial street that are my favorites. So there was none of that this time. But we had a wonderful time despite that. So. Now [Sandy?] is actually not here. Sandy’s happy place is. I don’t know if you're familiar with this, but there’s a place in Chester County called, oh gosh. I just call it Kimberton. It’s Camphill Kimberton. It is a community. I don’t even know how large the land area is. A community for adults with intellectual disabilities. And it’s kind of founded on the sort of ‘Steiner’ philosophy. So people living in small houses. There’s usually four villagers. One or two -- Usually I guess two what are called “co-workers.” They’re people who work in the community. Lots of little houses and lots of you know they have a dairy and a [beefery?]. And you know CSA on their property as well. Huge. Garden. All of that. Herb garden. 
 ; Bourbon ; Camphill Kimberton ; Chester Country ; Marianne Cutler ; Old Fashioned 0 852 Sandy and Kai's Experience at Kimberton MC: But I help the community in other ways. But anyway. So this year, Sandy and Kai went, and they had to go into the quarantine there for two weeks before they were. And they were in their sort of own little private living space. And then they were allowed to move into the house where they usually volunteer and live as co-workers basically. So they were quarantined there for two weeks and I was home alone for those two weeks. But then they were in the house for another two weeks. So I was actually home alone for a whole month. That was, between being home all the time and hardly going out, that was a little scary. It’s just so weird. Thank goodness for the dog. That’s all I can say. Sandy’s still there. Kai I fetched. We went to Provincetown. We’re here. So that’s a very long answer to the question about going out. But I haven’t done. (inaudible)
 ; Kai ; Kimberton ; Marianne Cutler ; Sandy ; Volunteer 0 1012 Family Precautions with the Pandemic LB: So she’s been taking care of little kids, but nobody that was really talking about, and then, I don’t think I’ve talked to anybody else. Because all the AIDS people they’re all old, so -- And in fact, most of them, they’re pretty established in their careers, a lot of them are retired with pensions and stuff. So there’s really no financial circumstance that they had to -- Most of those people. Because I talked about COVID with everybody too. But then making the decision to talk to the people of color in the first ten COVID things. 
 ; 
 ; The first person. So of all those first ten people, nobody really knew anybody that was sick, and nobody knew anybody knew anybody who was close to them who had died. And the first person I interviewed, it was somebody I’d known for a long long time. But, for the COVID thing said, yeah. Eight family members have had it and three of them have died. It was the first thing he said. So I have people in my extended family who have been very very sick. But I’m finding that a lot of people at least think they don’t know anybody who’s had the disease. So how about you for that? Do you know people that have been sick? 
 ; 
 ; MC: I have only known people who that, that I’m aware of, that have been tested because they had hospital exposure. And I know people who have family members -- COVID ; Family ; Kids ; Liz Bradbury ; Marianne Cutler 0 1183 Bradbury's Busy Interview Schedule LB: Great. So it’s really tricky. I mean, I think that. But, I think another thing is that one of the reasons they had me do these interviews is because doing 30 in-person interviews in about six weeks -- Not very many people can -- And they have to be part of the queer community. It’s hard to get people to be able to pull that off. Most of our interns, our employees are too young. They don’t know these people. So they make you this gig. So as and I said, “Okay, but I just want you to know that the Lehigh archive’s oral history, it took them two years to do ten people. 
 ; Archives ; Interviews ; Liz Bradbury 0 1497 Medical Visits Under a Pandemic MC: Basically, because they were all I’m not sure the right word to use -- The level of urgency, they weren’t sort of life-or-death tests. So we’re putting this off. We’re just dealing with the things that have to be dealt with, etc. But you know the biopsy, thyroid biopsy. All those different things. And I’m spending like two and a half months just in limbo. Which was hard. The stress level of the situation. But once I was able to go back to do the follow-up, I’ve been impressed with every interaction I’ve had in that setting. 
 ; Biopsy ; Marianne Cutler ; Thyroid 0 1668 Favorite Restaurant and Vaccine Conspiracies MC: Favorite restaurant in East Stroudsburg. When I’m able to get out of the office to like go out for lunch or after work to like have a beer with friends or whatever, is. I don’t know if you head up to East Stroudsburg very often, but there’s this wonderful place called the Beer House Cafe. Right on the, I think it’s called Crystal Street. The main sort of street of East Stroudsburg. Fantastic sort of North African, the main chef is, you know, she’s got one of her parents is from I can’t remember where, Egypt. North African. Other is South American. Really interesting food and flavors. I just loved this place. And I love her. You know, she’s wonderful. We always chat when I’m there. Because I’m a chatty person, in case you haven’t noticed. So, she’s like talking about you know the conspiracy to keep how’s it, I’m going to say it wrong. Hydroxychloroquine. The conspiracy to keep it out of our hands basically. And it’s like. And then she started going off on the vaccine conspiracy and autism and I had no idea. This part of you. And she’s not open to hearing other perspectives. And if it weren’t for COVID, I wouldn’t have known all this about her. (laughter) 
 ; Beer House Cafe ; COVID ; East Stroudsburg ; Marianne Cutler 0 1771 Floridians Resistance to Wearing Masks LB: Yeah, that’s one of the things about when you go away on vacation. You don’t want to learn about politics of other places where you don’t like. Like people would say to us, “Would you live in Florida?” And we’ve made an effort to be in a place that had racial diversity, and stuff that was a little less scary than every single place is very narrow. Every person is white. But what’s happening there is so ridiculous that it makes it hard to imagine not feeling that when we went back. Because, literally people were wearing masks, young people were wearing masks, teenagers, are being attacked by people. People are shouting at them for wearing a mask. 
 ; Diversity ; Florida ; Liz Bradbury ; White 0 2184 Discussing a Biden Meme LB: I actually think that’s kind of a thing to say. Like I saw a meme that said, you know, it was a picture of Biden that said, “Let me read you parts of my platform.” And at the bottom it said, “You had me at let me read.” I mean, and really how can you justify the craziness of this circumstance. And so. But I do think that in some ways it has to be distilled into a much simpler message because people that are saying this kind of stuff, they still have to be inundated with stuff saying, “Well okay, this is not true. You’re wrong, and here’s why we know that” sound bite. You’ve got to spend a lot of time reading. You know. And they want to justify the fact that they have done this very foolish, unthoughtful thing. And what folks said were going to happen. Who would have even thought that it would have gone this far? Biden ; Liz Bradbury ; Meme 0 2382 Preferences for Democratic Candidates in 2020 Election MC: I was all about Elizabeth Warren. That’s who I wanted. 
 ; LB: Her too. But if she’s in the administration, it would be a wonderful thing. Because we’ll hear her all the time. You know, throw out Betsy DeVos and have Elizabeth Warren. How would that change our lives? You know, every moment of the reality of that and I hope that Joe Biden is smart enough to do that. And I hope the campaign and all of these people are willing to do that and have Bernie Sanders be somebody who is a major advisor, part of the cabinet, angrily disagreeing, fine, you know. Fine with that. He’s not really my guy, but I’m fine with that. He’s really good policy, and some people really within reason, a lot of his economic circumstances, you know what he’s talking about is really important. And it’s what we need. And people say, “I don’t want this guy, he’s too much of a communist.” Well he’s not going to be president. So he’s not going to be vice president. So shut up. 
 ; MC: Right. And so many don’t understand what communist or socialist mean. Right, that’s another one. It’s another dog whistle. “Socialist.” Bernie Sanders ; Betsey DeVos ; Elizabeth Warren ; Liz Bradbury ; Marianne Cutler ; Socialist 0 2564 Cutler's Change from Teaching In-Person to Online LB: You learned how to do it. 
 ; 
 ; MC: Exactly. And being in the classroom face-to-face with students plays to my skillset. Being online doesn’t. And we had to make this transition very quickly. We had a week off for spring break and then spring break was extended by a week. So we had two weeks basically to get everything organized. And I did and there were some difficult decisions to make. One of the decisions I made was to make everything asynchronous because I really didn’t have confidence in -- I just felt too uncertain about whether my students would have time-specific access to the Internet, etc. ESU, I had a lot of. And also maybe sociology I think is a subject -- I have a lot of not just racial and ethnic diversity in my classes but I have a lot of socioeconomic diversity in my classes. So having students who are going to be at home with limited access, uncertain broadband capacity, all that. I thought the only way for me to do this is to go asynchronous. Put everything up there for people to do it as they’re able. And then have discussion boards again that people could kind of, as they were able depending on what their resources were. And it worked. I think largely because students were patient with me because they already had rapport. So they were patient with me as I, I’m not a very tech-savvy person. So as I was learning the software it was a steep learning curve. I put something up and they couldn’t access it and I had to figure out why they couldn’t access it. But they were patient with me about it and good-humored basically about it. As I speeded by on the seat of my pants basically. But starting in the fall, starting out online it’s not going to be the same situation. I don’t have rapport with those students already. Now my skills are more developed in the war. I took an online course, not my course that I’m teaching online. But it was on mechanics. It was not about, how do you establish, really establish rapport. Connect with -- Because nobody knows that. Sorry? 
 ; ESU ; Liz Bradbury ; Marianne Cutler ; Spring Break 0 2886 College's Plans on Reopening MC: Right, and one of the things. When ESU was still planning to go with the hybrid model. Yeah, we had all these Zoom meetings with administrators and they showed us how they were going to be setting up the classrooms with their new COVID Capacities and all this over stuff. And they were going to be issuing ESU logo facemasks to everyone to all the students. We were told we had permission to tell a student they couldn’t enter class without a facemask. So much about what we were supposed to do when the student says, “I’ve paid for this class. I’m coming in whether you are forbidding me too or not.” Those kinds of things weren’t so well worked out. But the reality is that even if we could achieve the social distanced classroom, even if we could do that, and I have one class that’s an upper level seminar basically, and all I have is ten students. We could do that. We could have a social distanced classroom. But, you can’t have, you’re going to be able to have students doing social distancing in the dorms. Or in the frat houses. Things like that. I mean, so yeah, we believe it’s the only responsible decision to make and I’m glad they made it. 
 ; 
 ; LB: Well Roberta Meek is one of the interviews I did, and she’s at Muhlenberg, and she said, “How do we tell students to not act the way they expected to be able to act when they came to college?” I mean, it’s about interaction. It’s about sharing space. It’s about you know conversations. It’s about living in a new space with new people who are completely different than what you’ve ever been with before. And, she said no matter what we say, we tell people not to drink in the dorm rooms. Colleges ; COVID ; ESU ; Liz Bradbury ; Marianne Cutler ; Muhlenberg ; Reopening ; Roberta Meek ; Students 0 3298 Robin Casey and Food Service LB: Yeah. And actually Robin Casey who is the diversity or one or I guess the head of diversity of that kind of level diversity at Muhlenberg, I interviewed her too. And she was saying that it’s actually pretty comfortable because you get the pick of the dorms. You don’t have to stay in the crappy dorms. They get their own place and they each get their own restroom. But pretty much all the classes, they just stay in their room. There’s no food service. So they can pick up, but they’re paying for that or their loans are going for that or something. But yeah, all summer they’ve had about one hundred students on campus. Hundred students on campus and some of them were in some programs that they sort of had to be there but, for the most part, it’s the way you’re describing it. Internships and that kind of stuff. But it’s really complicated. And yet, you know, there’s no alternative right now. We just have to stop hanging out with each other for a while. We just have to do it. And it’s terrible for people that age. It’s terrible for people my age, or particularly people Trisha’s age. Because she lives with us and she thinks, “I don’t have that many years left to just waste waiting until it’s better. And let’s hope it’s not another four years that we have to wait.” 
 ; Diversity ; Liz Bradbury ; Robin Casey 0 3408 One of the Upsides of Quarantine MC: Okay. One upside of all of this isolation and especially when Sandy and I were both gone and I had literally no responsibilities other than to survive. Because I wasn’t teaching summer school or anything. One of the upsides that normally I don’t watch very much television. Very, very little. I had so much time on my hands that I watched so much Netflix. We only have Netflix and Amazon Prime. 
 ; Amazon Prime ; Marianne Cutler ; Netflix 0 3678 Queer Shows Growing Up MC: Right. You know, and you go on looking for things and found things like, The Killing of Sister George.
 ; 
 ; LB: Yeah. Or, you know. I always say this. The first movie I saw when I was a kid, when was growing up in Connecticut. I could watch the million-dollar movie and they show the same movie every day for a week in the afternoon. If you were like sick and home from school you just like kept watching this movie and it was The Children’s Hour. And Shirley MacLaine is in this and she plays the gay character who turns out to be gay. They’re accused of being gay. Of course Audrey Hepburn was in it too. And at the end she confesses that she really is a lesbian and that she’s interested in Audrey Hepburn and then she kills herself. But reality is, and I talk about this all the time, I said when I saw that I went, and I watched it every single day. And I absolutely have continued to fantasize about Shirley MacLaine ever since. I watched every single movie she was in. I saw every television show she was in. I just thought this, there was even. And I even said this about, The Miracle Worker where the incredibly hot Anne Bancroft is talking about how when she was in the orphanage, you know, women who went after young girls, and I’m like, yeah? Like that was my tune-in to that. That that was so exciting that I could just hear somebody talking about queer people. Audrey Hepburn ; Liz Bradbury ; Marianne Cutler ; Shirley MacLaine ; The Children's Hour ; The Miracle Worker 0 3998 Queer Star Trek MC: Well my obsession when I could. When I was in like high school. And yeah, I wasn’t out yet. Anything that was set in a women’s prison. So, I’m living in New Jersey. This is in the seventies and the PBS station would show an episode of Prisoner: Cell Block H. An Australian series. I was like, I watched it religiously. Not even knowing what compelled me. 
 ; 
 ; LB: Are you Voyager fan? Star Trek: Voyager. You just need to watch that. Because it’s run by women. And there’s this huge subtext of this lesbian relationship in the second half of the series that they would writing to. And there’s an enormous amount of fan fiction between the captain and this other character played by Jeri Ryan, which you know. People still, cause that’s been playing in other countries now. And when Kate Mulgrew. Kate Mulgrew was of course also in Orange is the New Black. She was Red in Orange is the New Black. She will still do Star Trek conventions and she’ll go to like England or something and she’ll go into a room and they’re be like a thousand people in there and every one of them is a lesbian. The one time I heard her, the actress says, “Is there anyone is this room who isn’t gay?” And like one guy. But she says, and these women are coming up and asking questions and stuff. What about the writing between you and Seven of Nine. And she says, “Well, that was the best writing. It was really good writing.” Jeri Ryan ; Kate Mulgrew ; Liz Bradbury ; Marianne Cutler ; Orange is the New Black ; Star Trek 0 4114 Jeri Ryan's Experience with Lesbians LB: Yeah, so she’s the character. At one point, this woman gets up and she’s wearing a T-shirt, of course they’ve all got these sort of Geordie accents and they’re all all this stuff. And cause they just started to show that a couple years ago in England all the time. Or in the UK. And she looks at this woman’s T-shirt and she says,“So, I go commando. What does that mean?” And the woman at the podium says, “I’ll show you in a little while.” And the room erupts with hysterical laughter. It goes on and on. It’s just like that. And I think like -- So I ended up writing a couple of books and one of them has a character in it, one of the love interest characters is fashioned after Kate Mulgrew as the person in Voyager. Although it’s nothing like her. I just thought that’s a good person to fashion this character after. And then she, Kate Mulgrew, wrote an autobiography and she did a reading in Philadelphia at the library in Philadelphia. At the end, you can have her sign the book. And I gave her one of the books that I wrote that she’s the character. I have a picture of her in my office touching the book. Kate Mulgrew ; Lesbians ; Liz Bradbury ; Philadelphia 0 4338 The Reality of Isolation LB: That’s true. And so what’s your biggest frustration during all this stuff. Asking everybody that. 
 ; 
 ; MC: Frustration. Well I think the hardest thing is the isolation, honestly. I don’t find it frustrating, although I find it. I think it’s sad sometimes. I get sad that I’m not able to spend time with, you know, I have a very. I mean, my family aside, my support network of friends is very strong, and group of about five of us who get together regularly. It hurts. I feel sad that we can only do things by Zoom. That’s the thing that’s hardest. But I think the thing that’s most frustrating is the stuff I read where people are denying the science. And attacking people who are wearing masks or people posting signs, “No masks allowed in this store” or whatever. Things like that. Or when I am out, I mean most people are doing fine. But there are those people who are, if they’re wearing a mask, they’re wearing it incorrectly. Their nose is out, or things like that. It’s on their chin. But that is what’s most frustrating because that is what is going to prolong the situation of isolation that makes me sad. So, I think that’s it. 
 ; LB: Universally, that’s what every single person that I’ve interviewed has said. That people are not taking this seriously and they’re not doing. You know Gary and Steve, they were my last interview and they said we’re doing everything right, but because people aren’t doing things right we still have to stay inside. We still have to have all the same job worries and all this stuff because other people. You know to not have the leadership to convince people to do the right thing. Which is really the job of the leader of the country to do those things. People like Franklin Roosevelt could talk people into doing the right thing. You know we could have, make people comfortable. And then make people understand. You have to do this. 
 ; Franklin Roosevelt ; Isolation ; Liz Bradbury ; Marianne Cutler ; Zoom 0 4547 Takes on the Black Lives Matter Movement MC: And when George Floyd was killed and we started organizing rallies I felt unsafe going to them. And so I didn’t. You know, Kai, great kid. She’s very plugged in to politics and everything. Arguing with all of her friends over social media about things like Black Lives Matter. Things like income inequality. All those kinds of things. I’d like to take a little credit for some of that. But, anyway. She and I at one point we were like, because she likes to do that too. She likes to be present. She likes to show up. And we were like, “We want to go but we’re not going to go.” And that’s very hard. I mean, I’ve been doing other things. Giving money. Doing the things I can do at a distance. But it’s been very hard not to participate actively. 
 ; 
 ; LB: Everybody I know over fifty has said that. Everybody that I’ve interviewed. I mean, in interviewing people who have said. Blaise and Alanna who were saying, you know, “We’ve been marching since the sixties.” And to not be able to do this. And when the stuff happened in Allentown, Adrian actually texted me right from the first march, which was and he texted me. It was late at night. And then the next day, they had another march and I said to Trish, “You know. This is right outside our house. It’s like three blocks away.” And I said, “I think I need to go to this.” And she said, “Really?” I mean, I’m at enough risk. But she’s really really at risk. She has lupus. She has lung issues. Stuff like that. So I said, “Let me look at the thing.” And I looked at a video of the first march, so it was one. And the next night they had another march. And I was thinking about going the second night. And on the first night there’s all these young people. And they’re walking along. They all have masks on. And then I saw three people who were part of the group who didn’t have masks on. And they’re all there. And they’re chatting, and they’re shouting. And I’m thinking, “I know this is what, I mean I’ve done this. And I know that this is a risk. And I can’t take this risk. I have to --” 
 ; Allentown ; Black Lives Matter ; George Floyd ; Liz Bradbury ; Marianne Cutler 0 4864 Moravian Graduate Mention LB: Well, one of the things when I interviewed somebody who was 22 and had just graduated from Moravian. And he was saying that -- I mean, he was very calm and he was concerned about this. And he said the same thing. He was frustrated with people who don’t believe this. But he also was inherently calm. And one of the reasons he was calm was that he has his whole life in front of him. He doesn’t have to think he’s sucking up the last. You know like this is my last chance. I mean things will work out. Things will be okay. This person is being very careful. They’re probably not going to get the disease. Because they’re being very, very careful. They’re not going to make that happen to themselves. 
 ; 
 ; MC: And that’s another thing. The smart. Okay. This is going to sound terrible, probably. I don’t know if I should say it. You know, it’s being recorded. 
 ; 
 ; LB: Go ahead. Say it. 
 ; 
 ; MC: You know. Survival of the fittest doesn’t mean survival of the physically strongest necessarily. It means survival of the most adaptable. Liz Bradbury ; Marianne Cutler ; Moravian 0 5063 Talking About the Spanish Flu LB: I know. And the unfortunate is that even with the flu. I like to talk about this all the time because I’m obsessed with the flu epidemic of 1918 and that has to do with the fact that my area of expertise with regard to art history is around that time. In that section of the and how it affected people and it also affected me directly because my grandmother died in that flu epidemic. She was 32 years old when my father was four. And so it affected my life because my Dad grew up without a mother. I didn’t have two grandmothers. That kind of stuff. But the most significant thing about that flu epidemic was. Well, there’s several things -- one hundred million, fifty to one hundred million people died of that flu. One in three people of the world had it. But the most significant reasons for that we were at war. Everybody was at war. And they all didn’t want to talk about the fact that their country was having casualties from an illness. So there was actually sedition laws that you couldn’t talk about the flu epidemic in 1918.
 ; 
 ; MC: Really? I wasn’t aware of that. 
 ; 
 ; LB: And that’s why it’s called the Spanish Flu. Because Spain was the only country that was not in World War I. They were neutral. And so they were reporting on all of the stuff that was happening. All these people were dying in Spain because they were dying anywhere. So it was the headlines of the newspaper, but they wouldn’t talk about it in England or Germany or the US. Because they didn’t want to tell anybody that we were all sick. It all happened in 1918. And interestingly, it was about a fifteen-month period and it was much more serious than this. For one thing, it struck people between the ages of 20 to 40. That was the primary thing. People would die in one day. And they’d show symptoms in the morning and die at the end of the day. And you know, one month in New York City twenty-three thousand people died. And people in Allentown. There was a huge number of people in Allentown, huge number of people in Easton. But Bethlehem actually quarantined so they didn’t have as many cases. They had hundreds of cases instead of thousands of cases. But nobody was allowed to talk about it, so there’s not a lot of information about it. That’s one of the reasons that we really. So, there was a herd immunity there because so many people had it. Hilda Doolittle had it, among other things. She almost died from it. That’s how she met Bryher, the lesbian that she stayed with for the rest of her life. She came and took care of her. Also, women who were pregnant were much more likely to get it and seventy-two percent of the women who were pregnant who got it died. So I think my grandmother was pregnant. And Hilda Doolittle was pregnant. She had a miscarriage and she was so sick. She was rich, but she was really really sick. It was during World War II, or World War I. And Bryher came and said, “You’re really sick. I need to take you some place and make you health.” Bryher was the richest woman in the UK at the time. And took her away to an island where they could quarantine so that she could get better and she did. But, it was a terrible terrible illness. And yet we weren’t allowed to talk about it. And that’s kind of the way this is now. You know, we won’t have as many cases if we just stop testing people. So same mentality one hundred years later. 
 ; Liz Bradbury ; Sedition Laws ; Spanish Flu 0 5335 Criticism of Trump's Handling of the COVID-19 LB: Until people know people who have been sick and died, they’re just acting like it’s not happening. Because they don’t know anybody who has been sick or who has died. Particularly who has died. And so, a crazy guy. A repair guy came to one of the people that I was interviewing’s house and he said, “You know, this is all a plot by Hillary to make people get sick so that would collapse --” Like Hillary would do this now. To collapse the economy so that Trump won’t win. And this person said, “Yeah, well. Okay.” You know, and he said to him, “You don’t know anybody’s who’s been sick, do you?” And you goes, well, “I don’t know anybody personal. I know some people who have been sick but not in my personal circle who has been sick.” So see, nobody really has it. Well, they’re going to wait until people really have it. You know, it’s not enough to have five hundred people die in Allentown. It has to be five hundred people in your own circle. People die. So that in the really high. And with the flu epidemic of 1918, it was the same situation. There was a lot of deaths, then it sort of ended. It didn’t go. Then there was this second wave that was just horrible. It was exactly the same configuration of the year that was just, where people would get like on a subway car. Coney Island. By the time they get off they collapsed and died. You know, just happened when they were in areas like that. Just happened so easily. And so maybe that is not going to be the -- Some people are thinking that’s not going to be the case. It’s not the same kind of thing. Some people are saying that little kids are less likely to get it. But as my friend who’s a pediatrician said, you know, she said I’m getting a lot of people saying, do you think I can go ahead and send my kid to daycare? And she said, so when you send your kids to daycare, do they ever get sick from any of the other kids there? They get everything there. If you do it, they will get it. They’re going to get sick. Or they’re going to get exposed. And then they’re going to have it. Maybe they won’t get really sick, but you’ll have to look around your circle of family and friends and see if there’s anybody there that’s really going to be at risk. So a lot of the people who I have interviewed who have been older have said that was the thing that really bothered them because they couldn’t really see their grandkids because they’re the ones at risk. And they don’t want to do that to their grandkids. It’s really. Donald Trump ; Hillary Clinton ; Liz Bradbury 0 5520 Comparing COVID-19 to a Bad Flu LB: No. It’s really not like even like having a bad flu. It’s like having -- So I have a very close friend who had it and she said. You know, she had a one hundred three temperature for two weeks. She said she woke up every morning saying to herself, okay, today I just have to not die. And she said, if I have to go to the bathroom, I had to crawl there. I couldn’t walk. And she luckily had other people around who finally took her to the hospital. She was in contact with people and she said, you need to, it’s too many days for you to have this high temperature. And she went into the hospital and then they did a bunch of stuff to her and she got better. But, she’s still suffering from that, and other people that we know are still having symptoms of it. One person that I talked to said after months they had a close family member that had it. And after a month they were still just, couldn’t do anything it was so. So I think that people don’t understand how serious it is. And unfortunately, people may have to know somebody before they’ll take this seriously. And there are some media problems with it too. I don't think the media is making it clear enough to people. Although, what, you know. I mean, if you tell somebody that one hundred fifty thousand people in America have died, and they say, “Yeah, but it’s all a hoax.” How do you fix that? I mean -- 
 ; Flu ; Hospital ; Liz Bradbury 0 5701 The Importance of the Truth LB: Do you want say like, could you write a paper about that? I want you to research that and bring me some real citations that aren’t just from some crazy. 
 ; 
 ; MC: Yeah and it’s -- But the thing is that, I don’t know. I thought with my students that if I say something like, “I get how you might think that’s how it is, but here’s some other information. And I think that you should just think about that. I generally don’t tell them that they’re wrong. But, I just try to say here’s some other information that’s verifiable. You can go and check it out if you want to. I just give them something to think about. And I just leave it with them. Because, what are you going to do, right? 
 ; Citations ; Liz Bradbury ; Marianne Cutler ; Paper 0 5944 Agoraphobia Over the 2020 Presidential Election LB: Yeah. And I sent a message to somebody who was here and he’s moved to Lisbon, Portugal. And I needed to tell him about something, and he said, “You sent this to me at two o’clock in the morning. You’re up in the middle of the night.” And I said, “Yeah, I haven’t slept since the election. Since the last presidential election. Actually six months before that. And I guess one of the frustrations and angers I have is I don’t know how, if I’m ever going to feel not this way. Even if things go better. I’m never going to feel the way I felt during the Obama administration again. Cause I’m just too aware of the stupidity and. That’s another thing too. I just don’t think like and I know other people that said that they’ve developed a level of agoraphobia. 
 ; 
 ; MC: Whataphobia? 
 ; 
 ; LB: Agoraphobia. They just don’t feel comfortable going out. And you know, Adrian has talked about opening the center. And immediately I’m going like I’m going to -- I just said. And I said I’m not going to do it. And I just said it’s a long way off. Don’t worry about it now. And I think that’s a good thing for him to say. Agoraphobia ; Lisbon ; Liz Bradbury ; Marianne Cutler ; Portugal ; Presidential Elections 0 6204 Motivating College Students to Vote LB: Good. Yeah. Well, that’s the secret. At Muhlenberg when Adrian was a student at Muhlenberg and it was the Obama election, there was I often I give this dynamic people and reasons to do things and she has say, has been about forty-five kids and then forty-five college students and when Adrian was there it was seven hundred college students. And then when they left it was forty-five again. And he organized for those students to go vote. And I really think that Obama’s win was because of students, of college students. Which I don’t think Hillary Clinton ignite at all. 
 ; 
 ; MC: Nor is Joe Biden, and I hope that whoever he -- 
 ; 
 ; LB: But I think that other things are igniting college students now.
 ; 
 ; MC: True. 
 ; Hillary Clinton ; Joe Biden ; Liz Bradbury ; Marianne Cutler ; Muhlenberg ; Obama 0 6563 Closing Remarks MC: I really approached this as a conversation more than. 
 ; 
 ; LB: I take it as that. 
 ; 
 ; MC: And I’ve really enjoyed this conversation.
 ; 
 ; LB: Good. And I’m also to come and fix your house as soon as COVID’s -- 
 ; 
 ; MC: Awesome, excellent. 
 ; 
 ; LB: I’m going to turn off the recording now. So thank you again so much. 
 ; Closing Remarks ; Liz Bradbury ; Marianne Cutler 0 MovingImage Marianne Cutler talks about her experiences teaching during the Pandemic, and talks about how there is more LGBTQ+ representation in modern media as well. She also goes on to talk about how the 2020 Presidential Election would shape the future of this country. LIZ BRADBURY: We even have a backup audio one in case the video doesn't work for some reason. MARIANNE CUTLER: The little recorder icon has come on. LB: I can see that. Are you able to twist that a little bit so you don't have so much space above your head? Because it would be a little bit better. MC: Well -- I can. Hang on one second. LB: Okay. MC: I'm sorry. You're recording and now I need to do this. LB: We even have a backup audio one in case the video doesn't work for some reason. MC: The little recorder icon has come on. LB: I can see that. Are you able to twist that a little bit so you don't have so much space above your head? Because it would be a little bit better. MC: Well -- I can. Hang on one second. LB: Okay. MC: I'm sorry. You're recording and now I need to do this. LB: That's all right. That's all right. We've got plenty of time. MC: So what I need to do is lower it. Is that what you're saying? LB: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's perfect. MC: Okay. I thought I was [raising it?]. LB: There we go. This is great. There's just not so much space over your head. You're sort of in the middle, so that's good. MC: Okay. LB: Okay. So, it's on and that's on. Yes. So, with this project Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury and I'm here with Marianne Cutler to talk to her about her experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT community archive. We are meeting on Zoom today and it is July 30th. Is that right? MC: Yes. It's hard to keep track. LB: It is. That's something that everyone needs to know with regards to archive stuff. So yeah July 30th, 2020. So, thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today. To start can you please state your full name and spell it for me. MC: Sure. My name is Marianne Cutler. M-A-R-I-A-N-N-E C-U-T-L-E-R. LB: Okey-dokey. And will you please share your birthdate? MC: December 23rd, 1961. I'm fifty-eight and a half years old. LB: Okay. Well that's good. So what town are you in? MC: Bethlehem. LB: Okay. MC: Bethlehem City. Not township. Bethlehem City not township. LB: City. Okay. So, and this keeps reminding me to be sure it's recording, so yes it is. So this is the consent part. Do you consent to this interview today? MC: I do. LB: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable formats? MC: I do. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including films, articles, websites, presentations, and other formats we may not even know about today. MC: Now you're going too far. No, I'm just kidding. I do. LB: Do you understand that you will have 30 days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview and identify any parts you'd like to delete and/or withdraw your interview from the project? MC: I understand. LB: Okay. What is your zip code? MC: 18018. LB: Okay. Did you say you were thirty-nine and a half, cause that's the next question? MC: Fifty-eight and a half. LB: Oh, Fifty-eight and a half. Why did I -- I misheard you. MC: Wow, thirty-nine and a half. LB: That's cool. MC: That's a long time ago. LB: For a long time after I turned forty, I still thought I was thirty-eight. I just kept thinking I was thirty-eight and then I'd go wait, no, I'm really not thirty-eight. How do you identify yourself within the LGBT community? MC: I would describe myself as a masculine of center lesbian? LB: Okay. And cisgender? MC: Cisgender, yes. LB: So, there's lots of things we can talk about. You can talk about anything you want, and in fact we were starting out talking about, let's just go back into this since we were already in that. We were talking about where we go to shop. Where we've been going out. So go ahead and talk about that. MC: Well I'm going out as little as possible just like lots of other people. And when I am out, I am hyper-conscious of where other people are in relation to me. LB: Yeah. MC: So when I'm in the supermarket, when I'm at Wegmans, or, at Lowes, I'm very conscious of not only where other people in relation to me, but also whether other people seem to be conscious of where they are in relation to other people. As far as the ones who are just blithely moving along. I'm very sort of conscious of that. But in terms of the actual places, I mean literally Wegmans, Lowes for home improvement related things. Couple of trips to CVS. And -- Oh and the post office I think twice. LB: Yeah. MC: Now, I have to leave the house for some other reasons. I've been having some medical issues that require trips to the doctor's, but anything I can do via, you know with the tele thing. Therapy and all that. That sort of stuff I'm doing this way. My daughter, I have a fourteen-year-old daughter who plays field hockey, and she's a goalkeeper, it's awesome. LB: Cool. MC: She is hoping to make the high school team. She'll be going into high school at the end of August. And she's hoping to make their team, because as of right now they're still declared intention of the Board that governs athletics as if there will be a fall season. At this moment, that's the view they're taking. So, they're having optional workouts right now. The team. And she's doing them so I take her to and from them. They're wearing masks. They're doing social distancing and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all of that is happening the way it should. You know. It's like, you know you lay everything out and you think what's the relative benefit versus the relative risk here. And then, you know my partner and I both have been really pretty hyper-vigilant about things. But we're at that point where we need to start making some decisions that might push that a little bit. LB: Yeah. MC: And in terms of relative benefit and risk, the benefit of [Kai?] participating in this. We decided it was the potential risks of it. So Kai is my daughter. I also, last May, we call them, "The Guys." A male couple who, one of whom I had known since I was eighteen. We were on the same floor of our dorm together. Actually he was our donor for Kai. And he and his partner, of you know, probably approaching thirty years at this point. They are very involved with Kai's life. They live in Boston. They're very much involved with Kai's life as family members. Not as Dad or anything like that. But we made the decision because they're hyper-vigilant because one of them is quite, he is actually fairly high risk due to age, that we would join our bubbles. We did that in May, actually. They came down here for Kai's birthday. And everything was fine. But they have a place in Provincetown. LB: Yeah. I saw that you were in Provincetown. MC: So, Kai and I actually just came from ten days in Provincetown. Well about a week ago we got back. So we went there, but the drive there. We went eight hours without using the bathroom. LB: I know. You know, we go to Florida and it's fourteen hours and I said, we have to get Shewees. MC: Yeah, I'm the same. I was going to get them. LB: She said, I'm not doing that and I said then we can't go because I can't. She really can't do that stuff. I'm like, ah, look I'll go behind the trees. But I've never known her to do that. And I said, I don't see how. That's the one thing. Cause we have a place and we can get down there and we can -- But people in Florida are horrible. P-town I think.... MC: Oh my God. LB: Yeah. MC: People are insane. LB: It's just horrible. And the numbers are just unbelievably dangerous. MC: They really are. LB: But, did you find that people in Provincetown were much more, or enough of them were okay? Or, what did you think? MC: You know, it was a very -- I go every summer at least once. And I love it. I love just the spectacle. It totally recharges my queer. I just love it. It's a fun, happy place. But it was not the same P-town that I've visited so many times before. I was there during what would have been Bear Week, and I don't know if you've ever been there during Bear Week. LB: I've seen pictures. It wouldn't be something to do. MC: It's usually jam-packed. LB: Yeah. MC: It's got to be one of their most, you know one of their busiest theme weeks. LB: Sure. Yeah. MC: And it wasn't. It wasn't packed. But, again I, they were not wearing masks in the main drag commercial street. And they have people kind of situated at each end who are mask ambassadors. They've got the sash saying mask ambassador. LB: Of course. So brilliant. I could handle that. MC: I went a little bit in like just a couple blocks in because there was one place I needed to go to buy something that I can't buy in Pennsylvania, and I will just leave it at that. But it seemed like most the people who were walking around were wearing masks. LB: Yeah. MC: The beach was, we did go to the beach. And it was comparatively empty. LB: Yeah. MC: The distancing wasn't an issue. Yeah, so I mean I felt comfortable there. But not comfortable enough to just. Like normally I would be hanging out on the commercial street just watching. LB: Sure, I know. I've done it. MC: And you know they'd be doing some -- You know I like a good old fashioned now and again. Bourbon now and again. You know, visiting certain spots along commercial street that are my favorites. So there was none of that this time. But we had a wonderful time despite that. So. Now [Sandy?] is actually not here. Sandy's happy place is. I don't know if you're familiar with this, but there's a place in Chester County called, oh gosh. I just call it Kimberton. It's Camphill Kimberton. It is a community. I don't even know how large the land area is. A community for adults with intellectual disabilities. And it's kind of founded on the sort of 'Steiner' philosophy. So people living in small houses. There's usually four villagers. One or two -- Usually I guess two what are called "co-workers." They're people who work in the community. Lots of little houses and lots of you know they have a dairy and a bakery. And you know CSA on their property as well. Huge. Garden. All of that. Herb garden. LB: Yeah. MC: Mosaics. Bakery. They sell their goods. There's a Kimberton Whole Foods that sells their baked goods and all of that as well. So it's this completely insular bubble unto itself. And Sandy's brother who's profoundly autistic lives in a very comparable kind of community in New Zealand, which is where she's from. And so when she discovered this place. She said, "I want to do some volunteer work there." She usually does just for a couple weeks. But this, obviously it's an unusual summer. So, in order for her to go, it's actually kind of swell. I bring them supplies and I know people there. But I don't have the right temperament for volunteering there. I'm not that good a human being, I guess. LB: I understand. I really understand. MC: But I help the community in other ways. But anyway. So this year, Sandy and Kai went, and they had to go into the quarantine there for two weeks before they were. And they were in their sort of own little private living space. And then they were allowed to move into the house where they usually volunteer and live as co-workers basically. So they were quarantined there for two weeks and I was home alone for those two weeks. But then they were in the house for another two weeks. So I was actually home alone for a whole month. That was, between being home all the time and hardly going out, that was a little scary. It's just so weird. Thank goodness for the dog. That's all I can say. Sandy's still there. Kai I fetched. We went to Provincetown. We're here. So that's a very long answer to the question about going out. But I haven't done. (inaudible) MC: At all, except by Zoom. LB: Of all the people that I've spoken to, and as I said this is 30 interviews that I've done, you are the I realize that I'm trying to make a lot of different demographic broader demographics and it's a little harder to do that when you're talking about people who lived through the 80s and 90s within the LGBT community in the Lehigh Valley working on the AIDS issues. And it was all white people. It was different types of people and a little bit different ages, but there all about the same age or about my age. And everybody was white. So I made a big effort in the first ten people that I interviewed for COVID to make sure that it was people of color. And I was able to do that. But I realized that none of the people, and then I've done a bunch of that, I don't think anyone else I've interviewed has a kid. I realize that I've picked sort of a foolish demographic with regard to that. MC: That really changes the equation in lots of ways. LB: That really does, and so. I have interviewed a few people who are caring for kids like Roberta Meek -- I don't know if you know her but she's a professor and a good friend of mine and she's a professor at Muhlenberg. And she's just in the retirement phase, and she's about my age. And she has, her daughter, her son and daughter-in-law have four kids and two of them are really little, so she's been taking care of them. And her whole family is in one bubble so that she's not cross, there's no danger of that as well. MC: Right. LB: So she's been taking care of little kids, but nobody that was really talking about, and then, I don't think I've talked to anybody else. Because all the AIDS people they're all old, so -- And in fact, most of them, they're pretty established in their careers, a lot of them are retired with pensions and stuff. So there's really no financial circumstance that they had to -- Most of those people. Because I talked about COVID with everybody too. But then making the decision to talk to the people of color in the first ten COVID things. The first person. So of all those first ten people, nobody really knew anybody that was sick, and nobody knew anybody knew anybody who was close to them who had died. And the first person I interviewed, it was somebody I'd known for a long long time. But, for the COVID thing said, yeah. Eight family members have had it and three of them have died. It was the first thing he said. So I have people in my extended family who have been very very sick. But I'm finding that a lot of people at least think they don't know anybody who's had the disease. So how about you for that? Do you know people that have been sick? MC: I have only known people who that, that I'm aware of, that have been tested because they had hospital exposure. And I know people who have family members -- LB: Right. MC: --who know people have been sick and died. But my direct relationships with people, no. On Sandy's side of the family, they're all in New Zealand, and New Zealand handled this -- LB: I know. I know. I've read all about it. They're just right. MC: I have leader envy any time I hear anything about. You know they just issued? a whole chunk of money to the arts. To like support the arts. It's like, you know. LB: Well the only one thing they've got is there's no tourism because you can't in general. A bunch of idiots and we've ruined. MC: That's true. And that's a big hit because that's one of their main money-makers. But they're not backing down on it. They keep quarantined for two weeks, period. Sandy wants to actually go back to visit, but by the time she's done with the two-week quarantine, she'd have to turn around and come home again. Come here again. LB: What does she do? MC: She's a professor at Moravian College. She does medieval history. LB: Great. So it's really tricky. I mean, I think that. But, I think another thing is that one of the reasons they had me do these interviews is because doing thirty in-person interviews in about six weeks -- Not very many people can -- And they have to be part of the queer community. It's hard to get people to be able to pull that off. Most of our interns, our employees are too young. They don't know these people. So they make you this gig. So as and I said, "Okay, but I just want you to know that the Lehigh archive's oral history, it took them two years to do ten people. MC: Crazy. LB: And well I may be a year. But still. There's a reason for that. It's much easier to do interviews on Zoom. They were doing them with cameras before COVID. And you have to schedule it and it's much harder. But it's much easier to do these on Zoom. But the truth is, I know a lot of queer people, and yet -- MC: I would hope so in your person. LB: It's harder to find, but people that I know, I mean I don't know a lot of people that are very very cavalier about this. So that's one of the reasons that a lot of the people that I'm interviewing don't know people who are very sick. Because like I was talking to Steve Libby and Gary Gaugler yesterday, they run Gay Journal Magazine and stuff. And they said we've been absurdly, I mean. We're still washing everything when it comes into the house. And they said nobody we know is like this. And I said actually everybody you and I know together are acting this way. Because you just aren't aware of it because you're not communicating with everybody around here. So, truthfully people are being very careful. Drive around. We had to go to the doctor at rush hour the other day just for a checkup we had to go to. And there was nobody. We're driving through Whitehall on 145, because we had to go to Laury Station. We're coming back. It was four thirty, five o'clock in the afternoon on 145. We're going past the malls and everything. And it looked like it was Sunday morning, you know. There was hardly anybody on the street in comparison to what it normally would be. MC: Right. LB: And I'm thinking everybody's really back to work. Everybody's on this green thing and they're all out doing -- It's not really true. It just sort of seems that way when you look at social media. MC: LIke I've made the decision that tomorrow I'm getting a haircut. This is four months growth. This is literally. Because I got a haircut right before we went into lockdown just because it was convenient. It turned out that way. This is four months' growth and I, you know. But I had this long exchange with the woman who cuts my hair. What their protocols were. You know, I'm not just like I didn't just like call to make an appointment. How are you doing with this, and how are you and. The whole thing. I assured that. Well, I can't say there's going to be no risk. There will be only very little risk. Because again, it's the risk benefit thing. LB: I talked to a person who, it was Alanna Berger who she was one of the interviews, Alanna Berger and Blaise Liffick. And they're the Silent Witness people with the big rainbow umbrellas at Pride Festival. They have a transgender daughter who they said in their interview, they said that they went, that she went to the dentist and the dentist walked in the room with no mask on. MC: See, that's -- How can a dentist do that? LB: I know. And then she, a week later she was sick and she went to her doctor and the doctor wasn't sure, and thought that maybe she had a -- You know, they weren't sure about stuff. And then she thought she might have an embolism because she's on estrogen and that can be a (inaudible) -- And people have had strokes from this and they said sort of said they think it's Coronavirus and then they dealt with her. And later, they think she's had a stroke. And the only place that she's been is to the dentist. So I mean. And there's... Frankly the medical people have been incredibly careful. We're very comfortable at the medical places. MC: Right. Absolutely, I've felt the same way. LB: You know. We also are feeling like we go to the doctor all the time because that's the only place we've gone. So we've gone out like four times. Or three. I think I've gone about three times. Yeah, we've gone out three times. And it's all appointments. So it seems like that's all we do. MC: Well right before. Again, right before we kind of went into this isolation. In March, I had a series of medical tests and all these follow-ups that they wanted me to do. Okay, we want you to do this test, that test. Have this test, et cetera. And then everything stopped. So I spent like more than two months basically in limbo. LB: Oh God. MC: Basically, because they were all I'm not sure the right word to use -- The level of urgency, they weren't sort of life-or-death tests. So we're putting this off. We're just dealing with the things that have to be dealt with, etc. But you know the biopsy, thyroid biopsy. All those different things. And I'm spending like two and a half months just in limbo. Which was hard. The stress level of the situation. But once I was able to go back to do the follow-up, I've been impressed with every interaction I've had in that setting. LB: Well they are trying to, you know, there's -- MC: Apparently that is the new face of the COVID front lines. LB: Have you seen that meme where the person, said there's a young woman, and she's sort of looking out the window and it's -- (laughter) (inaudible) MC: Are you depressed about sleeping with demons -- Something -- (inaudible) Have you seen the one, might be for you? Have you seen the one, it's a medieval painting basically. There's a woman lying in bed. And there's a demon sort of walking away. That face when your demon lover has to go meet with the Lizard people. (laughter) LB: I mean there are people who are still falling for this stuff. I know. I actually had someone contact me directly from Texas. Used to live here and she said, you know I have family members that believe this stuff. Why are you in Texas? MC: Yeah, that's the pre-existing condition I guess. Well, actually one of the disappointments that I've experienced. I mean this is all related to COVID, obviously. It's not some of the direct questions that you sent me. LB: Everybody else has answered that. MC: Favorite restaurant in East Stroudsburg. When I'm able to get out of the office to like go out for lunch or after work to like have a beer with friends or whatever, is. I don't know if you head up to East Stroudsburg very often, but there's this wonderful place called the Beer House Cafe. Right on the, I think it's called Crystal Street. The main sort of street of East Stroudsburg. Fantastic sort of North African, the main chef is, you know, she's got one of her parents is from I can't remember where, Egypt. North African. Other is South American. Really interesting food and flavors. I just loved this place. And I love her. You know, she's wonderful. We always chat when I'm there. Because I'm a chatty person, in case you haven't noticed. So, she's like talking about you know the conspiracy to keep how's it, I'm going to say it wrong. Hydroxychloroquine. The conspiracy to keep it out of our hands basically. And it's like. And then she started going off on the vaccine conspiracy and autism and I had no idea. This part of you. And she's not open to hearing other perspectives. And if it weren't for COVID, I wouldn't have known all this about her. (laughter) LB: Yeah, that's one of the things about when you go away on vacation. You don't want to learn about politics of other places where you don't like. Like people would say to us, "Would you live in Florida?" And we've made an effort to be in a place that had racial diversity, and stuff that was a little less scary than every single place is very narrow. Every person is white. But what's happening there is so ridiculous that it makes it hard to imagine not feeling that when we went back. Because, literally people were wearing masks, young people were wearing masks, teenagers, are being attacked by people. People are shouting at them for wearing a mask. MC: I know. LB: And one young woman, she was, I know the person. But she said, "I am very at risk. I'm very at risk. And my granddaughter who's fourteen and wants to be with her friend who is fourteen." So they go for a walk outside. They social distance, and they wore a mask. And they were walking down the street. She told me right where they were and everything. And she said this pickup truck stopped and people yelled at them and they spit on them, just because they were wearing a mask. And she said, "You know, my granddaughter, if she got sick she'd probably be okay. But she could really make me sick." I mean she's just trying to do, a lot of people who are that age, to be sympathetic and not selfish. She tried to teach people to not be selfish. And she said, and this is why where we got all the time and, you can get away with it if you don't know. But once you know this stuff, it's very uncomfortable and -- Yeah, I think that I mean... MC: And there's no reasoning. LB: No, there's no reasoning. You really think you could just say here's all these things that are very easy to understand. I read a thing that said: to be really proactive you should join this work and it was a pro of the kind of the people that we would be supportive in terms of their political leanings. And they said don't just post memes and don't just do this. You have to do work and I said, "Yeah except for that memes are what's changing people's minds." I mean I need to see a picture of Joe Biden and his policy and a picture of Trump and the counter-policy where he support the demon lady. And just say like, here's a guy who supports these things that are for his strategy. And I know actually, I provided voter information to people for years. And that's how you get people to vote. You get people to look at that and they go that I saw this thing. They don't want to read something. MC: When I post an article I know that some of the people whose feeds that it shows up on will read it. Or at least -- But I know that other people, they'll just see the headline. Like, if I, and for me if the headline captures something important, post it. People who won't read it, they'll see the headline and maybe something will click. You know? LB: You have to do it that way. But I also think that people need to be. I had long talks with Trish about this. I think that people need to be posting. People just tend to post negative things all the time because that's all they're seeing. And they need to post parts of Biden's platform so that whether you like this guy or not, his platform, if you compare that to Trump's platform, there's no challenge. I mean it's like. Do you believe in science? No, I don't believe in science. You know, here's how we could have avoided this thing. That's exactly the opposite of what Trump did. So this guy wouldn't have done it. This guy would have. I think that that's problem. We're not getting that kind of message and while lots of thinking people will read all this stuff. And they'll be very familiar with it. And they'll be familiar with court cases. That's not the people you have to sway. That's the problem. MC: Right. LB: The sway people who saw on YouTube something that doesn't, like, it's true. It's on the Internet. I actually had somebody say that to me in front of Planned Parenthood one time. They were protesting against Planned Parenthood. And they were trying to stop someone from going in. And they were saying Planned Parenthood is trying to make you have babies so they can kill the babies. So they give you birth control that doesn't work. And I said, "Where did you get that idea?" MC: What an insane idea. LB: How insane is that? And she said, "I know it's true because it's on the Internet." And I said, "This is not something I can argue with." I know it's true because it's in writing. You know, it doesn't mean anything. And I remember this person saying this. And then I started to walk away and then I realized why this person was saying this and she was saying this because she had somehow taken her birth control wrong, become pregnant, had to have an abortion and then felt guilty about it so she wanted someone to blame. So it was that kind of a thing. I sort of said, like I'm thinking why would somebody say this? And it doesn't really have anything. I think that there are a lot of people who are trying to justify their vote for Trump which has put the entire world in a terrible circumstance solely because he was elected. I mean, things would be totally different. Or be very different. MC: They'd be very different. We'd still have Coronavirus. We'd still be having to deal with that. But it would be very different. LB: We would've rapid testing. We would have had all sorts of leadership that explained things more clearly and that, well I didn't say you can inject your body with Clorox. You know. MC: Have you seen -- (laughs) I'm sure you have. You've seen the signs that [Amy Sinelli?] had made? The Biden, they're Biden signs but they don't say "Biden 2020." They say "Biden, we won't inject you with bleach." or something. LB: I actually think that's kind of a thing to say. Like I saw a meme that said, you know, it was a picture of Biden that said, "Let me read you parts of my platform." And at the bottom it said, "You had me at let me read." I mean, and really how can you justify the craziness of this circumstance. And so. But I do think that in some ways it has to be distilled into a much simpler message because people that are saying this kind of stuff, they still have to be inundated with stuff saying, "Well okay, this is not true. You're wrong, and here's why we know that" sound bite. You've got to spend a lot of time reading. You know. And they want to justify the fact that they have done this very foolish, unthoughtful thing. And what folks said were going to happen. Who would have even thought that it would have gone this far? MC: I never thought it wouldn't. LB: The economy's the worst it's ever been. You know, and you can't say, "Well, it's not his fault." How could you say that? Well of course it's his fault. He's the leader. It's not true in New Zealand. It's not the worst economy they've ever had. In fact their people are looking at them going, "Good job." You know. They're the leaders of the correct steps to take. MC: Well I'm just hoping -- I mean obviously I have my preferences, but whoever Biden announces as his running mate is fine. It's fine. Let's get you elected. LB: What I'm hoping for is that he announces that he has chosen everyone to be on his team. MC: Right. LB: Chosen, you know, has taken all those people that were a good group of people. MC: All of them are smart people. LB: All these smart people, and they're going to be the Secretary of State and they're going to be the Secretary of Education. Elizabeth Warren is the Secretary of Education. You know? If he doesn't pick Kamala Harris for vice president, then he picked her for attorney general. You know, to say that well everybody could say that I wanted this person, and now they're going to be part of that. Because under the Obama administration some of the best minds. A lot of the stuff that happened was because he picked these really smart people. And if we can appease all of the people on this side of the aisle by saying this is a guy who picks smart people and then listens to them. MC: Right. LB: Let's just do that. And he can say, "I'll keep Fauci." He's a perfectly good guy too. And I'll listen to him. I'm not going to tell him to say something else because I don't like it. MC: Even if he is more popular than I am. LB: No kidding. That's true. So yeah, and I have said. I publicly posted that I would crawl over glass to vote for Joe Biden. And certainly I thought there were other people who would have been much more fun to have as president. But who cares? I mean we need to live. MC: I was all about Elizabeth Warren. That's who I wanted. LB: Her too. But if she's in the administration, it would be a wonderful thing. Because we'll hear her all the time. You know, throw out Betsy DeVos and have Elizabeth Warren. How would that change our lives? You know, every moment of the reality of that and I hope that Joe Biden is smart enough to do that. And I hope the campaign and all of these people are willing to do that and have Bernie Sanders be somebody who is a major advisor, part of the cabinet, angrily disagreeing, fine, you know. Fine with that. He's not really my guy, but I'm fine with that. He's really good policy, and some people really within reason, a lot of his economic circumstances, you know what he's talking about is really important. And it's what we need. And people say, "I don't want this guy, he's too much of a communist." Well he's not going to be president. So he's not going to be vice president. So shut up. MC: Right. And so many don't understand what communist or socialist mean. Right, that's another one. It's another dog whistle. "Socialist." LB: If socialists get into the government, they might take away my social security. (laughter) MC: Yeah. Exactly. LB: But, anyway. MC: They might take away my health care. LB: I know. Oh God. So anyway. Yeah. MC: Back to the interview. LB: No, all these questions I think we're hitting on them anyway so I think that's kind of the thing. But talk a little bit about what you do, because you're coming into the next phase of the school year and so, the college year. So talk about what you do. And how that's been for you, because I know you had been, suddenly, had to to teach online. MC: Right. We had to very suddenly move from in-person teaching, classroom teaching to online platform. And like a lot of my colleagues, I'd never taught online before. I never had any interest in teaching online before I'm very much a -- I just work best face-to-face. I think with students. I'm, for whatever reason, I'm generally pretty good at establishing rapport. I get to know them all by name and a little bit about them just through casual conversations as people are coming in and out of class. I tend to have a good record I think when it comes to class participation. Lots of students participate even in large lecture classes. Cause over the years I've developed certain skills that help set that tone. I don't think it's any special thing I was born with or whatever but I've developed skills. Sorry? LB: You learned how to do it. MC: Exactly. And being in the classroom face-to-face with students plays to my skill set. Being online doesn't. And we had to make this transition very quickly. We had a week off for spring break and then spring break was extended by a week. So we had two weeks basically to get everything organized. And I did and there were some difficult decisions to make. One of the decisions I made was to make everything asynchronous because I really didn't have confidence in -- I just felt too uncertain about whether my students would have time-specific access to the Internet, etc. ESU, I had a lot of. And also maybe sociology I think is a subject -- I have a lot of not just racial and ethnic diversity in my classes but I have a lot of socioeconomic diversity in my classes. So having students who are going to be at home with limited access, uncertain broadband capacity, all that. I thought the only way for me to do this is to go asynchronous. Put everything up there for people to do it as they're able. And then have discussion boards again that people could kind of, as they were able depending on what their resources were. And it worked. I think largely because students were patient with me because they already had rapport. So they were patient with me as I, I'm not a very tech-savvy person. So as I was learning the software it was a steep learning curve. I put something up and they couldn't access it and I had to figure out why they couldn't access it. But they were patient with me about it and good-humored basically about it. As I speeded by on the seat of my pants basically. But starting in the fall, starting out online it's not going to be the same situation. I don't have rapport with those students already. Now my skills are more developed in the war. I took an online course, not my course that I'm teaching online. But it was on mechanics. It was not about, how do you establish, really establish rapport. Connect with -- Because nobody knows that. Sorry? LB: You'll be able to do it. MC: I'll try. LB: You'll be able. I mean, you will. MC: Well, I'll figure it out and I'll make changes as I go. And I'll have it set up to go, but I'm sure I'll be making changes as I go, as I figure out well this isn't working. I need to. LB: Has ESU announced that they will not be opening? MC: Yeah. They're full online this fall with the exception of certain kinds of certain kinds of courses that are kind of practically based and things like athletic training or, you know, nursing or something where they have to do something. But otherwise, we're all online. So I'm hoping for a hybrid, and I'd already come up with some ideas about how I could do that. How I could meet with sort of subsets of students at different times, put other things online to be done asynchronously. I had sort of thought all that through. I mean I hadn't created the actual lesson plans and syllabi yet, but I had thought the dynamics of making a hybrid model work. And then they said we're solely going online. So. It is what it is. LB: Well, yeah. I actually think that all of the colleges will be that way. There are colleges -- MC: Moravian has not declared that yet. LB: It's ridiculous that they haven't. MC: Oh I know. LB: Because it's making every -- MC: Sandy at this point is expected to in the classroom still. I mean she's expecting it will probably change, but as of now she will be expecting to be in the classroom. LB: Well I talked to a number of people who have been working at various different colleges all over the country. I have a friend in Illinois who is, you know, the administration, this is at Illinois Wesleyan. The administration said, "Well, we're going to be opening." And the faculty said, "Yeah, no." Because they really have a high level of danger. Let me put it that way. And what the faculty came back with was, the faculty alliance said, "It's unethical to do it. It's unethical to do it to us and it's unethical to do it to the students. And if it's a financial problem, well, we'll have to work it out. But right now we can't put people at risk because we don't know what's going to happen. It would be different if everybody had their masks on." MC: Right, and one of the things. When ESU was still planning to go with the hybrid model. Yeah, we had all these Zoom meetings with administrators and they showed us how they were going to be setting up the classrooms with their new COVID Capacities and all this over stuff. And they were going to be issuing ESU logo facemasks to everyone to all the students. We were told we had permission to tell a student they couldn't enter class without a face mask. So much about what we were supposed to do when the student says, "I've paid for this class. I'm coming in whether you are forbidding me too or not." Those kinds of things weren't so well worked out. But the reality is that even if we could achieve the social distanced classroom, even if we could do that, and I have one class that's an upper level seminar basically, and all I have is ten students. We could do that. We could have a social distanced classroom. But, you can't have, you're going to be able to have students doing social distancing in the dorms. Or in the frat houses. Things like that. I mean, so yeah, we believe it's the only responsible decision to make and I'm glad they made it. LB: Well Roberta Meek is one of the interviews I did, and she's at Muhlenberg, and she said, "How do we tell students to not act the way they expected to be able to act when they came to college?" I mean, it's about interaction. It's about sharing space. It's about you know conversations. It's about living in a new space with new people who are completely different than what you've ever been with before. And, she said no matter what we say, we tell people not to drink in the dorm rooms. MC: That's effective. (laughter) LB: We tell people, you know, they have to do certain things and we can't control these, you know, they're adults and they do all sorts of different things that you're really not supposed to do. And all it has to be is one person, and then you have to send them home. So, in our greater, our extended family, we had a group of people who are another family that their daughter came home from college and she was perfectly fine. They sent her home. It was, the college is in New York State, and they sent everybody home. It was time for them to go home. And a few days later, she spiked. And this is somebody very close to us. Who's like, the temperature and infected everyone in the family. Including the ninety-two-year-old grandmother. And some of them, quite a few people, some of them got very sick. Two of them had to go in the hospital. Had they not had certain kinds of ins with the medical community, they would have died. There's no question. What does that do to a college student, too? Somebody said to me, "How is this person?" And well, doesn't injure her, she'd be okay. She recovered. And everybody. They recovered. But it was awful. It was just horrible. MC: Yeah, just imagine the guilt. LB: Oh gosh. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? And if that happens with this kid. Because she didn't know she was sick. She didn't do anything like go to spring break or anything like that. She came home from college. She didn't know anybody that was sick. So clearly there were other people that were going to other places that were infecting other people too. MC: And we just can't know. There's just. And one of the downsides, I think, of, and again let me just preface this or just reiterate, that I think it's the only responsible decision to make. To put our curriculum online. But I worry about the young people. I worry about the queer people should be at home with families that are not supportive or who are in some cases not just unsupportive. Not just the absence of -- LB: That risk. MC: But the presence of antagonism. LB: There, something like that circumstance. And that person is seeking out an ability to stay at the college even though they won't take, a college in the community, well a lot of colleges in the community. And some colleges have large numbers of people on campus. I think Muhlenberg is one hundred kids on campus who can't go home. They just can't go home for whatever reason. There's no home. There's too much illness there. There's, they won't be accepted there because they're queer or something like that. And that's a responsibility of the college too. So. MC: We're at ESU I haven't heard of any specific cases. None of the students that I work with are experiencing that that they've shared with me. I know that Sandy has a student who's in that situation from Moravian. And they just, you know they check in intermittently. Just report. Our dean of students, who you probably know. Gene Kelly. LB: Sure. MC: Gene Kelly. He was officially named dean of students probably about January or so, and he's a -- LB: Yeah, I've known Gene for years. MC: Yeah. And so, he's obviously, if there are students in that situation, he's probably in charge of making decisions about who's allowed to stay in the dorms. So I feel like a student if a queer student in that situation were to appeal to him, to be allowed to stay in the dorm. At least that student would have a very sympathetic ear. LB: Yeah. And actually Robin Casey who is the diversity or one or I guess the head of diversity of that kind of level diversity at Muhlenberg, I interviewed her too. And she was saying that it's actually pretty comfortable because you get the pick of the dorms. You don't have to stay in the crappy dorms. They get their own place and they each get their own restroom. But pretty much all the classes, they just stay in their room. There's no food service. So they can pick up, but they're paying for that or their loans are going for that or something. But yeah, all summer they've had about one hundred students on campus. Hundred students on campus and some of them were in some programs that they sort of had to be there but, for the most part, it's the way you're describing it. Internships and that kind of stuff. But it's really complicated. And yet, you know, there's no alternative right now. We just have to stop hanging out with each other for a while. We just have to do it. And it's terrible for people that age. It's terrible for people my age, or particularly people Trisha's age. Because she lives with us and she thinks, "I don't have that many years left to just waste waiting until it's better. And let's hope it's not another four years that we have to wait." MC: On no. I can't even wrap my head around that. LB: I know. It's so depressing. But anyway. So, I think we covered everything. Let's see. MC: There was one other thing that I wanted to mention. LB: Okay, do MC: But if you want to look over your list and see if there's anything. LB: No, I think we're hitting everything. Say whatever you want. MC: Okay. One upside of all of this isolation and especially when Sandy and I were both gone and I had literally no responsibilities other than to survive. Because I wasn't teaching summer school or anything. One of the upsides that normally I don't watch very much television. Very, very little. I had so much time on my hands that I watched so much Netflix. We only have Netflix and Amazon Prime. LB: Yeah. We do too. That's all we have. MC: Okay. So, and I caught up on a lot of my Queer TV. Seriously. I watched all six seasons of How to Get Away with Murder. Have you watched that? LB: We saw the beginning episodes. MC: That is a perfect television show. Start to finish. All six seasons. LB: I didn't care for it. Because I felt in the first season, we watched it because Anita Lee, who is the, who was the head of PFLAG in the East Stroudsburg area, her son Justin Lee was a writer on that show, so watched the show, and he was gone (inaudible) and everything. And you know great acting and it's really interesting and the dialogue's great. But I thought, "I don't like any character in this show." And -- MC: Six seasons later, you still won't like any character. LB: And I can't do that. (inaudible) MC: Complicated. And you don't know who to trust. LB: And, so desperate for that, you know, This is Miss Marple. And the bad guy who gets killed is bad anyway. I'm so -- MC: And Viola Davis is amazing. And her... LB: She is. MC: And especially the last couple of seasons when she's completely falling apart. (inaudible) Her mother I seriously -- that is, as far as like a television viewing experience where you never really know what's going to happen, you're on the edge of your seat. You never know who to trust. All that. It's a perfect six seasons. I loved it. And the ending is perfect. Anyway. But I also, I got, I also watched (inaudible) I watched... Now of course I'm going to blank on everything. One of those short-term free memberships so I could watch -- Have you seen it? LB: No, I haven't seen it. MC: Get one of the seven-day free trials. Then you again. There's Vida. It's terrific. It's so good. I watched Gente-fied one of the like, it's an ensemble kind of cast. But one of the story lines is queer. One of the main characters. LB: Is that on STARZ? MC: Sorry? LB: STARZ, or is it on -- MC: No, that's on Netflix. Gente-fied is on Netflix. LB: I haven't seen that. MC: These are both Latinx focused shows which there are a lot of on TV. So I don't know if they're really got but I watched Atypical. That has a -- There's kind of exploring her sexuality, identity, like that. I can't even remember things that I've watched. LB: Did you watch One Day at a Time? MC: I have not seen the last season because it's not on Netflix yet. But, yeah. Schitt's Creek. LB: Schitt's Creek. Yeah we watch that. MC: I haven't seen the last season of that either, because it's not on there. It's just, there's so much good TV than there ever used to be. Even on, there's a short series that's four episodes or something on Netflix called Unorthodox. LB: Oh yeah. Adrian was talking. I've seen that. I've seen some. MC: It's really good. And even that has a queer element to it. I mean my goodness. When we were young people, you know. LB: I know. MC: I mean Personal Best was the first movie I ever saw. LB: Me too. MC: Right. You know, and you go on looking for things and found things like, The Killing of Sister George. LB: Yeah. Or, you know. I always say this. The first movie I saw when I was a kid, when was growing up in Connecticut. I could watch the million-dollar movie and they show the same movie every day for a week in the afternoon. If you were like sick and home from school you just like kept watching this movie and it was The Children's Hour. And Shirley MacLaine is in this and she plays the gay character who turns out to be gay. They're accused of being gay. Of course Audrey Hepburn was in it too. And at the end she confesses that she really is a lesbian and that she's interested in Audrey Hepburn and then she kills herself. But reality is, and I talk about this all the time, I said when I saw that I went, and I watched it every single day. And I absolutely have continued to fantasize about Shirley MacLaine ever since. I watched every single movie she was in. I saw every television show she was in. I just thought this, there was even. And I even said this about, The Miracle Worker where the incredibly hot Anne Bancroft is talking about how when she was in the orphanage, you know, women who went after young girls, and I'm like, yeah? Like that was my tune-in to that. That that was so exciting that I could just hear somebody talking about queer people. MC: I don't remember ever hearing anything on TV when I was growing up. But, we did have Family, so we had Kristy McNichol. LB: "Family." That's true. MC: Kristy McNichol when I was in high school. So there was that. (inaudible) LB: That's true. Although, yeah, I know. And there was like the oldest daughter on Eight is Enough. MC: Right. LB: And everybody. When you get older, one of the things. You probably know. [Sandy Fluck?] who was the head of the education department. MC: Oh, yeah. LB: So she's [Beth?] (inaudible) really great friends of ours for many years. They live in Rehoboth now. Sandy was talking about how when she first saw the movie, this is a dyke thing, when she first saw The Trouble with Angels the movie The Trouble with Angels, she wanted to be a nun. And universally, if you ask lesbians of that age, and Sandy's a little older than I am. So she's about seventy now. If you ask people who of that age if that affected them that way. Some of them just became lesbians. Even the Jewish lesbians? MC: Yes. LB: I mean Sandy was a Christian Scientist. She was as far from Catholic. But it was just this whole thing of like, these women who were kind of hot and fun and they were having a great time. MC: A good time, yeah. LB: And there's no men there. And they treat men like crap when they push them around. And Ros Russell is so brilliant in that part. And she's got that tough, big shoulder broad even in the nun's habit deal. So that had that enormous. And the same The Sound of Music. The nun part of The Sound of Music The nun part of The Sound of Music. I mean really, really impacted. MC: Didn't happen for me. LB: No, I mean to see that there were these communities of women that were self-governed and tough. And that girls could go into these communities of women, and then stay there. Cause that's what happens for them. And even the fact that The Trouble with Angels, which kind of a kitschier thing, Ros Russell was, that was the remake of it. Part of it was shot in Allentown. MC: Oh really? LB: It was at Dorney Park. Yeah at Dorney Park. But that was, I was all fascinated by that because there's a part where the nun says that it's really hot. And it's Stella Stevens actually. And she pulls up her habit to expose her leg because she's so hot. And I just thought. This is so exciting. And just like the tiny little kernel of excitement there. MC: Do you remember the first time you saw All About Eve. The heat between the two of them. My God. LB: That was a lesbian thing at the end. In the last scene. The other woman comes in. That's actually in Vito Russo's Celluloid Closet in his book where he talks... MC: It's been so long since I've read it. I don't even remember. LB: Book's totally different from the documentary in a lot of ways. So it's so fascinating. No I mean. You know, all of that stuff. Any time there was that kind of a scene I was like. MC: Well my obsession when I could. When I was in like high school. And yeah, I wasn't out yet. Anything that was set in a women's prison. So, I'm living in New Jersey. This is in the seventies and the PBS station would show an episode of Prisoner: Cell Block H. An Australian series. I was like, I watched it religiously. Not even knowing what compelled me. LB: Are you Voyager fan? Star Trek: Voyager. You just need to watch that. Because it's run by women. And there's this huge subtext of this lesbian relationship in the second half of the series that they would writing to. And there's an enormous amount of fan fiction between the captain and this other character played by Jeri Ryan, which you know. People still, cause that's been playing in other countries now. And when Kate Mulgrew. Kate Mulgrew was of course also in Orange is the New Black. She was Red in Orange is the New Black. She will still do Star Trek conventions and she'll go to like England or something and she'll go into a room and they're be like a thousand people in there and every one of them is a lesbian. The one time I heard her, the actress says, "Is there anyone is this room who isn't gay?" And like one guy. But she says, and these women are coming up and asking questions and stuff. What about the writing between you and Seven of Nine. And she says, "Well, that was the best writing. It was really good writing." MC: I've heard of Seven of Nine. I've heard of that character. LB: Yeah, so she's the character. At one point, this woman gets up and she's wearing a T-shirt, of course they've all got these sort of Geordie accents and they're all all this stuff. And cause they just started to show that a couple years ago in England all the time. Or in the UK. And she looks at this woman's T-shirt and she says, "So, I go commando. What does that mean?" And the woman at the podium says, "I'll show you in a little while." And the room erupts with hysterical laughter. It goes on and on. It's just like that. And I think like -- So I ended up writing a couple of books and one of them has a character in it, one of the love interest characters is fashioned after Kate Mulgrew as the person in Voyager. Although it's nothing like her. I just thought that's a good person to fashion this character after. And then she, Kate Mulgrew, wrote an autobiography and she did a reading in Philadelphia at the library in Philadelphia. At the end, you can have her sign the book. And I gave her one of the books that I wrote that she's the character. I have a picture of her in my office touching the book. MC: Cool. LB: I said, Trish, I really like it that you've indulged this fantasy for me. So, it was pretty funny. But I think that there's a lot of interesting stuff. One of the things about Voyager was it was produced in the Clinton era. And so it's a much gentler show. And so was The Next Generation. Both of those were. And then there was a later show produced in the more negative era that was much more, that was in the Bush era, that was much more aggressive and fighting and blowing people up. But the Voyager has got scenes in it where you just go, "Whoa!" MC: I'm going to have to check it out. LB: The second half, so I think there's seven seasons and it starts at the end of the third season of the new character. There's, Scott Thompson is in it. One of the episodes. It's very very funny. And it's not queer enough, but it has this woman captain. And they ran the whole series. They didn't say that they were tired of her. They really didn't. It's worth it. It's worth watching. Plus it's something else. MC: We're going to not be going out for a while. So any more things to watch. LB: I know, I would totally run out of stuff. But I told you about QI. Have you watched QI? MC: I have not watched. No, I haven't. LB: Watch an episode. But only the ones with Sandi Toksvig because she's a lesbian and she'll say it over and over again. Somebody'll make a joke and she'll say, some penis joke, and she'll say, "I have no experience with that." And people will laugh. MC: That's how I teach. I do that in the lecture all the time. LB: I do too. I'll say, "I don't really understand this, but some people say." So, yeah. That's kind of the deal. Well, it's been a while. Let's see if I hit everything. So. So I don't have to ask you if you aren't out at home. You haven't been laid off. MC: Only to my family. LB: That's true. And so what's your biggest frustration during all this stuff. Asking everybody that. MC: Frustration. Well I think the hardest thing is the isolation, honestly. I don't find it frustrating, although I find it. I think it's sad sometimes. I get sad that I'm not able to spend time with, you know, I have a very. I mean, my family aside, my support network of friends is very strong, and group of about five of us who get together regularly. It hurts. I feel sad that we can only do things by Zoom. That's the thing that's hardest. But I think the thing that's most frustrating is the stuff I read where people are denying the science. And attacking people who are wearing masks or people posting signs, "No masks allowed in this store" or whatever. Things like that. Or when I am out, I mean most people are doing fine. But there are those people who are, if they're wearing a mask, they're wearing it incorrectly. Their nose is out, or things like that. It's on their chin. But that is what's most frustrating because that is what is going to prolong the situation of isolation that makes me sad. So, I think that's it. LB: Universally, that's what every single person that I've interviewed has said. That people are not taking this seriously and they're not doing. You know Gary and Steve, they were my last interview and they said we're doing everything right, but because people aren't doing things right we still have to stay inside. We still have to have all the same job worries and all this stuff because other people. You know to not have the leadership to convince people to do the right thing. Which is really the job of the leader of the country to do those things. People like Franklin Roosevelt could talk people into doing the right thing. You know we could have, make people comfortable. And then make people understand. You have to do this. MC: Imagine. Think about World War II and all the rationing that they were doing. Like, if people won't wear a fucking mask now. Like how -- LB: So the level of frustration is astounding. And I've talked to everybody about, I mean we've talked a little bit about Black Lives Matter. That's one of the things. MC: That's one of my frustrations actually. Sorry for cutting you off. LB: No, that's exactly right. MC: Because of my anxiety about this and not, they're not unfounded these days, you know I am someone who typically attends protests and rallies and marches. That's where I run into you generally, at these things. Right? LB: Right. MC: And when George Floyd was killed and we started organizing rallies I felt unsafe going to them. And so I didn't. You know, Kai, great kid. She's very plugged in to politics and everything. Arguing with all of her friends over social media about things like Black Lives Matter. Things like income inequality. All those kinds of things. I'd like to take a little credit for some of that. But, anyway. She and I at one point we were like, because she likes to do that too. She likes to be present. She likes to show up. And we were like, "We want to go but we're not going to go." And that's very hard. I mean, I've been doing other things. Giving money. Doing the things I can do at a distance. But it's been very hard not to participate actively. LB: Everybody I know over fifty has said that. Everybody that I've interviewed. I mean, in interviewing people who have said. Blaise and Alanna who were saying, you know, "We've been marching since the sixties." And to not be able to do this. And when the stuff happened in Allentown, Adrian actually texted me right from the first march, which was and he texted me. It was late at night. And then the next day, they had another march and I said to Trish, "You know. This is right outside our house. It's like three blocks away." And I said, "I think I need to go to this." And she said, "Really?" I mean, I'm at enough risk. But she's really really at risk. She has lupus. She has lung issues. Stuff like that. So I said, "Let me look at the thing." And I looked at a video of the first march, so it was one. And the next night they had another march. And I was thinking about going the second night. And on the first night there's all these young people. And they're walking along. They all have masks on. And then I saw three people who were part of the group who didn't have masks on. And they're all there. And they're chatting, and they're shouting. And I'm thinking, "I know this is what, I mean I've done this. And I know that this is a risk. And I can't take this risk. I have to --" MC: It's so hard. LB: It is. MC: You know. Cause it's. I just, yeah. LB: I can tell you this. I will risk my life to vote. MC: Oh, hell yes. Have you voted in the primary? I voted by mail. LB: Yeah. And we just signed up to vote by mail too. But if there is any possibility not, I will stand in line. I will. And I absolutely will do that. I will, but I'm not going to. That's it. And I think everybody feels that way who recognizes how it important it is. This is. So, yeah that's a good thing. Well, this is the last part. So what gives you hope now? Cause we need to end on a happy little note. And I would guess that part of it is that you have a wonderful daughter. MC: Well, what I was going to say is that it's the young people. And she is one of them. She has lost a lot. She lost the last quarter of her eighth grade year. You know, she lost her spring field hockey season and all of her summer camps. She's very into field hockey camps. She does multiple camps in the summer. She's lost all of that. It's uncertain whether she's going to be going to school. I mean, right now yes. But. You know, she's had so little. I know. She's had a couple of contacts with friends where they've done the social distance walk with the masks on. But, you know, she's lost a lot. And still, she cares about the future. She's not wallowing in this moment of loss forever. And when you talk about. When I see people out who aren't wearing masks, it is largely people who are old enough to know better. At least at the supermarket. Or at Lowe's. It's people in their thirties. Or forties. So it's the young people. It really is the young people. LB: And they're the ones that are doing these really great marches. I mean they're really speaking out about this. MC: Yes. They're feeling empowered. And, God, please all of them who are able to, go out to vote. That's the thing. I feel like they're dealing with all this a lot better than some of their parents are. LB: Well, one of the things when I interviewed somebody who was 22 and had just graduated from Moravian. And he was saying that -- I mean, he was very calm and he was concerned about this. And he said the same thing. He was frustrated with people who don't believe this. But he also was inherently calm. And one of the reasons he was calm was that he has his whole life in front of him. He doesn't have to think he's sucking up the last. You know like this is my last chance. I mean things will work out. Things will be okay. This person is being very careful. They're probably not going to get the disease. Because they're being very, very careful. They're not going to make that happen to themselves. MC: And that's another thing. The smart. Okay. This is going to sound terrible, probably. I don't know if I should say it. You know, it's being recorded. LB: Go ahead. Say it. MC: You know. Survival of the fittest doesn't mean survival of the physically strongest necessarily. It means survival of the most adaptable. LB: Right. MC: That's what it is really. And is this situation, adapting means wearing your mask and using social distancing and minimizing your risks. And that seems to be. It seems to be what most of the smartest people are doing. LB: Except for the people in my family that got sick. They were absolutely in their own household. MC: Right, exactly. But what I'm saying is it seems like if you look at the states that have really not handled this way. And where they rank educationally and all those kinds of things. While I'm not saying this is an absolute. You know, as you were saying your family, for example. Things we don't know. But it seems like those who are attracting the most risks to themselves. You know who are flagrantly doing that aren't the sharpest tools in the shed. LB: No, I think that's really true. MC: And that gives me hope for the future. LB: I mean, it does because. You don't want to say something mean about them, but this is one of the realities is that it's a socioeconomic situation too. And so one of the people that I interviewed was saying that their daughter has a congenital heart problem. But her job is that she's seen as an essential worker. She's a waitress. I mean she's a layperson. Like that's an essential worker. And this person who is working in Northampton County is working at a restaurant where they're not following the protocols that they're supposed to be, and she has complained that she has a very high risk. And they said, if you have a problem just don't come in and we'll consider it your resignation, which means they won't pay her unemployment. And so, you know, for those of us who can do -- MC: You're right. You're right. I guess I'm being a little flip there. But, you're absolutely right in what you're saying. LB: I think that there's a reality to -- MC: I realize that I've got a lot of privilege when I say that. LB: I know. And the unfortunate is that even with the flu. I like to talk about this all the time because I'm obsessed with the flu epidemic of 1918 and that has to do with the fact that my area of expertise with regard to art history is around that time. In that section of the and how it affected people and it also affected me directly because my grandmother died in that flu epidemic. She was 32 years old when my father was four. And so it affected my life because my Dad grew up without a mother. I didn't have two grandmothers. That kind of stuff. But the most significant thing about that flu epidemic was. Well, there's several things -- one hundred million, fifty to one hundred million people died of that flu. One in three people of the world had it. But the most significant reasons for that we were at war. Everybody was at war. And they all didn't want to talk about the fact that their country was having casualties from an illness. So there was actually sedition laws that you couldn't talk about the flu epidemic in 1918. MC: Really? I wasn't aware of that. LB: And that's why it's called the Spanish Flu. Because Spain was the only country that was not in World War I. They were neutral. And so they were reporting on all of the stuff that was happening. All these people were dying in Spain because they were dying anywhere. So it was the headlines of the newspaper, but they wouldn't talk about it in England or Germany or the US. Because they didn't want to tell anybody that we were all sick. It all happened in 1918. And interestingly, it was about a fifteen-month period and it was much more serious than this. For one thing, it struck people between the ages of 20 to 40. That was the primary thing. People would die in one day. And they'd show symptoms in the morning and die at the end of the day. And you know, one month in New York City twenty-three thousand people died. And people in Allentown. There was a huge number of people in Allentown, huge number of people in Easton. But Bethlehem actually quarantined so they didn't have as many cases. They had hundreds of cases instead of thousands of cases. But nobody was allowed to talk about it, so there's not a lot of information about it. That's one of the reasons that we really. So, there was a herd immunity there because so many people had it. Hilda Doolittle had it, among other things. She almost died from it. That's how she met Bryher, the lesbian that she stayed with for the rest of her life. She came and took care of her. Also, women who were pregnant were much more likely to get it and seventy-two percent of the women who were pregnant who got it died. So I think my grandmother was pregnant. And Hilda Doolittle was pregnant. She had a miscarriage and she was so sick. She was rich, but she was really really sick. It was during World War II, or World War I. And Bryher came and said, "You're really sick. I need to take you some place and make you health." Bryher was the richest woman in the UK at the time. And took her away to an island where they could quarantine so that she could get better and she did. But, it was a terrible terrible illness. And yet we weren't allowed to talk about it. And that's kind of the way this is now. You know, we won't have as many cases if we just stop testing people. So same mentality one hundred years later. MC: I wonder if, so I'm sure you've heard that Herman Cain died. LB: Yeah. I just read that. MC: And I wonder if that will catch the attention of some people. Like, well maybe this is real. You know, one of ours died. LB: Who was infected by Trump. I mean he was in Tulsa. MC: I know. But if, in addition to him, if one or two other sort of high-profile Republicans were to die, maybe. I could make suggestions if you want, but you know. LB: What I was going to say was, some people, Trish is a medical professional and she said. Until people know people who have been sick and died. MC: I'm sorry I didn't get that. LB: Until people know people who have been sick and died, they're just acting like it's not happening. Because they don't know anybody who has been sick or who has died. Particularly who has died. And so, a crazy guy. A repair guy came to one of the people that I was interviewing's house and he said, "You know, this is all a plot by Hillary to make people get sick so that would collapse --" Like Hillary would do this now. To collapse the economy so that Trump won't win. And this person said, "Yeah, well. Okay." You know, and he said to him, "You don't know anybody's who's been sick, do you?" And you goes, well, "I don't know anybody personal. I know some people who have been sick but not in my personal circle who has been sick." So see, nobody really has it. Well, they're going to wait until people really have it. You know, it's not enough to have five hundred people die in Allentown. It has to be five hundred people in your own circle. People die. So that in the really high. And with the flu epidemic of 1918, it was the same situation. There was a lot of deaths, then it sort of ended. It didn't go. Then there was this second wave that was just horrible. It was exactly the same configuration of the year that was just, where people would get like on a subway car. Coney Island. By the time they get off they collapsed and died. You know, just happened when they were in areas like that. Just happened so easily. And so maybe that is not going to be the -- Some people are thinking that's not going to be the case. It's not the same kind of thing. Some people are saying that little kids are less likely to get it. But as my friend who's a pediatrician said, you know, she said I'm getting a lot of people saying, do you think I can go ahead and send my kid to daycare? And she said, so when you send your kids to daycare, do they ever get sick from any of the other kids there? They get everything there. If you do it, they will get it. They're going to get sick. Or they're going to get exposed. And then they're going to have it. Maybe they won't get really sick, but you'll have to look around your circle of family and friends and see if there's anybody there that's really going to be at risk. So a lot of the people who I have interviewed who have been older have said that was the thing that really bothered them because they couldn't really see their grandkids because they're the ones at risk. And they don't want to do that to their grandkids. It's really. MC: That's got to be really hard. LB: Yeah, I talked to, I interviewed one guy who said his father was intubated for two weeks and was very close. You know, had he not been intubated. He was in the hospital with intubation for two weeks. It's so horrible to have that too. And people who I know who have had it. It's so awful that it's like a PTSD thing. I wanted to interview some people that have been sick and they couldn't talk about it, it was so awful. People don't understand how awful it is. It's really. If you get it bad, it's really not like anything else. It's not just having the flu. MC: It's not just like the sniffles. LB: No. It's really not like even like having a bad flu. It's like having -- So I have a very close friend who had it and she said. You know, she had a one hundred three temperature for two weeks. She said she woke up every morning saying to herself, okay, today I just have to not die. And she said, if I have to go to the bathroom, I had to crawl there. I couldn't walk. And she luckily had other people around who finally took her to the hospital. She was in contact with people and she said, you need to, it's too many days for you to have this high temperature. And she went into the hospital and then they did a bunch of stuff to her and she got better. But, she's still suffering from that, and other people that we know are still having symptoms of it. One person that I talked to said after months they had a close family member that had it. And after a month they were still just, couldn't do anything it was so. So I think that people don't understand how serious it is. And unfortunately, people may have to know somebody before they'll take this seriously. And there are some media problems with it too. I don't think the media is making it clear enough to people. Although, what, you know. I mean, if you tell somebody that one hundred fifty thousand people in America have died, and they say, "Yeah, but it's all a hoax." How do you fix that? I mean -- MC: I don't know. I don't know that you can. LB: Yeah. MC: Maybe like I said, maybe some high profile people die. LB: Sure. MC: And, not just high profile people. But, high profile anti-mask people. LB: Or deniers of it. Yeah. No certainly an example of that. MC: Maybe that will shake people out of their complacency. LB: Well, it's pretty hard to say, oh this is my group is people. You don't have to do masks. Don't do that standing behind me. Then they find out that there's a contamination there. An infection. And then one of the ten people that's sitting there dies. I mean, how do you? You know, it's blinders. MC: Oh yeah. LB: It's so hard. I don't know. And it's hard to know really how -- I mean, do you get students in classes who will sometimes say things to you like, how could you possibly think that was true? MC: Oh yeah. Yeah. I just have to stop myself from laughing usually. Like, really, you think this? LB: Do you want say like, could you write a paper about that? I want you to research that and bring me some real citations that aren't just from some crazy. MC: Yeah and it's -- But the thing is that, I don't know. I thought with my students that if I say something like, "I get how you might think that's how it is, but here's some other information. And I think that you should just think about that. I generally don't tell them that they're wrong. But, I just try to say here's some other information that's verifiable. You can go and check it out if you want to. I just give them something to think about. And I just leave it with them. Because, what are you going to do, right? LB: There's a woman who posts a lot of very very interesting particularly feminist thing. Lesbian things on the Internet for a long time. And I have quite a relationship with her and I was working with her on some projects and stuff. And she started to post stuff that was particularly TERFy. It was just really, really major TERF stuff. And she posted some -- MC: Oh man you started. LB: And she posted a thing that said that ten thousand people in the UK who had transitioned through this one clinic were detransitioning. And I looked it up. I actually know this person. She's a famous playwright in the lesbian community. And I looked it up. And she said, "Well, this is the information." And I was -- this was a Facebook exchange. And I said, "I looked this up, and this is absolutely not true. You're retweeting something. If you read the article, that's not even what the article says. And if you read it, that's not what it says. She says, "Well it's in the Guardian." And I said, "No it isn't. You didn't even read the article. What it says is that tens of thousands of people went to this clinic in the UK because it's the only national health clinic that does transgender surgery for free, in effect, for the national health. That if you live in Wales you have to go to that clinic. You have to travel a long way, but you get free really good health care and you get free transition surgery. It doesn't say anything detransitioning. It doesn't say anything about that at all." And she said, "But I know people who detransitioned." I said, "But you posted something that's absolutely not true, and you can't do that. You can't put this thing up and cause divisiveness between our community. And then with phony information." I said, "I can't pretend this doesn't matter to me." MC: Good on you. LB: Even though I really, I had a lot of admiration for this person. I was beginning to think, you know, where are you getting this? Well I researched. But, that's not what you posted. You posted something that wasn't true. So, anyway. Yeah, that's not what we need right now either. MC: No it is not. LB: It's really hard because you hear about all these crazies all the time. And it's very depressing. And it's hard for any of us to say, "I think Joe Biden is going to win." Because we already got kicked in the head four years ago when we really thought Hillary was going to win. And so none of us is complacent or comfortable. We're just too on edge. MC: It's probably the single greatest source of anxiety that I have. LB: No kidding. MC: That it will be stolen. That it will be. You know. LB: Yeah. And I sent a message to somebody who was here and he's moved to Lisbon, Portugal. And I needed to tell him about something, and he said, "You sent this to me at two o'clock in the morning. You're up in the middle of the night." And I said, "Yeah, I haven't slept since the election. Since the last presidential election. Actually six months before that. And I guess one of the frustrations and angers I have is I don't know how, if I'm ever going to feel not this way. Even if things go better. I'm never going to feel the way I felt during the Obama administration again. Cause I'm just too aware of the stupidity and. That's another thing too. I just don't think like and I know other people that said that they've developed a level of agoraphobia. MC: Whataphobia? LB: Agoraphobia. They just don't feel comfortable going out. And you know, Adrian has talked about opening the center. And immediately I'm going like I'm going to -- I just said. And I said I'm not going to do it. And I just said it's a long way off. Don't worry about it now. And I think that's a good thing for him to say. MC: I think you're right. I think it's going to be hard to venture back in the world again. They're going to be a lot of baby steps involved. LB: And yet they did it after the flu epidemic of 1918. And you don't really hear about that. I mean it was. But that was one of the reasons why the roaring twenties was as roaring as they were. There was a lot of reasons for that. That was another reason. A lot of people, they did quarantine. And there were parts, like people would go to Philadelphia there was no one on the street. Middle of the day. And was a ghost town. So I don't know. There's going to be. It will be interesting to see. MC: I'm sorry. LB: I want you to say whatever you want to say, go ahead. MC: This hour-long interview's been two hours. LB: One hour and forty-one minutes. MC: It's fine with me. The one thing that gives me hope is to watch the political news pretty closely and seeing, you know, people like Ritchie Torres, you know, winning his -- I don't think it's been officially declared yet, but it's a done deal. You know. Jamaal Bowman winning his primary. Mondaire Jones. Of course, AOC. Seeing again it's the young people, you know, who are just giving me hope. They're giving me more, more. It's going to be a slow process. But I'm thinking about what's happening now in the Trump administration. I don't even like saying his name to be perfectly honest. It makes me throw up a little in my mouth. But I hope, I tell myself that we're watching the death throes of white unrepentant white supremacy. Unrepentant male supremacy. That it's in its death throes now and this is its sort of last surge of. I'm telling myself that. I need to believe that. And I take a lot of hope from seeing. I was just saying, you saw the folks, you're seeing Katie Porter taking people down. You know, she's a bad ass. I mean, just there are more and more people that are entering positions of power who can make a difference. I got to take hope from that. LB: Good. Yeah. Well, that's the secret. At Muhlenberg when Adrian was a student at Muhlenberg and it was the Obama election, there was I often I give this dynamic people and reasons to do things and she has say, has been about forty-five kids and then forty-five college students and when Adrian was there it was seven hundred college students. And then when they left it was forty-five again. And he organized for those students to go vote. And I really think that Obama's win was because of students, of college students. Which I don't think Hillary Clinton ignite at all. MC: Nor is Joe Biden, and I hope that whoever he -- LB: But I think that other things are igniting college students now. MC: True. LB: And I think that's one of the things. I mean sometimes you have to look at the other side and say, okay, there is a difference. And people are all saying that. So that if Joe Biden says, and he is saying publicly the financial circumstances of taking care of students, student college loans, which of course is not coming out of the Trump administration. But, to be able to compare those things and that students need to say, okay, this is how we can engage in this group. We cannot engage this group. And so, if these people are running the government, we can demand change. We can't demand any change. Trump, we can demand it but nothing's going to happen. And so I think the young people that are, I'm hoping that people. And the reason is we're seeing this happen in elections that people are standing in line for eight hours at risk for COVID but they're still doing it just to be able to vote in a primary when they've never done that before. Well that's a big deal. You know, that's a lot of numbers here. I just read, and I don't know if this is true, that a million people, a million Democrats have registered to vote by mail in Florida. Well, that's a lot of people already to be doing. And that's a very significant thing. So that's what I want. We just got money to encourage people to vote by mail and we just got a grant to be working on that. That's going to be something after to be working on. But I think that that kind of stuff just more votes is more good votes and that's going to happen. That's absolutely true. And so those things have been different too. So, I'm knocking on wood. MC: They give me hope. LB: Definitely not complacent. And I also said to Trish, if it doesn't work this way, I mean we're going to see major upheavals and major organizations. You know, scary are the circumstances. But if that happens, you know, we'll have to roll with that too. MC: Survival of the most adaptable. LB: That's a brilliant thing to say. I really think that's true. And I say to people. And people say things like I can't do this. I can't do this. Change is hard but we have to change. Everything about us. Everything about the queer community is about change. So if you're uncomfortable about this, get over it for Christ's sake. For heavens. We've been doing this for. We've had to change people's minds all along. MC: Absolutely. LB: From forever. That's how we thrive. We can't just go, "Okay, everything's fine now." Cause it's never going to be that way. So did I already ask you this? I guess maybe I have. To say something to somebody in the future if they're looking at this archive and you can make a little soundbite and say now. I know it's a big responsibility. MC: Well, yeah. I don't remember that one. LB: For me, I mean I say to people like, the people in the future know what happened. They know who won the election. They know what happened with COVID. They know what it's like to live thirty years from now. But they don't know exactly what it's like for individuals now. And that's why we're making these videos. MC: I guess what I'm going to say is so trite really, I think. I said before, there's nothing original about it. But, first of all I have to thank you for watching these. Thank you for going into this archive to learn about this. Because honestly if we don't learn about history we are going to repeat it. And it's not going to be pretty and it's not going to be fun. And our testimonies to the fact that it's not pretty and it's not fun. So yeah. Learn history and spread it to those. Others will know too. Otherwise you'll end up entering a situation just like this. Where you're the ones making the archives. So again, nothing original in that but I think that's probably what I would say. LB: Well I really appreciate this so much and thank you for letting me talk to you for so long. I've been talking way too much. I'm not supposed to say anything. MC: I really approached this as a conversation more than. LB: I take it as that. MC: And I've really enjoyed this conversation. LB: Good. And I'm also to come and fix your house as soon as COVID's -- MC: Awesome, excellent. LB: I'm going to turn off the recording now. So thank you again so much. END OF VIDEO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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01:49:47
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Marianne Cutler, July 30, 2020
Description
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Marianne Cutler talks about her experiences teaching during the Pandemic, and talks about how there is more LGBTQ+ representation in modern media as well. She also goes on to talk about how the 2020 Presidential Election would shape the future of this country.
Identifier
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PH40_23
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COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-
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2020-07-30
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/6df75b76c76c512af877a1741a061f02.png
e4823686b00b9cef9cbb0d4d8adcad13
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40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: COVID-19
Description
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In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19.
The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism.
The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Liz Bradbury
Interviewee
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Chloe Cole-Wilson
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_24.xml
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COVID-19
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5.4 July 14th, 2020 Chloe Cole-Wilson, July 14, 2020 PH40_24 01:24:56 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg COVID-19 COVID-19 Activism Pandemic Chloe Cole-Wilson Liz Bradbury video/mpeg Coles-WilsonChloe_20200714_video.mp4 1.0:|27(2)|50(8)|85(2)|116(5)|141(9)|164(2)|183(6)|210(11)|251(14)|274(8)|299(16)|324(5)|347(4)|376(17)|399(14)|428(3)|449(13)|476(12)|499(14)|526(6)|553(2)|576(9)|599(15)|624(14)|649(9)|672(5)|691(13)|716(9)|737(13)|766(9)|793(15)|818(11)|841(7)|862(11)|887(11)|914(8)|937(2)|960(12)|985(17)|1012(16)|1041(15)|1076(3)|1103(15)|1130(18)|1151(7)|1174(2)|1199(5)|1224(16)|1249(5)|1278(15)|1303(15)|1326(18)|1347(5)|1370(7)|1393(6)|1416(13)|1439(8)|1460(4)|1481(10)|1510(7)|1531(11)|1550(16)|1573(11)|1600(9)|1625(17)|1644(11)|1667(14)|1696(2)|1719(12)|1744(6)|1769(5)|1794(15)|1821(11)|1842(4)|1865(9)|1886(15)|1917(3)|1940(8)|1969(11)|1992(9)|2017(5)|2052(5)|2081(20)|2114(5)|2149(5) 0 https://youtu.be/6bYdJH4BdhE YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction LIZ BRADBURY: -- a little problem. Okay. So there we go, and I’m going to turn the audio on too. Now, I’m going to read you these -- this piece -- this intro. Oh, turn off my phone. (laughs) I write that right on here, so I don’t forget to do it. 
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 ; CHLOE COLE-WILSON: (laughs)
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 ; LB: And I want to also pin -- oops -- pin you in this. Okay. It’s good. Pin in the video, I got the audio, okay, it’s good, and record it. So with this project, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury, and I’m here with Chloe Cole-Wilson -- is that right -- to -- 
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 ; CCW: Right.
 ; Activism ; Allentown ; Bethlehem ; Chloe Coles-Wilson ; COVID-19 ; Liz Bradbury ; Project SILK Lehigh Valley 0 207 Description of Project SILK Lehigh Valley + COVID Experiences LB: Okay. Oh, so here are some of these thing. And so I already sent these questions. And the concept of the archive, I like to think about it as that there will be people who will, hopefully, look at this many years in the future to see what it was like for people at this point in the COVID epidemic in the Lehigh Valley who are part of the core community to get sort of an idea. Because there have been other circumstances with pandemics and epidemics where we really didn’t talk about people’s personal experiences. You can say anything you want about this. I have some of those questions. You can answer those, or you can think about those. I’ll ask those if you want, but you can say whatever you want. But let’s start out with this, are you by yourself in your home or do you have other people there or what’s the deal? 
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 ; CCW: It’s myself and my partner and then we have three other roommates.
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 ; LB: Oh, okay, okay. I know the answers to some of these things, but you could talk about this for the archives. Have you been working, has your employer closed or laid off, and why don’t you talk about a little bit what you do? 
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 ; CCW: Yeah. So I am program coordinator for Project SILK Lehigh Valley, which is an LGBT drop-in center that focuses on Black and brown youth. So a lot of the work that I’ve been doing during this time is just planning, programming, and getting the Valley Youth House staff in a place where they feel comfortable providing services virtually while also responding to crisis. During this time, we did have a few youth that became homeless and so it was trying to respond to those needs as quickly as we possibly could with -- considering my safety, my staff’s safety, and things like that, the youth safety, so yeah. Chloe Coles-Wilson ; COVID-19 ; Liz Bradbury ; Project SILK Lehigh Vally 0 340 HIV + STI Testing during COVID-19 
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 ; CCW: Mm-hmm. So a lot of what we did was six feet, we stayed six feet away, we were masked up. We supplied some hand sanitizer to our workers and things like that. But I was one of the only workers that was really out working with a youth who was identifying as like unsheltered and was living in what -- in Allentown, what people would call it as like tent city where folks -- where all the unsheltered folks kind of cohabitate together and exist. So a lot of it was just like dropping things off on the corner and being like, “Hey, these items are here. I will wait for you to pick up these items.” And then, you know, sometimes because we are in partnership with a shelter as well, to give and provide HIV, STI testing but also provide sexual health counseling and things like that. In those moments, we were meeting outside on the porch six feet away. Now that restrictions have lessened, we’ve been doing some more contact work with our other sites. There’s been some very interesting things that I’ve done to try to appease the youth and provide the service, you know? 
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 ; Chloe Coles-Wilson ; COVID-19 ; HIV ; Liz Bradbury ; STI 0 532 The Impact on the Youth + Activism in the Arts Park CCW: And it’s like a central place, so kids coming from all over the city will be able to just kind of know where it is, access where it is, and it kind of works. And also too, we might be able to interact with new youth there because there has been a lot of youth out because of the protesting, the Black Lives Matter protests that are happening right now, which is -- it’s so crazy because that’s on the other end of the work that I do. I also have an arts organization called Basement Poetry. And we’ve been doing some activism and advocacy around just like so many things, police brutality, inclusive shelters that will allow trans and gender nonbinary folks to identify in the identity that is theirs. Because if they cannot, it is a health risk. So that’s been something that we’ve been really talking a lot about with these other organizations that are Black and brown ran. 
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 ; It’s how to have inclusive spaces. Talking with city council about this. When we’re defending the police like when this funding starts trickling down, making sure these organizations are anti-racist, making sure these organizations are anti-oppressive. That’s another piece of this too. But what’s interesting is the area like... Because the kids are so like, “I don't know what’s going on, I don’t know what to do with myself,” so they’ve been out. They’ve just been out hanging out. So I’m hoping that we can foster a space for youth that are just like migrating and hanging out. 
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 ; A place for them to be a little bit that’s a little bit more supervised, that’s safe, that gives them access to services. Because it’s been very interesting how like all the protests have rolled out and just youths, kind of, just hanging out in the city. Basement Poetry ; BLM ; Chloe Coles-Wilson ; COVID-19 ; Liz Bradbury 0 672 Talking with Friends and Family Over Zoom LB: Well, Leonardo never made that horse, but other people have taken the designs that he made it and then they recreated it in a couple of different places, and that’s one of the places where it is. His design was much bigger than that, but it’s pretty, and it’s Leonardo, a genius who was gay, so, one of our ancestors. So for you personally in terms of communicating with people in your family or other -- of friends that you may not be able to be near with regard to social distancing and stuff, have you been using a lot of electronic conversations? Like where have you -- 
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 ; CCW: Oh yeah. It’s like Zoom, I -- even just today for work, I was on nothing but Zoom calls. Instagram Live is like our outreach pool, so we can say, “Hey, this is what we’re doing.” But with friends and family, I’m always on the phone, I’m always texting. It’s been really hard. I will say there were moments during this whole continuing on in this pandemic where I’m like, “I need to see my mom, I’m going to go see my mom, I don’t care, I’m seeing her, I don’t care, I just -- I can’t,” you know?
 ; Chloe Coles-Wilson ; Leonardo da Vinci ; Liz Bradbury ; Zoom 0 878 Youth's Right to Shelter CCW: I guess one of my biggest concerns is shelter, right? I think that when... I have a very special relationship with one of our clients. When I had discovered that they were struggling in this way and had no place to go, I’m like, all right, so I’m going to go, and I’m going to hunt down all of my resources, so I’m pulling out all the resource guides, pulling out all the books that I’ve created and put together, all the protocol. And I’m looking at them and I’m like, There’s nothing that will work for this young person. And this young person is not under the age of 18, so it’s not like I can call Valley Youth House shelter. This young person is identifying as nonbinary, so it’s like putting them in a shelter can be so difficult. And Salvation Army and all of these other shelters are very religious, and there is follow your faith and do what is best in your practice and in your meeting and -- you know what I mean? That’s what nonprofits are, right? Like a lot of people start nonprofits from their hearts, right? 
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 ; Chloe Coles-Wilson ; Shelter ; Valley Youth House Shelter ; Youth 0 1070 Allentown School Closings LB: -- high school seniors or college seniors? 
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 ; CCW: High school seniors. It was so immensely frustrating with how [00:18:00] everything -- the information was coming down and how everything was handled. Everything was very like just put together, which I get. We’ve never been... Our folk, I would at least say the generations like Millennials and Gen Z’s have never been through something like this. So you have half of the population that’s never been through a crisis and the other half who has experience with this kind of things. It’s just such a cluster of all of these mixed experiences, anyways. But with the schools, like the Allentown School District weren’t getting the things that they need right away. There was a moment where the kids didn’t even go to school for like -- or have any formal education for three and a half weeks, almost a month until April. In the midst of April, they were able to get like Wi-Fi to youth, [00:19:00] hotspots to youth, and technology to youth, and that was another concern of mine too. So, again, it was just like that just misinformed and then explaining to the youth that this happens sometimes. But when it consistently happens, they’re like, “What is going on?” and so then they’re in crisis, right, and they’re freaking out like, “What’s going on? I need answers,” you know what I mean, so... 
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 ; LB: Yeah. Young people really look to older people to fix things and explain things to them, and we have no answers on this. I mean I’m sixty-three years old, and there’s nothing in my life experience that compares to this. I can say that I know somebody who is one hundred four years old who’s been in the center by the way, who was alive during the flu epidemic of 1918. And that’s the only other thing that’s comparable to this one because [we?] had the flu. Because even if you look at HIV/AIDS, which was a very different thing, it wasn’t like everybody had it, and it was really [00:20:00] hard to get it. I mean, you can’t just get AIDS. You have to have sex with people and be involved with people. That’s not the same situation. On the other hand right now, every single -- this is a hopeful thing that you can say to youth is that every single scientist in the world that knows about this kind of stuff is working on this issue, which wasn’t true for AIDS. Nobody did anything about that for years -- 
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 ; Chloe Coles-Wilson ; High school seniors ; Liz Bradbury 0 1166 Police Brutality and AIDS LB: Yeah. Young people really look to older people to fix things and explain things to them, and we have no answers on this. I mean I’m sixty-three years old, and there’s nothing in my life experience that compares to this. I can say that I know somebody who is one hundred four years old who’s been in the center by the way, who was alive during the flu epidemic of 1918. And that’s the only other thing that’s comparable to this one because [we?] had the flu. Because even if you look at HIV/AIDS, which was a very different thing, it wasn’t like everybody had it, and it was really hard to get it. I mean, you can’t just get AIDS. You have to have sex with people and be involved with people. That’s not the same situation. On the other hand right now, every single -- this is a hopeful thing that you can say to youth is that every single scientist in the world that knows about this kind of stuff is working on this issue, which wasn’t true for AIDS. Nobody did anything about that for years -- 
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 ; CCW: For -- yeah.
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 ; LB: -- and years and people just died, all over the place. Really, it sounds like such a tricky thing when you have young people who want these answers, and they’re not going to really put up with you saying, I don't know. 
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 ; CCW: Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean? I feel like all of my youth that I work with, I’ve known them for a very long time since Project SILK started. And so they are built with the same tenacity that I have and the same questioning of authority, questioning of the system, the same activist spirit. So I kind of set myself up to have these awesome kids that will advocate for themselves, but then in these situations I’m like, Why did I do this? (laughs) It’s been very complex. And even for my team, it’s been very hard to figure out how to have these conversations without having the meltdown. But luckily, we’re going to be starting some therapy services in August, so I think that’s going to really help with some of these, like this processing of all the things that are happening. And including the trauma that we are constantly exposed to with the Black Lives Matter, the police brutality but not just Black Lives Matter but like police brutality and systematic racism and microaggressions and all of these experiences that they’re having. They’re also processing that too at the same time that they’re processing a pandemic, and we’re in this in this civil unrest, and it’s like -- it’s a lot. They’re going through a lot right now. And then also, they’re seeing the systems start to crumble in front of them. So it’s like they were aware before that things weren’t good. But then when you’re not getting educated and your peers in the Whitehall School District or Parkland Area School District and Bethlehem Area School District are all on the computers doing their homework while you’re just waiting, it really does go to show you the barriers and how the system fails. And so many youth were responding to that like, “What do I do, what --? How do I respond to this?” And it’s just like email, email congress, email your local reps, make sure people know and are on top of what’s happening in your school. 
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 ; AIDS ; Allentown School District ; Black Lives Matter ; Chloe Coles-Wilson ; HIV ; Liz Bradbury ; Police Brutality 0 1376 Importance of Voting LB: Right, right, right. Register to vote because some of them will be old enough too, so, you know? 
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 ; CCW: Mm-hmm. Our kids right now are aging out -- not aging out, but they’re coming out of that phase where they’re in the drop-in center all the time. So the kids to that are in the drop-in center all the time between the ages of like 14 to 17. And then once they graduate high school, they’re really focused on their life and themselves and getting things together. So a lot of times, they’re not spending a lot of time there. So we have a lot of older youth there, so I’m always encouraging them to vote and be a part of and know your local government because that is where you have a lot of power and say in what happens here. 
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 ; LB: Whenever I used to talk to running a voter’s -- an LGBT voter’s organization -- it’s called [PAL?], and we did that for many, many years -- one of the things we talk to people about is being a super voter. And a super voter is a person who votes in every election in the primary for four years in a row. And whether or not you vote is a matter of public record. So any person can get a list that shows whether or not you voted this in the primary and then that stuff, in the main election every year for years and years. And when you write a letter or you write an email or you write a card to your state representative, they look up to see whether you vote. That’s why they pay more attention to old people than they do to young people because older people vote -- are more likely to vote. So when they look at your super voter status or they’ll look to see and if you’re a super voter, they’ll listen to you. And if you’re not a voter, you’re not even registered, they figure, oh, you’re not going to vote for me anyway, who cares? And they really do that, and it’s a shame, but it’s true. And that’s the whole thing about the voice of voting because in the Obama elections, youth, college students and 18-year-olds put him in office. That’s the swing vote. That is the swing vote. And during the Obama election, Adrian organized -- sent hundreds of kids to go and vote at the voter’s places. And he was there at Muhlenberg College, and after he left, they stopped doing that. So like hundreds and hundreds of people were voting and then all of a sudden, they weren’t. And one of the things about us being in Pennsylvania is it’s a swing state. It really matters in Pennsylvania as opposed to like -- New York is always pretty liberal and New Jersey is pretty liberal, and people tend not to. It’s not so close, but it’s very close here. So that’s great that they’re doing that, good for them. Have you been talking to any of the youth and also for yourself stuff about Dr. Rachel Levine being our secretary of health, and she’s the one that’s been there in the health. And now what do you -- have you had a chance to see her and talk to youth about her? Allentown ; Chloe Coles-Wilson ; Liz Bradbury ; Voting ; Youth 0 1570 Transgender Empowerment CCW: Yeah. A lot of youths are very upset with the way she’s treated. I think that that for our trans youth, like that has been the most difficult part of all of this is... Before the Black Lives Matter movement was like -- had this visceral showing up, we were really trying to manage conversations around transphobia. And every time because we’re seeing Rachel Levine, at one point we were seeing her almost every single day, which is beautiful. With style and grace, style and grace, she would like -- was amazing onstage and was amazing with giving us the information we needed, was very clear and concise, and was about to give us information that wasn’t too doctor-y, too wordy, or too -- or filled with things that didn’t matter to us, right? 
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 ; LB: Yeah. 
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 ; CCW: And it’s like even through that, even through all of that beauty and poise and intelligence, it’s like people were still just questioning her gender consistently. And I think for our clients, it was more so like, “Well, can that -- will that happen to me if I decide to do something like that? Am I possible?” Those are conversations, and we really worked with her and [Goodwin?]. We had a group, a trans health group that was really powerful, and we talked a lot about -- they talked a lot about passing and things like that. And how that is maybe important for your transition but also it’s not important for the social world. Like you don’t need to set up for hyper masculine or hyper feminine identities or these belief systems or these systems, like you don’t need to do that, right? And so, I don’t know. Some interesting conversations happened, and sometimes it would happen sporadically with our young people, so... Chloe Coles-Wilson ; Liz Bradbury ; Rachel Levine ; Trans ; Youths 0 1788 Lehigh Valley's Progressiveness
 ; CCW: And you’re in... You are representing an identity that people don’t want to embrace. Like I know for a while even myself when I was in chats, in conversations with my -- just like my family, we always have that conversation of “Why are you asking whether or not what her gender is? Like this is bad. It’s not the conversation we need to be having. She is giving us the most important health information day to day, and we need to listen to that. That has nothing to do with anything.” I think it’s a culture shock for Pennsylvania because I feel like sometimes we dress up. Especially in the Lehigh Valley, we dress up like we’re -- oh my God, we’re so progressive, yay, but we’re really not. We’re really behind on a lot of things. I always say to people, I’m like, “We’re always about ten -- five to ten years behind because like --” 
 ; Chloe Coles-Wilson ; Lehigh Valley ; Liz Bradbury ; Progressive 0 1902 The Marginalized People LB: I know. I grew up in a suburb of New York City, and it was so conservative there. It was ridiculously conservative there. My parents were the only people who were democrats, and it doesn’t even mean that that’s radically... They were the only democrats that we knew in the entire town in the suburb. And now, it’s really one of the most progressive areas of the United States and Connecticut. So it’s an interesting thing to see, I guess. But that does happen in the suburbs, and it’s a shame, and we shouldn’t let them get away with it. There’s no question of it. I’d love to live in the city where it’s not like that per se, per se. I mean there are still issues, you know. 
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 ; CCW: Oh, for sure, for sure, for sure. It’s been very interesting. It’s been very interesting to see the hate because you -- like because I work... My life is working like LGBTQ+ folks, the marginalized people, I’m always in spaces -- not always, let me take that back. I’m mostly in spaces where I’m accepted genuinely pretty much. I’ll deal with microaggressions, and I’ll deal with moments of racism and things like that, which I’m not negating, but for the most part, I’m not like in fear of my life, right? But -- what was I going to say. But, yeah, but like I know that, and I’m now aware that this space is not safe all the time. And when I was starting to see those messages and the way -- and the comments about Rachel Levine and her appearance and the way she was presenting or whatever the case maybe and just like the little, snarky things that they would say about her, I’m like, holy crap, we are really behind. And I would have never thought that, but then again, I have to remind myself, I’m in certain spaces because of my work life. I have a girlfriend and our family’s very accepting. We have a language barrier. They speak Spanish, so there’s always like a cultural catcher, but other than that, my family’s very loving. There’s a lot of education around nonbinary and trans folk. And I’m always doing that work with them every day, and they’re always very accepting and loving. But like I forget, I forget, I really do. 
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 ; Chloe Coles-Wilson ; LGBTQ+ ; Liz Bradbury ; New York City ; Progressive ; Rachel Levine 0 2056 The Writer's Surprise LB: Yeah. It’s amazing though because you could be talking to people who you just think are wonderful. My dad was a major -- I mean he worked with Martin Luther King, and he edited his books, and he was really, really involved with him when he was in New York City and stuff. And he was talking about all this, and he didn’t... I knew that he did these things, and he was very, very positive, and he had gay friends and he -- and stuff. And then all of a sudden, he -- I was saying... We lived in Connecticut, and I said, “So that place where we lived, where we went swimming, was that a restricted place?” and he goes, “Yeah, of course.” I’m like, “Wha-- why would you do that?" And then he’s telling me about this club for writers and editors and stuff that he belonged to in New York City -- it was called the Coffee House -- where people in literature were members of this club. It was only for men, and I said, “Well, yeah, because there’s no women writers. I mean --”
 ; Connecticut ; Liz Bradbury ; Martin Luther King ; New York City 0 2159 The Racists World is Changing CCW: Right. I don't know. I feel like... And now as I’m thinking of the Black Lives Matter movement, I feel like the current administration definitely has tapped some souls and some wounds on some people and had opened up this space of like, Well now, I don’t have to be silent about my bigotry, but it’s expressive, it’s beautiful that they don't have to be silent anymore. It’s very strange to see. It’s very strange to see this. It’s very weird how folks who are very supportive of Trump and who are racists will open up and be like, “Oh, I feel safer now. Now that he’s in office, I can say what I want to say, and all lives matter,” and so then -- you know what I mean? Like, ah, I don’t know. But I will say that like I... 
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 ; It’s something I’ve learned in this -- in the very short amount of time that I’ve done a lot -- the activism that I’ve done. In the last five years, I’ve just learned that racists are in a different place, and they will come down when they are ready. They will work on their stuff when they are ready, and being triggered by them will do nothing for you. And so that’s something I’ve really been working a lot on especially with our youth. Like you’re going to see racist things. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Nina Pop, Tony McDade, these are all racist acts of state sanctioned violence or police brutality, right? You’re going to see these things. 
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 ; This is the unfortunate and sad world that we are in. But we have to turn our rage into something else, right, because we will -- we’ll self-destruct. And that was something I took a lot -- it took me a really long time to really work on. Because I’m just like any time that I experience a microaggression or any racism, I would get so hot and so angry. And I would be in this place of just kind of thinking about it and letting it churn in my head for weeks and weeks and months on end and then I’m recognizing that like I haven’t, one, done anything about it, and, two, I’m making myself sick. 
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 ; So it’s been something that I’ve been really working actively on is not even responding to the racist comments on Morning Call, the racist comments that are seen on WFMC, especially when -- as we’re talking about the movement and as we’re processing the things that are happening around us. Because also, too, racists are going through -- and not that I’m giving them any empathy at all whatsoever, but racists are going through a huge change in their whole life. Everything is changing around them. The Redskins have dropped their name and logo, so that’s -- for a lot of people who are committed to that team, that’s hard, you know what I mean? And I’m, whatever, this is what you’re processing. I’m processing death and safety ; you’re processing a logo. That’s cool. That’s fine. Black Lives Matter ; Chloe Cole-Wilson ; Racism ; Trump 0 2362 The Changing World of Racism CCW: -- I don’t know. It’s very interesting to watch racist folks just kind of implode and like -- and white America too in general to just implode and be like, holy crap, I have to do all this work now. I have to process my identity, I have to process myself, I have to really watch my microaggressions, I have to do all this. It’s been really intense for everyone. It’s been a lot for everyone. I don’t have much empathy for that, but I will say that like I think we have to put into consideration as we’re doing this work that everyone is at a different place. And so that’s really been healing for me because I’ve been -- I get really wrapped up in what people say. I get really wrapped up in it sometimes and so I’m like, no, no, no, no, I’ve got to let it go. Morning Call is going to be racist comments because it’s been -- we’re in Pennsylvania, so... (laughs) Chloe Coles-Wilson ; Racism 0 2549 Changes in Philosophy LB: “-- stop just thinking that it’s hard to do this because it’s change.” And I think that’s a very good point that you’re making and it’s a... And it does drive you crazy, and you have to stop ha-- I don’t have any empathy for racists even though when people would say things like, “Well, you know it’s hard and they...” I can’t, I can’t and maybe it’s because I’m older but I just -- like there is just... There’s a very important saying that hit me very hard years ago and it was you cannot make compromises with people who don’t think that everybody should -- that minority people and disenfranchised people should have equal rights because they would deny us oxygen if they could. So ask -- expect every equality, expect total equity because if you say, “Well, we’ll take this half nod from you,” they don’t even want to give us oxygen, come on, you know? They be -- yeah. 
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 ; Change ; Liz Bradbury ; Minorities ; Racism 0 2829 The Life of an Everyday Person During COVID-19 LB: -- say it hasn’t, it has. Have you noticed anything that is just glaringly different for you? 
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 ; CCW: Oh, I feel like my sleep cycle, sleep has changed immensely. So I already was a night owl, so two o'clock was the cap. That was like I’m up too late, I’m going to go to sleep. But when COVID started and because I was working at home, and all I had to do was like wake up, put on a T-shirt, make sure -- put on my pajama pants, make sure I look somewhat decent, and I’m ready to go, I had all the time in the world. I didn’t have a 30-minute commute. I like to say 30 minutes because I like to take my time driving and listening to music and stuff. But I have a 30-minute commute, and get ready in the morning will be another [00:48:00] hour so that’s an hour and a half that I’ve now saved. But I -- because of the anxiety of the pandemic and the anxiety of not knowing what’s going to happen next, and as the pandemic went through and then now we’re in this civil unrest -- at the end of May we’re in the civil unrest, my sleep schedule is like whatever, you know what I mean? I’ll wake up in six o'clock in the morning and then I’ll start. I’ll answer some emails, I’ll casually do some filing, organize some things, get myself kind of prepared for the day and then I’ll go back to sleep and then I’ll wake up again. My sleep has been so off because we’re -- I’m just so comfortable with being at home, and I get so stir-crazy. So that was one of the biggest changes. Now, my partner is an essential worker. Well, I don’t even like using that term, but she has to go outside to work. And for her, she’s -- everything is the same. If you were to ask her this question, she’d be like, “I don’t think my life has changed much, I just miss my family” because she has older parents. Her mom is like forty-eight and her dad sixty-three. Well, her mom is not older ; it’s her dad that’s older. So they couldn’t see each other, and he’s already had cancer in his health history, and he has diabetes. So things are really like we cannot see them at all whatsoever. That’s just a no go. We can’t even take the risk, you know what I mean? So for her, that’s the only thing that she would say, but other than that, all parts of her life is kind of like the same, you know?
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 ; Chloe Coles-Wilson ; COVID-19 ; Liz Bradbury ; Routines 0 3108 Biggest Pandemic Fear LB: Yeah. Well, people are scared. So are you scared about getting it? 
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 ; CCW: I think my biggest fear about getting it is -- oh. I feel like my biggest fear about getting it is it’s just transferring it to older people in my life like my grandmother. So my grandmother is also sixty-three. She’s spry, she’s doing her thing, she doesn’t have any serious health issues, and she’s very, very, very, very health conscious and very -- and eats very well and cares about her diet, cares about her, all of that stuff, so... But that’s my biggest fear with getting it. As for me getting it, I’m a young, healthy person, and from the statistics, young and healthy people usually live and survive and sometimes become asymptomatic. So that’s something I was holding on to for a while. Because even when I was working with youth out on the ground, I had a scare where I was like, oh, snap, this youth is getting tested. So I had to quarantine until her results came in and that was really terrifying. But it was mostly terrifying because of the way like work set it up. They’re like, “You can’t do anything, none of this, no, no, no, no, no.” And I’m just like, “Oh, okay,” and it made COVID-19 really real for me. (laughs)
 ; Chloe Coles-Wilson ; COVID-19 ; Grandmother ; Grocery Store ; Liz Bradbury 0 3208 Client's Low Income Mother Has COVID-19 CCW: Yes, I did, I did. Not any of like my close immediate friends, but a client’s mother had it. So that for that client -- and that was another moment during this pandemic that was interesting was a lot of our clients because they’re low-income folk, a lot of them who are... And especially if they’re like fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, they’re the caregivers in their home. So teaching a young person how to be a caregiver for a disease that we don’t understand or a virus we don’t understand was one of the -- one of my most challenging moments with this young person. Because it really was like -- you have books on how to take care of your younger siblings, you have all this education. But it’s like how do you take care of your mother who’s also -- has asthma, has COVID-19, and how do you, one, have her quarantine in your home when you have one bathroom? So it was like creating a whole new plan with this young person on how to keep the house healthy while also having them literally run the household. For that young person, it was so scary, it was so frightening, you know? It’s like, holy crap, now I have to do all these things that I didn’t think I had to do in these two weeks. Before I was doing it, but now, it’s a little different because mom is like completely out of the picture, you know, what I mean because she has to self-quarantine, so -- yeah.
 ; Chloe Coles-Wilson ; Client's mother ; COVID-19 ; Low Income 0 3317 Chloe Coles-Wilson's Concern For Her Mother CCW: That too was like one of my -- if -- concerns about COVID too is like if my mom were to get sick, you know what I mean. My mom is -- I think she’s turning fifty this year, so she’ll be forty-nine. Well, she’ll be forty-nine -- she’ll be fifty ; she’s forty-nine. If she got sick and I couldn’t see her, I would be a mess. I would be a mess, and I would be a mess, I would be very upset and devastated especially if like she died and she died without even me knowing. Because I think like a lot of -- a lot about COVID-19 that has been very complex and difficult is the messaging between the providers and the patient’s families. Because they’re so focused on keeping themselves safe, keeping the hospital safe, keeping the people that are in the hospital safe, keeping all the patients safe, separating the non-COVID patients from the COVID patients. So this whole like I’m going to get back to this family about a death that just happened is maybe happening a little bit later in the day, you know what I mean? Even though it’s a huge deal for the family, but for them, their list of worries is so large. You were constantly seeing that in the news too of like... And again, more conspiracy theory of these folks just struggling to get information to people but also struggling to take care of their patients because they’re -- it was just so much. It’s so much. And even now, one of my staff members was like, “I’m very afraid,” and I was like, “What are you afraid of?” And I get what she’s afraid of, but she’s just like. “I’m afraid of the uptick and what is going to happen with the hospitals again because the hospitals were packed for so long.” It’s just such a general fear of like there’ll not be enough of anything, so... 
 ; Chloe Coles-Wilson ; Cole Coles-Wilson's Mother ; COVID-19 0 3454 Civil Unrest During the Pandemic LB: Well, what’s the biggest frustration you’re having from all of this stuff? I mean we’re talking about a variety of things but... 
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 ; CCW: I think my biggest frustration is us in civil unrest during a pandemic. I think that is the hardest part of all of this is that. It’s, oh, like you would think that with the... Because what I’ve noticed, at least, in my social circles is like everyone who is on unemployment, they’re getting the extra six hundred dollars a week, so they’re now making money. And I’m a professional, and I’m in a management position, you know what I mean, so you would think I get the big bucks at this point, but no, definitely not. But people are making more money than me, right? So there is this sense of happiness amongst the people of my life, you know what I mean, especially since like we -- like my families have been very poor and low income. So I’ve noticed that there have been a lot of folks who are low income just experience just kind of some happier moments, you know what I mean? Because there’s more money and there’s more funds and there’s more things available. Who was that going on with this? What was the question again for -- 
 ; Chloe Coles-Wilson ; Civil Unrest ; Money ; Pandemic ; Stimulus Checks 0 3564 Civil Unrest in the Transgender Community LB: Well, you were -- 
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 ; CCW: -- you -- 
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 ; LB: -- talking about civil unrest. You were talking about -- 
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 ; CCW: Yes, yes, okay, there we go, sorry. But at the same time, you would think that like police brutality wasn’t going to be happening during this time. You would think like the amount of Black transwomen who have died, six transwomen died in a week, that is absolutely ridiculous, you know what I mean? There has been just so much police brutality, trans violence, racism, systematic racism, and it’s like it doesn’t stop. And so think that’s the most frustrating because I’m watching my friends and then family finally get like a leg up. They get this extra money, people are saving, they’ve got the extra 1200. Some people kind of financially did pretty well during this whole thing and then it’s like this violence continues on. But racism is going to continue, and that system is going to continue on, and it’s like, damn, when are we going to catch a break, so... And I would get mostly frustrated with people pushing back about the protests and pushing back about why are people outside, and I get it, I get it. We’re in a pandemic, but people need to move, people need to do this work. I’ve been really proud of a lot of activists who have been finding ways to get folks who cannot be out involved, and that has been really good, but it’s -- you know. I think that’s my biggest frustration is the civil unrest and how we’re still dealing with these big crises on such a larger level? Because Tony McDade, Nina Pop, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, they happened almost in a couple of months, right? It’s like the same time frame, so it’s like, holy crap, that is insane. What is happening here? Yeah, that’s my biggest frustration. Breonna Taylor ; Chloe Coles-Wilson ; George Floyd ; Liz Bradbury ; Nina Pop ; Tony McDade ; Transgender 0 3700 Bradbury's Take on Police Brutality LB: You know what I think about that though as? I think about that kind of horrible racist crime has been going on with that ferocity all along but that now, people are say -- First of all, they have -- always have their cameras with them with their video, and so there’s been so much more live video footage of this happening so that other people can’t say, “Well, that’s just not happening, it didn’t really happen that way, these people shouldn’t have been -- they caused what happened to them.” And you say, “Look at this, that’s not what happened, look, look at this.” And the other thing is that I think people are fed up with it and so when it happens, they’re making a public issue about it, which I don’t think has happened as much in the last 20 years as it’s doing now. And in part it is because people are... I mean people are speaking up about it more, which I think is very, very positive to me I mean for white people who are clueless and I have people... I know plenty of white people who are clueless and certainly some people in my family and other parts of my family who will just try to look for some kind of excuse for this kind of stuff, and they’re seeing these videos, and they’re saying -- I’m saying, “You can’t look at this and say --” this is what happened in Allentown. “You cannot look at this and say this was all right. You have to stretch beyond any kind of credibility to say that this nine-minute video shows appropriate action by the police. It doesn’t ; it just doesn’t. And if you’re saying that, you’re lying because it just doesn’t say that.” I watched that video six times, and I wrote down every single thing that happened in it. And I saw -- I -- the police said that they had -- that the man had fallen down and they fell down with him. When you watch the video, you can see the police kicked his feet out from under him and pushed him to the ground. They lied in their public -- 
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 ; George Floyd ; Liz Bradbury ; Police Brutality ; White People 0 3913 Discussion About Policing CCW: Exactly. Because policing is a very toxic culture, you know what I mean? 
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 ; LB: Yes. 
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 ; CCW: And after a while, once you -- because even -- and even in the line of social work, I’ve seen some things, I’ve heard some awful, horrendous, terrible stories. And I’ve only been doing -- I’ve been doing volunteer work for about seven years but -- and always in the community for a really long time, but this work with Project SILK has only been for three years. And in these three years, I have heard, seen, some crazy stuff, and it really doesn’t change the way you see people. But once I get to that point where I’m like -- I’m starting to see -- feel myself fall back into like bigotry or fall back into like a space of hatred, I’m like, I need to train, I need to train, I need to read, I need to educate myself. I need to get back into this place because -- and I need to like have healthy, healthy conversations with a therapist. I need to do self-care. Because that’s when I know that, one, I’m tried, and it’s -- I’m exhausted, right? And that’s what I think is happening with a lot of police officers is that their exposure to violence is insane, it’s insane, you know? In my place as a social worker, my exposure to violence is pretty intense, but I’m getting folks either prior to events or after something very terrible has happened. Because I also do like sex trafficking work with the shelter as well, and I do trainings on that with our agency. And some of the stories I’ve heard from these young folks is devastating stuff. But again, I’m only hearing it. Just imagine being the police officer seeing and reacting and doing the -- that physical brunt work in order to take care of a person. And they’re constantly being shown this stuff and so their place of bigotry and hatred if it already isn’t there. Because a lot of police officers go into this work either thinking I’m going to do the best, I’m going to be a public server, I’m going to do a great job. Some police officers, and it’s very, very rare but some do go into this work being like, I’m racist and I want to continue to raise Havoc in my area. I have upset, like mental health issues, whatever the case maybe, I want to be a terror right? Chloe Coles-Wilson ; Liz Bradbury ; Police Officers ; Project SILK 0 4173 Allentown Policing LB: Well, it’s certainly true that -- I mean I think that it -- for police officers in Allentown, most of them do not live in the city. They believe that they -- their experience is that every single person they come in contact with is either a person who has done something bad, they believe that, or because it so frequently is, or a victim of somebody who has done something bad. That there is no in between. There’s no activists and people planting gardens and folks that are playing with their kids, and there’s just nobody that isn’t a perpetrator for them because everybody they deal with is a perpetrator. And that’s one of the problems with the way police are that they -- that they’re totally reactive. So they only are there to react to some emergency situation, which is often a very negative thing. And they never have experiences working with people in the community to -- let’s build a, I don’t know, a garden shelter in the park. They never do that. They never say, “Well, we’re here today to be at this big barbecue for the community, to just hang out with you to see what you think is going on in the community.” We never do that. And so as a consequence, their constant experiences with people who they either think may have done something bad or who have really done something bad. And then they have this terrible, terrible attitude about the city because they never see anything positive in the city. They just never see anything positive any place in the whole -- anywhere at Lehigh Valley. A lot of them live way up in the Poconos, and they’re afraid, they’re afraid to live in the city. I’ve actually had them say, “I’m afraid to live in the city because my family would be terrorized,” and there’s actually no statistical evidence to that at all. I mean there’s lots of older police officers that have lived in the city for years and years and years, and they manage softball teams for kids and they do all sorts of stuff and they... I know some of these guys. And they don’t think everything is bad because they live here, and they know that there is an organization like Project SILK that’s having youth programs in the park, hanging out. They’re just doing it, so... But they’re conditioned to be constantly suspicious of everything because they never have an experience that is anything other -- in fact, they never get out of their cars or off their bicycles. Even the bicycle cops don’t get off their bicycles. 
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 ; Allentown ; Allentown Police ; Lehigh Valley ; Liz Bradbury ; Poconos ; Project SILK 0 4487 Solutions to Police Brutality CCW: It’s continuous. So police officers should be going to a racial equity training yearly. They should be attending these things. These things are important and vital for the education of self. And I think everyone should consider those things. I read up, and I read up and I’m constantly paying attention to human rights campaign, them, any LGBTQ+ resource area. I’ll have scheduled time to be like, all right, I need to make sure I’m caught up with language of the times. I’ll talk to my youth, “Are there new -- are there anything new that I should know? Is there information I should know? Is there culture pieces that I should know, so I am aware and I am not hurting you?” If you are a public servant or you are a person that’s working with social services, you need to do that work consistently. 
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 ; LB: Right, right, right. That’s really true. Well, we’re just about to the end of this. So imagine that somebody is looking back at this from 30 years hence, and it could be you because you’ll still be around. I won’t be but you will be. So you looking back, people are looking back at this way in the future, and you’re going to give them a message about what’s going on now, maybe a message of hope and a message of awareness that you could pass on to them, what would you say? What’s sort of a thing that you would say about that? Chloe Coles-Wilson ; LGBTQ+ ; Liz Bradbury ; Police Officers 0 4607 Training and Workshops CCW: Exactly. That’s something that I’ve been really pushing with my supervisor is that our staff needs consistent, constant workshop, training, workshop, training. Training is a little bit more official because they’re learning a new skill. Workshop is where you practice, have some conversation, it’s a little bit more lighter, right? I guess I would just tell people who are peering into the future is I hope people are still reading. I hope people are still educating themselves and really spending that time. Because ego trips are serious, and I feel like a lot of times when you think you are so woke and so educated, you tend to completely breeze by education. You completely breeze by things that you should know, and you become ignorant very quickly. So I’m always ready and always open, and I hope the same for people in the future too. 
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 ; LB: Oh, that’s a great thing to say. Thank you so much for saying that and for doing this interview. And I’m so glad that we got a chance to talk, and it’s been really helpful. And I hope you stay safe and your partner stays safe who has to be an essential worker, which I do understand that that term is -- actually means for many people, you have to work, but we don’t have to pay you a lot of money. And you don’t -- Chloe Coles-Wilson ; Liz Bradbury ; Training ; Workshops 0 4746 Counseling Work CCW: There’s going to be a few things that we’re going to work out. The therapist is like now she is becoming licensed, which I’m like, yay, proud for her. She just finished her licensure. Her first test -- I think she has a second test to take for some other level of licensing, but... So the counseling will work where it would be like short-term counseling. So we would say that the client would be able to see the -- I’m sorry. The client will be able to see the therapist for six to eight weeks and then we will review and see if -- that there needs to be any more further like treatment. And a lot of the focus would just be on the gender and sexuality stuff. She has a ton of training on LGBTQ+, Black and brown youth and how those intersections affect health. She is amazing, and she’s also getting a certification in geek therapy, which is like video game therapy. So that’s really, really, really cool. So that’s where we’re at now. We’re going to kind of keeping it short term just to get her flexible. She is only -- just to get her in a good place. She is only part time, so her caseload is probably going to be like maybe 15 to 20 youth, kind of the starts -- 
 ; Black ; Brown ; Chloe Coles-Wilson ; LGBTQ+ ; Therapist ; Youth 0 4867 Turning People Away CCW: You can’t just turn people away because you’re uncomfortable, then you need to quit your job.
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 ; LB: That’s really true. When HAVEN first started over at -- in Bethlehem, they kept talking about -- the people at the church kept talking about it -- and we were involved at the beginning of it, kept talking about how they wanted to train people to... Because the youth were at risk and they kept talking about the high level of or the high instance of suicide and the high instance of self-harm. But then they would get these really problem kids, young people who would -- problem youth who would come to the thing. And they’d say, “Well, this person is too much of a problem, we can’t have him around here.” (laughs) Some of the people that I was working with said, “Okay, wait a minute, these are the kids that are the highest risk. You can’t tell them that they’re the ones that can’t come here.”
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 ; Bethlehem ; Chloe Coles-Wilson ; HAVEN ; Liz Bradbury ; Problem Youth 0 5040 Closing Remarks CCW: That culture is still continuing on and so they’re -- they have -- they’re a part of the house and they go to balls and they compete and they are professional voguers. So that was just such a unique piece to our team, and we’re really excited, so... 
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 ; LB: Cool, all right, I can see that, yeah, good. That sounds exciting. I think that’s an excellent thing. Well, good. Well, thank you again so much, and I really, really appreciate it, and it’s been great to talk to you. And I hope you have a great -- a nice rest of the evening and get a little chance to regulate your sleep patterns. Chloe Coles-Wilson ; Closing Statements ; Culture ; Liz Bradbury 0 MovingImage Chloe Coles-Wilson describes how the LGBTQIA+ youth coped with COVID-19, by talking about her experiences with activism. She talks about her experience working for Project SILK in the Lehigh Valley, and how her experience there has shaped her. She also addresses the racial inequalities going on in the US, and offers her opinion to the interviewer. Ultimately, she talks about her activism and how COVID-19 has affected the community. Chloe Coles-Wilson 2020-07-14 LIZ BRADBURY: -- a little problem. Okay. So there we go, and I'm going to turn the audio on too. Now, I'm going to read you these -- this piece -- this intro. Oh, turn off my phone. (laughs) I write that right on here, so I don't forget to do it. CHLOE COLE-WILSON: (laughs) LB: And I want to also pin -- oops -- pin you in this. Okay. It's good. Pin in the video, I got the audio, okay, it's good, and record it. So with this project, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury, and I'm here with Chloe Cole- Wilson -- is that right -- to -- CCW: Right. LB: -- I suddenly blanked on it, I was like, wait, I just remember it now -- to talk to her about her experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the Lehigh Valley's LGBT Community Archive. Oh, we're meeting on Zoom on July 14, 2020. So thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? CCW: Do you want my middle name too? LB: Sure, why not. CCW: Okay. Chloe Amanda Cole-Wilson, C-H-L-O-E A-M-A-N-D-A C-O-L-E-W-I-L-S-O-N. LB: Good, okay. And will you please share your birthdate? CCW: March 20, 1992. LB: Okay. And you are in Allentown, is that right? We have to have the right town. CCW: I'm in Bethlehem. LB: In Bethlehem, okay. So this is the consent part. Do you consent to this interview today? CCW: Yes, I do. LB: Good. Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable formats? CCW: Yeah. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including films, articles, websites, presentations, and other formats that we may not even know today? CCW: Okay. Sounds good. LB: Do you understand that you will have thirty days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview, to review your interview, identify any parts you'd like to delete and or withdraw from your -- from the project? CCW: Yes. LB: Okay? Yes. Okay. So this is just a little bit of identity stuff. What is your ZIP code, so we can have a demographic? CCW: 18018 LB: Okay, and what is your age? CCW: Twenty-eight. LB: And how do you identify within the LGBT community? So basic SOGIE stuff or whatever you want to say. You can say whatever you want in this. CCW: I identify as queer. LB: Okay. Oh, so here are some of these thing. And so I already sent these questions. And the concept of the archive, I like to think about it as that there will be people who will, hopefully, look at this many years in the future to see what it was like for people at this point in the COVID epidemic in the Lehigh Valley who are part of the core community to get sort of an idea. Because there have been other circumstances with pandemics and epidemics where we really didn't talk about people's personal experiences. You can say anything you want about this. I have some of those questions. You can answer those, or you can think about those. I'll ask those if you want, but you can say whatever you want. But let's start out with this, are you by yourself in your home or do you have other people there or what's the deal? CCW: It's myself and my partner and then we have three other roommates. LB: Oh, okay, okay. I know the answers to some of these things, but you could talk about this for the archives. Have you been working, has your employer closed or laid off, and why don't you talk about a little bit what you do? CCW: Yeah. So I am program coordinator for Project SILK Lehigh Valley, which is an LGBT drop-in center that focuses on Black and brown youth. So a lot of the work that I've been doing during this time is just planning, programming, and getting the Valley Youth House staff in a place where they feel comfortable providing services virtually while also responding to crisis. During this time, we did have a few youth that became homeless and so it was trying to respond to those needs as quickly as we possibly could with -- considering my safety, my staff's safety, and things like that, the youth safety, so yeah. LB: How did that work out? I mean I know you can't talk specifically about youth, but why don't you describe a little bit how that happened? And I think that's really important stuff. CCW: Mm-hmm. So a lot of what we did was six feet, we stayed six feet away, we were masked up. We supplied some hand sanitizer to our workers and things like that. But I was one of the only workers that was really out working with a youth who was identifying as like unsheltered and was living in what -- in Allentown, what people would call it as like tent city where folks -- where all the unsheltered folks kind of cohabitate together and exist. So a lot of it was just like dropping things off on the corner and being like, "Hey, these items are here. I will wait for you to pick up these items." And then, you know, sometimes because we are in partnership with a shelter as well, to give and provide HIV, STI testing but also provide sexual health counseling and things like that. In those moments, we were meeting outside on the porch six feet away. Now that restrictions have lessened, we've been doing some more contact work with our other sites. There's been some very interesting things that I've done to try to appease the youth and provide the service, you know? LB: Yeah, and stay safe at the same time and have every -- CCW: Yeah. Mm-hmm. LB: That's tricky stuff, so... And is that your main thing that you do? So that's pretty much the main thing you do that you're setting up those kinds of things. So right now, those are the things that you're working on, and there is virtual programming that's going out to people? CCW: Mm-hmm. Actually starting tomorrow, we're going back into some more in-person services. Monday -- no, I'm sorry, Wednesdays and Fridays, we're going to do like luncheon/snack services. So from one to three, we'll meet with the youth at Arts Park because it gives us the ability to have the space to social distance. We'll take temperatures, we'll ask COVID-19 questions, do quick screenings, and then they are able to be in this drop-in space. Now, if they want to schedule testing, they can, but it can only be one appointment at a time. So that's where we're at with our protocols and things like that. LB: That's a great place too. So Art Park like right in front of the art museum in that big, grassy area? CCW: Mm-hmm. LB: A little place for croquet. (laughs) CCW: Yeah. What happened? Oh, for -- LB: [That we?] frequent for croquet -- CCW: Oh, yeah. (laughs) LB: -- or lawn bowling then. CCW: Listen, we're trying to think of some activities, so that might be on my list to be like, "Look, let's play croquet." LB: Lawn bowling would be really good. I think we should have a lawn bowling team there actually someday when we can finally be around in a circumstance like that. But that's a great place because it's got tables and -- you know? CCW: Mm-hmm. LB: They're right there. You don't have to schlep a lot of stuff over there. It's great. It looks -- CCW: And it's like a central place, so kids coming from all over the city will be able to just kind of know where it is, access where it is, and it kind of works. And also too, we might be able to interact with new youth there because there has been a lot of youth out because of the protesting, the Black Lives Matter protests that are happening right now, which is -- it's so crazy because that's on the other end of the work that I do. I also have an arts organization called Basement Poetry. And we've been doing some activism and advocacy around just like so many things, police brutality, inclusive shelters that will allow trans and gender nonbinary folks to identify in the identity that is theirs. Because if they cannot, it is a health risk. So that's been something that we've been really talking a lot about with these other organizations that are Black and brown ran. It's how to have inclusive spaces. Talking with city council about this. When we're defending the police like when this funding starts trickling down, making sure these organizations are anti-racist, making sure these organizations are anti-oppressive. That's another piece of this too. But what's interesting is the area like... Because the kids are so like, "I don't know what's going on, I don't know what to do with myself," so they've been out. They've just been out hanging out. So I'm hoping that we can foster a space for youth that are just like migrating and hanging out. A place for them to be a little bit that's a little bit more supervised, that's safe, that gives them access to services. Because it's been very interesting how like all the protests have rolled out and just youths, kind of, just hanging out in the city. LB: Yeah. Don't forget that when you're at the Art Park that that giant bronze horse that's at the -- across [from the art school?] was designed by Leonardo da Vinci who was gay. CCW: Oh, wow. That's awesome. I would love to share that with our kids. LB: Well, Leonardo never made that horse, but other people have taken the designs that he made it and then they recreated it in a couple of different places, and that's one of the places where it is. His design was much bigger than that, but it's pretty, and it's Leonardo, a genius who was gay, so, one of our ancestors. So for you personally in terms of communicating with people in your family or other -- of friends that you may not be able to be near with regard to social distancing and stuff, have you been using a lot of electronic conversations? Like where have you -- CCW: Oh yeah. It's like Zoom, I -- even just today for work, I was on nothing but Zoom calls. Instagram Live is like our outreach pool, so we can say, "Hey, this is what we're doing." But with friends and family, I'm always on the phone, I'm always texting. It's been really hard. I will say there were moments during this whole continuing on in this pandemic where I'm like, "I need to see my mom, I'm going to go see my mom, I don't care, I'm seeing her, I don't care, I just -- I can't," you know? LB: Yeah. CCW: It was really difficult not being able to have these interactions with my friends. And it's so funny because my friend [Will?] who is also gay, we were talking about how even the internet, like the way he interacts with guys and men, it's crazy, you know what I mean? He's single, so I'm always talking about safety because I'm like, "Well, you know, your friend is a healthcare provider, so I'm just going to just let you know like no kissing and remember washing your hands after the stuff." But he was even saying that online, it's insane that people are still meeting up, you know? LB: Yeah. CCW: So I felt less guilty to see my mom after I heard about that, so... (laughs) LB: Yeah, and you be careful and you can -- you know? You know what your level of danger is, and I'm sure she does too. But, yeah, I was just talking to somebody else about that some people are really not being careful in terms of hooking up with apps and stuff. And it's -- CCW: Oh, not at all -- LB: -- other people would say -- in fact, I was just talking to Ariel and he was saying, "It's the hi, bye kind of thing, hi, bye, but this is just going to be bye." (laughter) Because (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible). He just coined that. He said that "It's not going to be -- it's not going to be hi if there's no carefulness in here." So let me see. We did that. We've got a lot of stuff going on and -- but let's talk about what your biggest concerns are during the pandemic and concerns for the Lehigh -- for -- in the LGBT community, of the Lehigh Valley. And I do want to have a whole section where I want you to talk about Black Lives Matter, but if you want to talk about that during this part of the conversation, that's fine, go ahead and do that too. So -- CCW: Okay, cool. LB: -- [you're?] -- CCW: I guess one of my biggest concerns is shelter, right? I think that when... I have a very special relationship with one of our clients. When I had discovered that they were struggling in this way and had no place to go, I'm like, all right, so I'm going to go, and I'm going to hunt down all of my resources, so I'm pulling out all the resource guides, pulling out all the books that I've created and put together, all the protocol. And I'm looking at them and I'm like, There's nothing that will work for this young person. And this young person is not under the age of 18, so it's not like I can call Valley Youth House shelter. This young person is identifying as nonbinary, so it's like putting them in a shelter can be so difficult. And Salvation Army and all of these other shelters are very religious, and there is follow your faith and do what is best in your practice and in your meeting and -- you know what I mean? That's what nonprofits are, right? Like a lot of people start nonprofits from their hearts, right? LB: Mm-hmm. CCW: But there is this moment where it's like when will you start to follow and understand your populations and understand the people that are in your community? And so places like the Rescue Mission, I would never send kids there. It's like the most unsafe place for LGBTQ+ youth or LGBTQ- people in general. Because it's a men's shelter, but at the same time if you have any type of like, say, moment, hand gesture, gender expression that is not masculine, you are ostracized and treated a certain way in that space. So that's my biggest concern is sheltering and especially sheltering for trans and gender nonconforming folks. Now turning point, they're really open and have been really working on being gender inclusive, but the pieces. It's like you -- there has to be DV in your case. So if there's no domestic violence in your case, then there's no space at their shelter because that's their focus. So that's one of my concerns. Another one of my concerns has always been the way things have been kind of given us. Like the messages have been given coming down like news and how youth process it. Because as COVID started, I remember we have two peer navigators [Xander?] and [Michelle?], and I just remember them just completely shutting down. This is senior year for them, so this is a very important year of their life, and they're excited for everything that we're going to do at the center, they're going to do in their school life. And I just remember them just like mentally gone, shut down when they figured out school was going to be closed because of COVID. LB: So they were -- CCW: And it's like -- LB: -- high school seniors or college seniors? CCW: High school seniors. It was so immensely frustrating with how everything -- the information was coming down and how everything was handled. Everything was very like just put together, which I get. We've never been... Our folk, I would at least say the generations like Millennials and Gen Z's have never been through something like this. So you have half of the population that's never been through a crisis and the other half who has experience with this kind of things. It's just such a cluster of all of these mixed experiences, anyways. But with the schools, like the Allentown School District weren't getting the things that they need right away. There was a moment where the kids didn't even go to school for like -- or have any formal education for three and a half weeks, almost a month until April. In the midst of April, they were able to get like Wi-Fi to youth, hotspots to youth, and technology to youth, and that was another concern of mine too. So, again, it was just like that just misinformed and then explaining to the youth that this happens sometimes. But when it consistently happens, they're like, "What is going on?" and so then they're in crisis, right, and they're freaking out like, "What's going on? I need answers," you know what I mean, so... LB: Yeah. Young people really look to older people to fix things and explain things to them, and we have no answers on this. I mean I'm sixty-three years old, and there's nothing in my life experience that compares to this. I can say that I know somebody who is one hundred four years old who's been in the center by the way, who was alive during the flu epidemic of 1918. And that's the only other thing that's comparable to this one because [we?] had the flu. Because even if you look at HIV/AIDS, which was a very different thing, it wasn't like everybody had it, and it was really hard to get it. I mean, you can't just get AIDS. You have to have sex with people and be involved with people. That's not the same situation. On the other hand right now, every single -- this is a hopeful thing that you can say to youth is that every single scientist in the world that knows about this kind of stuff is working on this issue, which wasn't true for AIDS. Nobody did anything about that for years -- CCW: For -- yeah. LB: -- and years and people just died, all over the place. Really, it sounds like such a tricky thing when you have young people who want these answers, and they're not going to really put up with you saying, I don't know. CCW: Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean? I feel like all of my youth that I work with, I've known them for a very long time since Project SILK started. And so they are built with the same tenacity that I have and the same questioning of authority, questioning of the system, the same activist spirit. So I kind of set myself up to have these awesome kids that will advocate for themselves, but then in these situations I'm like, Why did I do this? (laughs) It's been very complex. And even for my team, it's been very hard to figure out how to have these conversations without having the meltdown. But luckily, we're going to be starting some therapy services in August, so I think that's going to really help with some of these, like this processing of all the things that are happening. And including the trauma that we are constantly exposed to with the Black Lives Matter, the police brutality but not just Black Lives Matter but like police brutality and systematic racism and microaggressions and all of these experiences that they're having. They're also processing that too at the same time that they're processing a pandemic, and we're in this in this civil unrest, and it's like -- it's a lot. They're going through a lot right now. And then also, they're seeing the systems start to crumble in front of them. So it's like they were aware before that things weren't good. But then when you're not getting educated and your peers in the Whitehall School District or Parkland Area School District and Bethlehem Area School District are all on the computers doing their homework while you're just waiting, it really does go to show you the barriers and how the system fails. And so many youth were responding to that like, "What do I do, what --? How do I respond to this?" And it's just like email, email congress, email your local reps, make sure people know and are on top of what's happening in your school. LB: Right, right, right. Register to vote because some of them will be old enough too, so, you know? CCW: Mm-hmm. Our kids right now are aging out -- not aging out, but they're coming out of that phase where they're in the drop-in center all the time. So the kids that are in the drop-in center all the time between the ages of like 14 to 17. And then once they graduate high school, they're really focused on their life and themselves and getting things together. So a lot of times, they're not spending a lot of time there. So we have a lot of older youth there, so I'm always encouraging them to vote and be a part of and know your local government because that is where you have a lot of power and say in what happens here. LB: Whenever I used to talk to running a voter's -- an LGBT voter's organization -- it's called [PAL?], and we did that for many, many years -- one of the things we talk to people about is being a super voter. And a super voter is a person who votes in every election in the primary for four years in a row. And whether or not you vote is a matter of public record. So any person can get a list that shows whether or not you voted this in the primary and then that stuff, in the main election every year for years and years. And when you write a letter or you write an email or you write a card to your state representative, they look up to see whether you vote. That's why they pay more attention to old people than they do to young people because older people vote -- are more likely to vote. So when they look at your super voter status or they'll look to see and if you're a super voter, they'll listen to you. And if you're not a voter, you're not even registered, they figure, oh, you're not going to vote for me anyway, who cares? And they really do that, and it's a shame, but it's true. And that's the whole thing about the voice of voting because in the Obama elections, youth, college students and 18-year-olds put him in office. That's the swing vote. That is the swing vote. And during the Obama election, Adrian organized -- sent hundreds of kids to go and vote at the voter's places. And he was there at Muhlenberg College, and after he left, they stopped doing that. So like hundreds and hundreds of people were voting and then all of a sudden, they weren't. And one of the things about us being in Pennsylvania is it's a swing state. It really matters in Pennsylvania as opposed to like -- New York is always pretty liberal and New Jersey is pretty liberal, and people tend not to. It's not so close, but it's very close here. So that's great that they're doing that, good for them. Have you been talking to any of the youth and also for yourself stuff about Dr. Rachel Levine being our secretary of health, and she's the one that's been there in the health. And now what do you -- have you had a chance to see her and talk to youth about her? CCW: Yeah. A lot of youths are very upset with the way she's treated. I think that that for our trans youth, like that has been the most difficult part of all of this is... Before the Black Lives Matter movement was like -- had this visceral showing up, we were really trying to manage conversations around transphobia. And every time because we're seeing Rachel Levine, at one point we were seeing her almost every single day, which is beautiful. With style and grace, style and grace, she would like -- was amazing onstage and was amazing with giving us the information we needed, was very clear and concise, and was about to give us information that wasn't too doctor-y, too wordy, or too -- or filled with things that didn't matter to us, right? LB: Yeah. CCW: And it's like even through that, even through all of that beauty and poise and intelligence, it's like people were still just questioning her gender consistently. And I think for our clients, it was more so like, "Well, can that -- will that happen to me if I decide to do something like that? Am I possible?" Those are conversations, and we really worked with her and [Goodwin?]. We had a group, a trans health group that was really powerful, and we talked a lot about -- they talked a lot about passing and things like that. And how that is maybe important for your transition but also it's not important for the social world. Like you don't need to set up for hyper masculine or hyper feminine identities or these belief systems or these systems, like you don't need to do that, right? And so, I don't know. Some interesting conversations happened, and sometimes it would happen sporadically with our young people, so... LB: It's really true that sometimes in circumstances like that, for trans people who are transitioning and they have a certain idea of what that means, it can become hyper binary that they... You know I can't ride a motorcycle because it won't be feminine enough, and it's really limited I think for a lot of people. Yeah, Rachel Levine is amazing, and one of the great things about her is she has an extraordinarily thick skin. She'll actually say I don't care what people say to me. It's pretty brave. I don't think everybody should feel that they have to be that way, but she's the secretary of health and so, you know? CCW: Yeah. LB: She -- CCW: And then on top of that, you're also giving COVID-19 health regulations that people are uncomfortable with managing. And she's giving news that is not the greatest on top of being a fierce trans leader. So it's like -- you know what I mean? Already she was going to get pushback, you know? LB: Mm-hmm. CCW: So yeah. LB: It's tough when you're telling people things they don't want to hear, but that's the thing. CCW: And you're in... You are representing an identity that people don't want to embrace. Like I know for a while even myself when I was in chats, in conversations with my -- just like my family, we always have that conversation of "Why are you asking whether or not what her gender is? Like this is bad. It's not the conversation we need to be having. She is giving us the most important health information day to day, and we need to listen to that. That has nothing to do with anything." I think it's a culture shock for Pennsylvania because I feel like sometimes we dress up. Especially in the Lehigh Valley, we dress up like we're -- oh my God, we're so progressive, yay, but we're really not. We're really behind on a lot of things. I always say to people, I'm like, "We're always about ten -- five to ten years behind because like --" LB: Behind what? CCW: Just behind like -- LB: New York? CCW: Yeah, behind really progressive spaces, you know what I mean like New York City and... I think of Philly as like progressive, but then again, there have been -- I've had moments there where I'm like, wow, this is pretty conservative in parts of Philly. So the interesting part is that we -- in Pennsylvania, we have these really small pockets of what we would consider safe places for all people and very small pockets. And then outside of that, it's just like a ring of hate. You know what I mean? And you drive out ten minutes and then boom, confederate flag and -- LB: It's the suburbs, I know it's terrible. Terrible. You're absolutely right. CCW: It's like crazy. LB: I know. I grew up in a suburb of New York City, and it was so conservative there. It was ridiculously conservative there. My parents were the only people who were democrats, and it doesn't even mean that that's radically... They were the only democrats that we knew in the entire town in the suburb. And now, it's really one of the most progressive areas of the United States and Connecticut. So it's an interesting thing to see, I guess. But that does happen in the suburbs, and it's a shame, and we shouldn't let them get away with it. There's no question of it. I'd love to live in the city where it's not like that per se, per se. I mean there are still issues, you know. CCW: Oh, for sure, for sure, for sure. It's been very interesting. It's been very interesting to see the hate because you -- like because I work... My life is working like LGBTQ+ folks, the marginalized people, I'm always in spaces -- not always, let me take that back. I'm mostly in spaces where I'm accepted genuinely pretty much. I'll deal with microaggressions, and I'll deal with moments of racism and things like that, which I'm not negating, but for the most part, I'm not like in fear of my life, right? But -- what was I going to say. But, yeah, but like I know that, and I'm now aware that this space is not safe all the time. And when I was starting to see those messages and the way -- and the comments about Rachel Levine and her appearance and the way she was presenting or whatever the case maybe and just like the little, snarky things that they would say about her, I'm like, holy crap, we are really behind. And I would have never thought that, but then again, I have to remind myself, I'm in certain spaces because of my work life. I have a girlfriend and our family's very accepting. We have a language barrier. They speak Spanish, so there's always like a cultural catcher, but other than that, my family's very loving. There's a lot of education around nonbinary and trans folk. And I'm always doing that work with them every day, and they're always very accepting and loving. But like I forget, I forget, I really do. LB: Yeah. It's amazing though because you could be talking to people who you just think are wonderful. My dad was a major -- I mean he worked with Martin Luther King, and he edited his books, and he was really, really involved with him when he was in New York City and stuff. And he was talking about all this, and he didn't... I knew that he did these things, and he was very, very positive, and he had gay friends and he -- and stuff. And then all of a sudden, he -- I was saying... We lived in Connecticut, and I said, "So that place where we lived, where we went swimming, was that a restricted place?" and he goes, "Yeah, of course." I'm like, "Wha-- why would you do that?" And then he's telling me about this club for writers and editors and stuff that he belonged to in New York City -- it was called the Coffee House -- where people in literature were members of this club. It was only for men, and I said, "Well, yeah, because there's no women writers. I mean --" CCW: Right, because they totally don't like this. LB: "How could you do that?" He goes, "Well, they had good soup," you know? So there's that constant vigilance that you'd have. And you think that things are getting better and then all of a sudden, it rolls back. And part of it comes from -- you know? And we can't just blame this, but part of it comes from the current administration, which has sort of opened the floodgates of that, but it's not like that's the only thing. I mean it's not like it hasn't -- there isn't -- this stuff hasn't always been there. I think that's -- CCW: Right. I don't know. I feel like... And now as I'm thinking of the Black Lives Matter movement, I feel like the current administration definitely has tapped some souls and some wounds on some people and had opened up this space of like, Well now, I don't have to be silent about my bigotry, but it's expressive, it's beautiful that they don't have to be silent anymore. It's very strange to see. It's very strange to see this. It's very weird how folks who are very supportive of Trump and who are racists will open up and be like, "Oh, I feel safer now. Now that he's in office, I can say what I want to say, and all lives matter," and so then -- you know what I mean? Like, ah, I don't know. But I will say that like I... It's something I've learned in this -- in the very short amount of time that I've done a lot -- the activism that I've done. In the last five years, I've just learned that racists are in a different place, and they will come down when they are ready. They will work on their stuff when they are ready, and being triggered by them will do nothing for you. And so that's something I've really been working a lot on especially with our youth. Like you're going to see racist things. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Nina Pop, Tony McDade, these are all racist acts of state sanctioned violence or police brutality, right? You're going to see these things. This is the unfortunate and sad world that we are in. But we have to turn our rage into something else, right, because we will -- we'll self-destruct. And that was something I took a lot -- it took me a really long time to really work on. Because I'm just like any time that I experience a microaggression or any racism, I would get so hot and so angry. And I would be in this place of just kind of thinking about it and letting it churn in my head for weeks and weeks and months on end and then I'm recognizing that like I haven't, one, done anything about it, and, two, I'm making myself sick. So it's been something that I've been really working actively on is not even responding to the racist comments on Morning Call, the racist comments that are seen on WFMC, especially when -- as we're talking about the movement and as we're processing the things that are happening around us. Because also, too, racists are going through -- and not that I'm giving them any empathy at all whatsoever, but racists are going through a huge change in their whole life. Everything is changing around them. The Redskins have dropped their name and logo, so that's -- for a lot of people who are committed to that team, that's hard, you know what I mean? And I'm, whatever, this is what you're processing. I'm processing death and safety ; you're processing a logo. That's cool. That's fine. LB: Yeah, death and safety (laughs) versus a logo. CCW: Yeah, you know what I mean? Just like -- LB: I could not -- you don't even play it, you just watch it on TV or -- yeah, death and -- CCW: Exactly, so -- LB: -- [safety, or?]. CCW: -- I don't know. It's very interesting to watch racist folks just kind of implode and like -- and white America too in general to just implode and be like, holy crap, I have to do all this work now. I have to process my identity, I have to process myself, I have to really watch my microaggressions, I have to do all this. It's been really intense for everyone. It's been a lot for everyone. I don't have much empathy for that, but I will say that like I think we have to put into consideration as we're doing this work that everyone is at a different place. And so that's really been healing for me because I've been -- I get really wrapped up in what people say. I get really wrapped up in it sometimes and so I'm like, no, no, no, no, I've got to let it go. Morning Call is going to be racist comments because it's been -- we're in Pennsylvania, so... (laughs) LB: People are commenting on that from Poland, I mean, you know, and people can comment from anywhere on that. Comments are completely not news, and they're just there to rile people up. CCW: Right. And say things that don't even like -- LB: [They're talking?]. CCW: -- just something intense like -- LB: (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) that by the time you get to the seventh comment, the person is completely off the thread of the whole story anyway. They're talking about -- you know? The thing is about putting fluoride in the water, and by the seventh comment, they're blaming Obama, and by (laughs) the tenth comment, it's about Israel. It's just -- CCW: Right. And then -- LB: -- this has nothing to do with reality. CCW: And then they toss in this six hundred dollars a week unemployment. Like -- LB: Yes, exactly. CCW: -- and how everyone was getting -- LB: -- in fact you know -- CCW: -- that was my debate the other day. (laughs) LB: Yeah. You know in the trainings I do -- there are a lot of philosophies about training where they try to do all of this empathy stuff and they talk about... And I really don't do that because of exactly what you're talking about. You can't change people from being racist by giving them an empathy training. So what I do is I tell them, "Stop saying this stuff, just cut it out." And at the end of the training and I say, "These are the words you should use because this is LGBT stuff, so these are the words you'd use. This will create a barrier, you won't be able to do your job, understand that this is what people are thinking when you say these things so say this, do this, don't say that love the sinner and hate the sin." And then we get to the end of the thing, and I say, "And don't think is way too much for you to learn." Because that's always what they say, "Oh, it's so much." I say like, "Come on, you went to college, this took an hour. You can learn this stuff. It's not that hard. For heaven's sakes, you take trainings all the time. And it's less than programming your phone. So just remember these words and --" CCW: Yes. LB: "-- stop just thinking that it's hard to do this because it's change." And I think that's a very good point that you're making and it's a... And it does drive you crazy, and you have to stop ha-- I don't have any empathy for racists even though when people would say things like, "Well, you know it's hard and they..." I can't, I can't and maybe it's because I'm older but I just -- like there is just... There's a very important saying that hit me very hard years ago and it was you cannot make compromises with people who don't think that everybody should -- that minority people and disenfranchised people should have equal rights because they would deny us oxygen if they could. So ask -- expect every equality, expect total equity because if you say, "Well, we'll take this half nod from you," they don't even want to give us oxygen, come on, you know? They be -- yeah. CCW: Right, okay, okay. LB: I don't think it's... When you're talking about the people in the comments section, they'll never going to be able to... They're not there to learn let's put it that way. CCW: Yeah, they're not, they're definitely not, they're definitely not. They're there to troll. It's always like an ego test. Like who's smarter in this debate, you know what I mean? And it's just so -- I don't know, anyways. But, oh, you know? And even our local news has just been so just like really messy in the way they've been reporting and journaling some of these protests and the way they've even been just journaling about COVID-19. And that's like another concern of mine. It's like we already have very scarce information because the WHO and the CDC, who most people are not believing because conspiracy theorists have taken over the world, right? (laughs) People that I thought would never fall into conspiracy theories are loving them now because we've never experienced anything like this, you know what I mean? The fact that we use quarantine in common language is mind-blowing to me, so... So we have the CDC and the WHO that are still really working aggressively and hard on trying to figure out things. And as science works, finding out the smallest thing is huge for scientists, but for us, finding out that like COVID-19 is now on surfaces is so miniscule, but it took them so much time to get to that, you know what I mean? And so many hours and thought process and chemical and whatever they needed to do to get to that hypothesis that this is what it is, to get to that answer, and to get to us. So already we're dealing with that and kind of like following science as we are going through this and then you have the Morning Call and WMFC with their very, very strange and vague things. Like COVID-19 Could Kill You would be like the headline, and everyone is like, oh my God, no, it's going to kill us. But then when you click on it, it's like could kill you if you don't wear a mask and wash your hands. (laughs) LB: Yeah. And well, the [second page?], you know and it was -- oh it was horrible. I remember -- well, I could tell you a million stories about this but -- and it's all the same gig. It's all the same thing where people are latching on to that kind of urban myth stuff and talking about that as real. And well, you know, that wearing a mask could kill you kind of thing. I was just talking to somebody and how that's just -- it's like an urban -- it's like one of those stories that, well, I have a friend whose brother's name is John, and this happened to him, you know? CCW: Mm-hmm. LB: A camp story, you know, (laughs) so anyway. So in terms of your everyday life, and there's a question on here that's sort of a list of questions. It says has it affected your life? And it's kind of ridiculous because it's affected every single minute of everybody's life even if you -- CCW: Oh, yeah. LB: -- say it hasn't, it has. Have you noticed anything that is just glaringly different for you? CCW: Oh, I feel like my sleep cycle, sleep has changed immensely. So I already was a night owl, so two o'clock was the cap. That was like I'm up too late, I'm going to go to sleep. But when COVID started and because I was working at home, and all I had to do was like wake up, put on a T-shirt, make sure -- put on my pajama pants, make sure I look somewhat decent, and I'm ready to go, I had all the time in the world. I didn't have a 30-minute commute. I like to say 30 minutes because I like to take my time driving and listening to music and stuff. But I have a 30-minute commute, and get ready in the morning will be another hour so that's an hour and a half that I've now saved. But I -- because of the anxiety of the pandemic and the anxiety of not knowing what's going to happen next, and as the pandemic went through and then now we're in this civil unrest -- at the end of May we're in the civil unrest, my sleep schedule is like whatever, you know what I mean? I'll wake up in six o'clock in the morning and then I'll start. I'll answer some emails, I'll casually do some filing, organize some things, get myself kind of prepared for the day and then I'll go back to sleep and then I'll wake up again. My sleep has been so off because we're -- I'm just so comfortable with being at home, and I get so stir-crazy. So that was one of the biggest changes. Now, my partner is an essential worker. Well, I don't even like using that term, but she has to go outside to work. And for her, she's -- everything is the same. If you were to ask her this question, she'd be like, "I don't think my life has changed much, I just miss my family" because she has older parents. Her mom is like forty-eight and her dad sixty-three. Well, her mom is not older ; it's her dad that's older. So they couldn't see each other, and he's already had cancer in his health history, and he has diabetes. So things are really like we cannot see them at all whatsoever. That's just a no go. We can't even take the risk, you know what I mean? So for her, that's the only thing that she would say, but other than that, all parts of her life is kind of like the same, you know? LB: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. CCW: But for me, it's just the sleep, and my schedule was so off. And even going to the grocery store was just like, it's hell on earth, you know what I mean -- LB: Has it -- CCW: -- because it's like -- LB: Have you been limiting that, or what's that like for you? Explain because you -- CCW: So -- LB: -- people are going to be watching this thirty years from now, so talk about what it's like to go to the grocery store. CCW: Well, grocery store shopping... So at first in start of the pandemic, I limited. As we started to get deeper into it, I realized that going shopping for two weeks of food wasn't realistic anymore. Because like I was either -- because I always shop a lot of fresh food or -- and then I'll get a bunch of frozen stuff. But I was just like this isn't working, you know? And next week, I don't really want this food, so, like I'm not interested in this meal. So I ended up shopping a little bit more. And because my partner is still going out and working and I'm at home, now I have to pack lunches and things like that. Because there was in the beginning that concern of do we eat out? Because there wasn't any regulation yet. But we were just like, you know what, let's just -- whatever. At this point, let's just try this. But even the experience at the grocery store, GIANT had and probably still has this, it's a voiceover and it's like, "Stay six feet away from everyone, and" blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, Is this like Black Mirror or --? Yeah, I don't know if you've ever seen that show before, but it felt so surreal because everyone is in their gloves and their masks just like walking around the grocery store, wiping things down. I've seen people do crazy things in the grocery store, wearing crazy things to stay protected, which I get. LB: Yeah. Well, people are scared. So are you scared about getting it? CCW: I think my biggest fear about getting it is -- oh. I feel like my biggest fear about getting it is it's just transferring it to older people in my life like my grandmother. So my grandmother is also sixty-three. She's spry, she's doing her thing, she doesn't have any serious health issues, and she's very, very, very, very health conscious and very -- and eats very well and cares about her diet, cares about her, all of that stuff, so... But that's my biggest fear with getting it. As for me getting it, I'm a young, healthy person, and from the statistics, young and healthy people usually live and survive and sometimes become asymptomatic. So that's something I was holding on to for a while. Because even when I was working with youth out on the ground, I had a scare where I was like, oh, snap, this youth is getting tested. So I had to quarantine until her results came in and that was really terrifying. But it was mostly terrifying because of the way like work set it up. They're like, "You can't do anything, none of this, no, no, no, no, no." And I'm just like, "Oh, okay," and it made COVID-19 really real for me. (laughs) LB: Yeah. Do you know anybody who's had it? CCW: Yes, I did, I did. Not any of like my close immediate friends, but a client's mother had it. So that for that client -- and that was another moment during this pandemic that was interesting was a lot of our clients because they're low-income folk, a lot of them who are... And especially if they're like fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, they're the caregivers in their home. So teaching a young person how to be a caregiver for a disease that we don't understand or a virus we don't understand was one of the -- one of my most challenging moments with this young person. Because it really was like -- you have books on how to take care of your younger siblings, you have all this education. But it's like how do you take care of your mother who's also -- has asthma, has COVID-19, and how do you, one, have her quarantine in your home when you have one bathroom? So it was like creating a whole new plan with this young person on how to keep the house healthy while also having them literally run the household. For that young person, it was so scary, it was so frightening, you know? It's like, holy crap, now I have to do all these things that I didn't think I had to do in these two weeks. Before I was doing it, but now, it's a little different because mom is like completely out of the picture, you know, what I mean because she has to self-quarantine, so -- yeah. LB: And then that whole thing of when people get super sick and they have to go in the hospital, and we can't see them, and you don't know what's going on and... Yeah. CCW: That too was like one of my -- if -- concerns about COVID too is like if my mom were to get sick, you know what I mean. My mom is -- I think she's turning fifty this year, so she'll be forty-nine. Well, she'll be forty-nine -- she'll be fifty ; she's forty-nine. If she got sick and I couldn't see her, I would be a mess. I would be a mess, and I would be a mess, I would be very upset and devastated especially if like she died and she died without even me knowing. Because I think like a lot of -- a lot about COVID-19 that has been very complex and difficult is the messaging between the providers and the patient's families. Because they're so focused on keeping themselves safe, keeping the hospital safe, keeping the people that are in the hospital safe, keeping all the patients safe, separating the non-COVID patients from the COVID patients. So this whole like I'm going to get back to this family about a death that just happened is maybe happening a little bit later in the day, you know what I mean? Even though it's a huge deal for the family, but for them, their list of worries is so large. You were constantly seeing that in the news too of like... And again, more conspiracy theory of these folks just struggling to get information to people but also struggling to take care of their patients because they're -- it was just so much. It's so much. And even now, one of my staff members was like, "I'm very afraid," and I was like, "What are you afraid of?" And I get what she's afraid of, but she's just like. "I'm afraid of the uptick and what is going to happen with the hospitals again because the hospitals were packed for so long." It's just such a general fear of like there'll not be enough of anything, so... LB: Well, what's the biggest frustration you're having from all of this stuff? I mean we're talking about a variety of things but... CCW: I think my biggest frustration is us in civil unrest during a pandemic. I think that is the hardest part of all of this is that. It's, oh, like you would think that with the... Because what I've noticed, at least, in my social circles is like everyone who is on unemployment, they're getting the extra six hundred dollars a week, so they're now making money. And I'm a professional, and I'm in a management position, you know what I mean, so you would think I get the big bucks at this point, but no, definitely not. But people are making more money than me, right? So there is this sense of happiness amongst the people of my life, you know what I mean, especially since like we -- like my families have been very poor and low income. So I've noticed that there have been a lot of folks who are low income just experience just kind of some happier moments, you know what I mean? Because there's more money and there's more funds and there's more things available. Who was that going on with this? What was the question again for -- LB: Oh, it's about the frustrations that you're having. You were talking of the money and stuff. CCW: Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So... Jesus, I forgot what I was going to say. Yes, so everyone's pretty content but at the same time, it's like -- LB: Well, you were -- CCW: -- you -- LB: -- talking about civil unrest. You were talking about -- CCW: Yes, yes, okay, there we go, sorry. But at the same time, you would think that like police brutality wasn't going to be happening during this time. You would think like the amount of Black transwomen who have died, six transwomen died in a week, that is absolutely ridiculous, you know what I mean? There has been just so much police brutality, trans violence, racism, systematic racism, and it's like it doesn't stop. And so I think that's the most frustrating because I'm watching my friends and then family finally get like a leg up. They get this extra money, people are saving, they've got the extra 1200. Some people kind of financially did pretty well during this whole thing and then it's like this violence continues on. But racism is going to continue, and that system is going to continue on, and it's like, damn, when are we going to catch a break, so... And I would get mostly frustrated with people pushing back about the protests and pushing back about why are people outside, and I get it, I get it. We're in a pandemic, but people need to move, people need to do this work. I've been really proud of a lot of activists who have been finding ways to get folks who cannot be out involved, and that has been really good, but it's -- you know. I think that's my biggest frustration is the civil unrest and how we're still dealing with these big crises on such a larger level? Because Tony McDade, Nina Pop, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, they happened almost in a couple of months, right? It's like the same time frame, so it's like, holy crap, that is insane. What is happening here? Yeah, that's my biggest frustration. LB: You know what I think about that though as? I think about that kind of horrible racist crime has been going on with that ferocity all along but that now, people are sa-- First of all, they have -- always have their cameras with them with their video, and so there's been so much more live video footage of this happening so that other people can't say, "Well, that's just not happening, it didn't really happen that way, these people shouldn't have been -- they caused what happened to them." And you say, "Look at this, that's not what happened, look, look at this." And the other thing is that I think people are fed up with it and so when it happens, they're making a public issue about it, which I don't think has happened as much in the last 20 years as it's doing now. And in part it is because people are... I mean people are speaking up about it more, which I think is very, very positive to me I mean for white people who are clueless and I have people... I know plenty of white people who are clueless and certainly some people in my family and other parts of my family who will just try to look for some kind of excuse for this kind of stuff, and they're seeing these videos, and they're saying -- I'm saying, "You can't look at this and say --" this is what happened in Allentown. "You cannot look at this and say this was all right. You have to stretch beyond any kind of credibility to say that this nine-minute video shows appropriate action by the police. It doesn't ; it just doesn't. And if you're saying that, you're lying because it just doesn't say that." I watched that video six times, and I wrote down every single thing that happened in it. And I saw -- I -- the police said that they had -- that the man had fallen down and they fell down with him. When you watch the video, you can see the police kicked his feet out from under him and pushed him to the ground. They lied in their public -- CCW: Right. LB: And I have to say that -- CCW: Even like just the comments on the spitting, he was vomiting, so of course, he's going to spit out whatever is in his mouth or maybe he's continuing to vomit, but it was very clear and apparent that he was vomiting. So it's like -- LB: He was sick. CCW: He was sick. LB: He's a sick guy, and he's praying. You know every -- there's just -- there's no excuse for this. And what's going to happen because I've seen this happen for 30 years is that the police, they're always going to excuse themselves. They're going to say their -- "Well, but yeah, but this has been --" and they're going to say that. And I think that it's going to be... Unless city council people band together and stand up against this, it's going to be awfully hard to get the police. The police will never admit they're at fault in my -- they just never will do that but -- so things have to change. I mean divestiture is really significant because they're just never going to admit the way the system is set up now, and it doesn't even matter who the police officers are. They're always -- CCW: Exactly. Because policing is a very toxic culture, you know what I mean? LB: Yes. CCW: And after a while, once you -- because even -- and even in the line of social work, I've seen some things, I've heard some awful, horrendous, terrible stories. And I've only been doing -- I've been doing volunteer work for about seven years but -- and always in the community for a really long time, but this work with Project SILK has only been for three years. And in these three years, I have heard, seen, some crazy stuff, and it really doesn't change the way you see people. But once I get to that point where I'm like -- I'm starting to see -- feel myself fall back into like bigotry or fall back into like a space of hatred, I'm like, I need to train, I need to train, I need to read, I need to educate myself. I need to get back into this place because -- and I need to like have healthy, healthy conversations with a therapist. I need to do self-care. Because that's when I know that, one, I'm tried, and it's -- I'm exhausted, right? And that's what I think is happening with a lot of police officers is that their exposure to violence is insane, it's insane, you know? In my place as a social worker, my exposure to violence is pretty intense, but I'm getting folks either prior to events or after something very terrible has happened. Because I also do like sex trafficking work with the shelter as well, and I do trainings on that with our agency. And some of the stories I've heard from these young folks is devastating stuff. But again, I'm only hearing it. Just imagine being the police officer seeing and reacting and doing the -- that physical brunt work in order to take care of a person. And they're constantly being shown this stuff and so their place of bigotry and hatred if it already isn't there. Because a lot of police officers go into this work either thinking I'm going to do the best, I'm going to be a public server, I'm going to do a great job. Some police officers, and it's very, very rare but some do go into this work being like, I'm racist and I want to continue to raise Havoc in my area. I have upset, like mental health issues, whatever the case maybe, I want to be a terror right? LB: Right. CCW: But you have these folks who go in here, and they're like, I'm going to do a great job. And they go in there and then their exposure to violence heightens and heightens and heightens and heightens, and nobody's managing it. No one is managing the sickness and the monster that is being created. Like, no one is managing that. So yes, so then you -- leading up to this moment of a man who when you watch the video, he is just sick. And there's no way that he -- his resistance is because he didn't need to be restrained. You can listen to like people -- there are -- people will do terrible things, right? We totally understand that. That was just a human condition, a human experience. But people for the most part, you can feel when they're genuine and they're genuinely hurt when you are healthy, when you are okay. And then for that police officer, he was not okay. Something else happened prior from that nine minutes that pissed him off and got him upset, something at home, something in the work field, the fact that he's not processing the trauma that he's constantly seeing on a daily basis. And so in that moment he was fed up. The police officer was fed up, so he responded in the way he did. If you're not thinking about holistic care for these people who are constantly exposed to trauma, then you're not doing -- you're not -- you're doing such a disservice. You're doing such a disservice to people. LB: Well, it's certainly true that -- I mean I think that it -- for police officers in Allentown, most of them do not live in the city. They believe that they -- their experience is that every single person they come in contact with is either a person who has done something bad, they believe that, or because it so frequently is, or a victim of somebody who has done something bad. That there is no in between. There's no activists and people planting gardens and folks that are playing with their kids, and there's just nobody that isn't a perpetrator for them because everybody they deal with is a perpetrator. And that's one of the problems with the way police are that they -- that they're totally reactive. So they only are there to react to some emergency situation, which is often a very negative thing. And they never have experiences working with people in the community to -- let's build a, I don't know, a garden shelter in the park. They never do that. They never say, "Well, we're here today to be at this big barbecue for the community, to just hang out with you to see what you think is going on in the community." We never do that. And so as a consequence, their constant experiences with people who they either think may have done something bad or who have really done something bad. And then they have this terrible, terrible attitude about the city because they never see anything positive in the city. They just never see anything positive any place in the whole -- anywhere at Lehigh Valley. A lot of them live way up in the Poconos, and they're afraid, they're afraid to live in the city. I've actually had them say, "I'm afraid to live in the city because my family would be terrorized," and there's actually no statistical evidence to that at all. I mean there's lots of older police officers that have lived in the city for years and years and years, and they manage softball teams for kids and they do all sorts of stuff and they... I know some of these guys. And they don't think everything is bad because they live here, and they know that there is an organization like Project SILK that's having youth programs in the park, hanging out. They're just doing it, so... But they're conditioned to be constantly suspicious of everything because they never have an experience that is anything other -- in fact, they never get out of their cars or off their bicycles. Even the bicycle cops don't get off their bicycles. CCW: Their bicycles, yeah, they do not. LB: Have you ever seen --? CCW: They do not. LB: You have never seen one of those cops off of his bicycle. It's like this thing that he's afraid to have an interaction with a person, so he's got that bike. It's like the car, he never gets out of the car, or if they do, they just stand there. Even the way those guys were standing there watching the guy who was sick so far away, they just watched him and watched him and watched him. It's an interesting thing. CCW: Yeah. And again, it just goes back to what you were saying too that like they're set up to react to violence, and that's it. That is something that I think that... As we are talking about defunding the police, as we're talking about abolishing the police and all of these things, that's something to also recognize is that when people fall into these systems, they are also going through immense emotional and intense changes. And not giving them any empathy for the shit that they've done. But this is -- you create monsters. You create a team of folks who are in this belief pattern with a certain set of skills, you know what I mean, and there's no continuous training. Something that I've been working on in our space, our Project SILK because we've had moments and struggled with all types of stuff with race and things like that. And I say all the time like, "This is stuff that you have to do consistently." I'm consistently training. And some people will be like, "Oh my God, oh, you're so smart, you're so -- look, oh yeah, you're on to -- you get it." But I'm like, "No, I don't. I also need to continue doing work like I'm still..." There has been programmed -- conscious and unconscious programming of sexism, homophobia, transphobia. All of these things have been into my body, right, so I need to find ways to make sure that they never come out and they are completely -- not never come out but they're gone, you know? LB: Right. CCW: It's continuous. So police officers should be going to a racial equity training yearly. They should be attending these things. These things are important and vital for the education of self. And I think everyone should consider those things. I read up, and I read up and I'm constantly paying attention to human rights campaign, them, any LGBTQ+ resource area. I'll have scheduled time to be like, all right, I need to make sure I'm caught up with language of the times. I'll talk to my youth, "Are there new -- are there anything new that I should know? Is there information I should know? Is there culture pieces that I should know, so I am aware and I am not hurting you?" If you are a public servant or you are a person that's working with social services, you need to do that work consistently. LB: Right, right, right. That's really true. Well, we're just about to the end of this. So imagine that somebody is looking back at this from 30 years hence, and it could be you because you'll still be around. I won't be but you will be. So you looking back, people are looking back at this way in the future, and you're going to give them a message about what's going on now, maybe a message of hope and a message of awareness that you could pass on to them, what would you say? What's sort of a thing that you would say about that? CCW: Oh, I don't know. I feel like I've just been -- LB: I think you've been -- CCW: (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) continue to educate yourself. I feel like -- LB: What you just said was very significant because when you're talking about -- you can't just say, okay, I know everything now, you know? CCW: Yeah. LB: You can't take a two-hour training and think okay, now, I'm -- CCW: Exactly. That's something that I've been really pushing with my supervisor is that our staff needs consistent, constant workshop, training, workshop, training. Training is a little bit more official because they're learning a new skill. Workshop is where you practice, have some conversation, it's a little bit more lighter, right? I guess I would just tell people who are peering into the future is I hope people are still reading. I hope people are still educating themselves and really spending that time. Because ego trips are serious, and I feel like a lot of times when you think you are so woke and so educated, you tend to completely breeze by education. You completely breeze by things that you should know, and you become ignorant very quickly. So I'm always ready and always open, and I hope the same for people in the future too. LB: Oh, that's a great thing to say. Thank you so much for saying that and for doing this interview. And I'm so glad that we got a chance to talk, and it's been really helpful. And I hope you stay safe and your partner stays safe who has to be an essential worker, which I do understand that that term is -- actually means for many people, you have to work, but we don't have to pay you a lot of money. And you don't -- CCW: Mm-hmm, yeah. LB: -- get a choice as to not wanting to work. I've talked to several people that have had that situation where it's, "I'm so essential, why am I not getting paid for --" CCW: Right, okay. LB: -- "why am I not being taken care of?" You know that is important. I hope that all of your family is safe and stuff like that. I'm glad to hear that there's going to be some counseling components for Project SILK, and how is that going to work? I need to know about that because I get loads and loads of [info, whine?] calls and often calls from people who are counselors that are trying to place youth, which I will immediately tell them about Project SILK. So how is that going to work, that counseling component? CCW: There's going to be a few things that we're going to work out. The therapist is like now she is becoming licensed, which I'm like, yay, proud for her. She just finished her licensure. Her first test -- I think she has a second test to take for some other level of licensing, but... So the counseling will work where it would be like short-term counseling. So we would say that the client would be able to see the -- I'm sorry. The client will be able to see the therapist for six to eight weeks and then we will review and see if -- that there needs to be any more further like treatment. And a lot of the focus would just be on the gender and sexuality stuff. She has a ton of training on LGBTQ+, Black and brown youth and how those intersections affect health. She is amazing, and she's also getting a certification in geek therapy, which is like video game therapy. So that's really, really, really cool. So that's where we're at now. We're going to kind of keeping it short term just to get her flexible. She is only -- just to get her in a good place. She is only part time, so her caseload is probably going to be like maybe 15 to 20 youth, kind of the starts -- LB: Great, wonderful, that's great. So -- CCW: Yeah, and we're really excited to bring that service. It's something that we had in the beginning and then our therapist in the beginning just needed a lot of work. And we needed to find someone that was going to work with the populations and not work with them. Because that's what was happening a lot, like just pushing away certain folk and I'm just like, no, these are priority populations, what are you doing? You know what I mean -- LB: [You're like -- yeah?]. CCW: You can't just turn people away because you're uncomfortable, then you need to quit your job. LB: That's really true. When HAVEN first started over at -- in Bethlehem, they kept talking about -- the people at the church kept talking about it -- and we were involved at the beginning of it, kept talking about how they wanted to train people to... Because the youth were at risk and they kept talking about the high level of or the high instance of suicide and the high instance of self-harm. But then they would get these really problem kids, young people who would -- problem youth who would come to the thing. And they'd say, "Well, this person is too much of a problem, we can't have him around here." (laughs) Some of the people that I was working with said, "Okay, wait a minute, these are the kids that are the highest risk. You can't tell them that they're the ones that can't come here." CCW: Exactly. LB: "Of course they're hard. That's the reason that they have to be supported. They're the hardest ones. They're the most at risk. If this was an easy circumstance for these young people and their life was an easy thing and easy for them to interact with --" (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) CCW: Our services would be nonexistent. LB: Right, right. Sure, everybody likes the A+, poindexter-y kid who is going to say -- do everything you say but when you have somebody who -- and they had kids who were really problems, and they said they can't come anymore. We actually worked with them and said, "You cannot do that. If you're saying that they can't be with the youth, then you have to get another two people who are facilitators to work with them one on one if they were too dangerous or whatever to be around the youth. But you can't turn them away. That's --" CCW: Yeah, you got -- LB: -- (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) CCW: -- to find a way to make it work. So that's why having this therapy of -- a therapy position is really going to be beautiful to our services. And then we're adding on two peer navigators. One is a part of the ballroom scene, and the other one has a really, really great connection with the community, so we're really excited to have them. And then we're going to be adding on another case manager, so it's going to be a crazy -- LB: That's terrific. CCW: -- set. (laughs) LB: That's great. CCW: I'm really happy that our services are expanding because they're just -- they're so needed. They're so needed. LB: Yeah. I'm not very hip to this but -- I mean that's probably an old-fashioned thing to say, but when you say part of the ballroom scene, what did you mean by that? CCW: Oh, so they're a part of the... I'm trying to figure out how to explain this, so... Like Paris is Burning. LB: Oh, oh, okay, okay. Yes, like that kind of -- CCW: That culture is still continuing on and so they're -- they have -- they're a part of the house and they go to balls and they compete and they are professional voguers. So that was just such a unique piece to our team, and we're really excited, so... LB: Cool, all right, I can see that, yeah, good. That sounds exciting. I think that's an excellent thing. Well, good. Well, thank you again so much, and I really, really appreciate it, and it's been great to talk to you. And I hope you have a great -- a nice rest of the evening and get a little chance to regulate your sleep patterns. CCW: Yeah. I need to work on that, so... (laughs) LB: (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) CCW: I hope you and your wife are doing well and your family is doing well during this pandemic. LB: Uh-huh, we're great, we're great. Well, thanks a lot. CCW: Thank you. LB: Bye-bye. CCW: Bye. END OF AUDIO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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Chloe Cole-Wilson, July 14, 2020
Description
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Chloe Coles-Wilson describes how the LGBTQIA+ youth coped with COVID-19, by talking about her experiences with activism. She talks about her experience working for Project SILK in the Lehigh Valley, and how her experience there has shaped her. She also addresses the racial inequalities going on in the US, and offers her opinion to the interviewer. Ultimately, she talks about her activism and how COVID-19 has affected the community.
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PH40_24
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COVID-19
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2020-07-14
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: COVID-19
Description
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In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19.
The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism.
The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Oral History
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Liz Bradbury
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Robin Casey
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5.4 July 21, 2020 Robin Casey, July 21, 2020 PH40_25 01:11:49 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- COVID-19 (Disease) Robin Casey Liz Bradbury video/mpeg CaseyRobin_20200721_video.mp4 1.0:|27(3)|58(9)|89(7)|114(12)|137(15)|160(6)|183(6)|208(15)|231(7)|258(5)|279(2)|302(3)|321(5)|340(12)|363(11)|384(12)|407(3)|430(2)|453(10)|482(3)|503(6)|528(2)|555(4)|578(13)|603(5)|620(19)|645(8)|670(9)|697(3)|716(8)|735(12)|760(2)|785(10)|810(5)|833(10)|852(9)|869(13)|890(2)|913(5)|932(14)|957(4)|980(5)|1005(6)|1024(9)|1043(10)|1066(7)|1087(17)|1112(14)|1137(12)|1164(14)|1183(11)|1204(12)|1227(6)|1252(18)|1275(7)|1302(2)|1325(3)|1352(7)|1371(9)|1398(10)|1425(7)|1452(7)|1479(5)|1502(6)|1525(14)|1550(5)|1575(6)|1604(15)|1627(7)|1652(8)|1677(9)|1706(5) 0 https://youtu.be/HkG5lECgvG0 YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction LIZ BRADBURY: So, yes, it’s working. Going to start the backup sound. That’s good. And I’m going to read you this thing. With this project, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community. 0 207 Working in higher education during the pandemic/Working in-person everyday during the fall semester LB: And so, talk about what you do and how you’ve been working and whether you’ve been working online or that kind of stuff.
 ; 
 ; RC: I work in higher ed, and I’ve primarily been working remotely up until three weeks ago. And I’ve been going into the office twice a week. 
 ; 0 279 Concerns over how pandemic affects students socially and health-wise LB: What about in general, in terms of how that’s going to affect people on campus in terms of your [perception?]?
 ; 
 ; RC: It’s interesting because I have been focused on the, I’m always focused on the needs of the students. And so many students want to come back to campus, and yet I am aware that their safety -- they may not be thinking about their safety in the same way that perhaps they may need to think about it. 0 424 Preparing for both in-person and online classes/How the pandemic has affected Muhlenberg College staff and students RC: So I think we’re preparing -- the college is preparing for students to come back, and at the same time, my colleagues are preparing for what it would be like to teach classes online.
 ; 
 ; LB: Yeah, it’s interesting. So, let’s see. There, at Muhlenberg -- because you’re at Muhlenberg College -- have there been layoffs, or have there been sections of the campus that have been affected? 0 742 Engaging the Allentown community in Promise Neighborhoods/Students pushing for Muhlenberg College to be a more anti-racist space LB: So are you communicating with people that you are friends with or family or something, a lot online and talking to people in other areas? Do you find you’re doing that more now than what you would do -- 
 ; 
 ; RC: Yeah, I think I’m doing more of that with Allentown community. Well, No Promise Neighborhood. 0 829 Engaging the Allentown Police Department in sensitivity training, towards LGBT community members RC: You know, around our police security force, engage them and also engaging the Allentown police department. I did share with them there was some conversation about whether or not they had been, at the APD, trained in work with trans and LGBT community members. And I said, “I’m pretty sure the Sullivan-Brad-- that they’ve been doing some work there.” And they made it seem like -- they made it seem like they hadn’t been. I’m like, that’s not true. 0 1096 Culture of police violence/discomfort with Bradbury-Sullivan Center training police RC: Yeah. I’m -- they’re going to find that with our police officers too, given that even after the chief had put out that email recent, (inaudible) the chokehold, and then the next thing you know, it’s a culture. The APD has a culture they have to really grapple with. This is going to take a lot of ongoing engagement on working with marginalized communities, and so I’m not really sure they’re ready for that or even open to it. So, yeah, I don’t know. 
 ; 
 ; LB: I don’t feel comfortable about, unless there’s drastic change in that police department, I don’t feel comfortable. 0 1259 Muhlenberg students against armed campus security/supporting students throughout the pandemic RC: But that’s what’s happening right now, because our students really would love for us not to have an armed security on campus. And yet they don’t want APD on our campus either, so all those things are happening simultaneously, and we will see how that shakes out. 0 1347 George Floyd's murder/Allentown police violence caught on video RC: And then from then on, then George Floyd was murdered and then it’s just been ongoing from then on. 
 ; 
 ; LB: Yeah. And this thing that happened in Allentown, it’s just extraordinary. I mean, because it’s not -- I don’t know if you’ve seen the whole nine minute video. Did you see the whole nine minute video?
 ; 0 1627 Allentown Police Department statement concerning police violence incident LB: And yet, well you know, all of those things. And I remember saying this to Trish. I said, “Yeah, they’re making the statement and they’re not going to do this.” And then that happened. Like four days later.
 ; 
 ; RC: It wasn’t unbelievable, but it was just so clear --
 ; 0 1724 Pandemic combined with visible police violence influencing people's points-of-view and interactions RC: You know, I was out at the fish hatchery and I was walking with a friend of mine and we had our masks on, so it was -- I wouldn’t say at the height of the COVID-19 crisis, but it was when people were just feeling like they could start to walk outside in the park with a mask on. This white gentleman is coming the opposite direction and he’s walking toward us and we don’t think anything of it, and then he stops us and he just says to me, “I want you to know that I believe that Black Lives Matter.” And I’m like, “Okay.” Thank you? 0 2103 Concerns regarding the pandemic/Envisioning a support network for Allentown LB: So, what do you think, for you in general, what’s your biggest concern with regard to the pandemic? So, when you’re thinking about this?
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 ; RC: You know, I think a part of it has to do with that this is also the time when I’m hoping that in the next ten years or so I’ll be retiring And not knowing, I’ve never ever faced any worries about being laid off or furloughed or things like that. And so my retirement account, paying attention to the stock market because the college puts our money into the stock market. 0 2474 Thoughts on Dr. Rachel Levine LB: Do you actually know people -- because I have to say, this is a factor of who I know and all the folks that I’m interviewing are part of the queer community, of the most part, or tangential parts of the queer community -- and so there’s never people who like, think Rachel Levine is a bad person. Because she’s really our hero, you know, and recognize that by extension Governor Wolf has been very, very good to the LGBT community in the state of Pennsylvania. 0 2600 Thoughts on using queer dating or hookup apps during the pandemic LB: The next question is, are you spending time on any queer dating or hookup apps?
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 ; RC: I refuse! I just can’t! I can’t do it! I so miss the Michigan Women’s Music Festival. My heart! I just refused to do it, and I think I’ve come to accept that probably -- I have some really close friends here. 0 2765 Going out during the pandemic/Staying active during the pandemic LB: So, are you limiting going out? Are you going to the grocery store or stuff like that? How is that?
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 ; RC: I have a dog. I walk him three times a day, at least four or five miles. He kills me. And I do go to the grocery store. I just started going back to work to the office. 0 2935 Assisting LGBT Muhlenberg students LB: So, there’s a question on here. And has it been hard to be out? And that really is for young people how are in circumstances where they’re with families that are not supportive, and I would wonder that you might be coming in contact with students that might let you know that they might be out on campus but now they can’t be that way at home. Have you come in contact with anybody that’s in --
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 ; RC: That’s my biggest concern when we went remote, is that -- so we have our GSAs. And most students, when they come to college is when they really feel they can express themselves fully, if they haven’t come out. 0 3360 Points of hope during the pandemic RC: So you know, I’m hopeful that these young congress people like Alexandria, Ayanna, and all those others, they are strong enough to hold fast, like Ruth and John Lewis. Because it’s not like ten, twenty -- it’s a lifetime. 0 3834 Epiphanies during the pandemic LB: So, anyway, I think that’s everything. I did want to, so here’s one little thing. There’s a question here that says, “What are your frustrations and challenges?” And you’ve already talked about some of that stuff, but have you had any like one little thing that’s an epiphany about your life that you figured out? 0 4046 Missing others/Not being able to help others during the pandemic RC: I have a lot of friends like that who are -- what’s nice about it is that more and more young women that I’ve met, or colleagues of mine, have grown up being butch dykes but they’re not. You know? They do all the things that I think they -- one of the scientists, and she just tore down her shed and built a new one. And it’s this beautiful thing ; she has all these tools, and all the tool belts and everything, and it’s just like amazing. So I love these young women of today because they are who we were, (inaudible). So I think that that’s cool. But no, that’s what I miss, is just not being with people that I really like to be close to. 
 ; 0 4144 Inspired by Muhlenberg students LB: Well anyway, it’s wonderful to hear about really positive things. A number of the things that you said about the students are very heartening for me. I’m sucking out as much hope as I can out of this, because we all need to get that. So it’s wonderful to hear about (inaudible). Well, and I just think that they’re the ones that are going to save us in this world right now. And I think that this kind of circumstance is upsetting, but for young people they’re not disillusioned. They’re angry, and that’s the way I want them to be. 
 ; 0 4244 Conclusion/Thoughts for the future LB: Thank you so much for talking to me. It’s been terrific, and I usually ask people if they want to say anything else to somebody in the, 30 years from now and going to look back and, no, you’re pretty much -- 
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 ; RC: No, all I have to say is that I was here and I hope that I made, this video is just to say that we all got work to do -- 
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 ; LB: It is, it is. And we’re working, and I hope the people watching it in the future will say, “Yeah, it worked.”
 ; 0 MovingImage Robin Casey talks about how the current COVID-19 pandemic is affecting her as a faculty member at a local college. She talks about her concerns regarding the opening of the college during the pandemic, the LGBT students who need support, and the relationship of the college and students to the Black Lives Matter movement in regards to recent police brutality issues in Allentown. Robin Casey 2020-07-21 LIZ BRADBURY: So, yes, it's working. Going to start the backup sound. That's good. And I'm going to read you this thing. With this project, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community. Oh, I have to turn off my phone. Collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury, and I'm here with Robin Riley-Casey to talk to her about her experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community during this time of the COVID-19 epidemic as part of the Lehigh LGBT community archive. We are Zoom meeting, or meeting on Zoom, on Monday, July 21st, 2020. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? ROBIN CASEY: Yes. Robin Riley-Casey. Liz, just so you know, I've been just going by Robin Casey lately for various reasons, if that's okay. LB: Okay, sure. RC: So, do you want me to go back and do that again? LB: Yes. RC: Okay. So, my name is Robin Casey. That's R-O-B-I-N, C-A-S-E-Y. LB: Okay. So I will change that on the indicators. Will you please share your birthdate? RC: 9-21-63. LB: Okay. And are you in Allentown? RC: I am. LB: Okay. So, this is the consent part. Do you consent to this interview today? RC: Yes. LB: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publically available online in searchable formats? RC: Yes. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats, including films, articles, websites, presentations, and anything else that might be available in the future that we have no idea about? RC: Yes. LB: Which could happen! Do you understand that you will have thirty days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview, identify any parts that you'd like to delete, and/or withdraw from your interview, or withdraw the whole interview form the project? RC: Yes. LB: Okay. Now, this is the identity part. What is your zip code? RC: 18104. LB: Okay. And what is your age? RC: Oh, my birthday is coming up, so that would make me fifty-seven. LB: Okay. And how do you identify within the LGBT community? RC: Queer. LB: Okay. And that is good. So, these are some things that we're going to talk about. I mean, you can say whatever you want here, but we start out with some of these beginning questions and, you know, you can say whatever you want. So here's the deal. The first question is, during the COVID thing, are you living with somebody, or do you have somebody else in your household, or are you by yourself? RC: I do have someone with me right now. LB: Okay, that's good. And so, talk about what you do and how you've been working and whether you've been working online or that kind of stuff. RC: I work in higher ed, and I've primarily been working remotely up until three weeks ago. And I've been going into the office twice a week. LB: And what are you anticipating with regard to how that's going to go for the rest of the summer and into the fall? RC: They are anticipating that we will be coming back to campus, and that my office, I will be in the office primarily every day of the week, and my assistant will be there three times a week. LB: How do you feel about going back to work like that? RC: I'm not nervous and I probably should be, but I'm not because my office is separate from the main campus. And anyone who wanted to meet with me would have to meet by Zoom or by appointment, and so I can control the number of people that come in and out of that space. LB: That's good. What about in general, in terms of how that's going to affect people on campus in terms of your [perception?]? RC: It's interesting because I have been focused on the, I'm always focused on the needs of the students. And so many students want to come back to campus, and yet I am aware that their safety -- they may not be thinking about their safety in the same way that perhaps they may need to think about it. And so I think students want to come back because this is their life. And they want to enjoy all of it. And a part of that is experiencing a Western college experience and so being on campus, a college campus, is a part of that. So I've been focusing on their need to feel relationships and that requires a full college experience. So my peers, my colleagues have asked me to start thinking about things a little bit differently. And so I have been. LB: You mean thinking about it that way? RC: No, thinking about it not so much in terms of the student's need to be in community with one another physically. But more about how it may impact their health by being -- even though we're doing all kinds of measures, you know, in terms of trying to be thoughtful about how COVID could be spread -- it still may inadvertently cause harm to either those students, to other colleagues, community members in Lehigh Valley, all those kinds of things. So beyond the students, to outside of that. So I've been considering that. LB: That's tough. It's tough to sort of look at both sides of that. Because you can certainly see why kids want to come back, the young people want to come back to campus (inaudible) campus. But Trish was just at the doctor this morning for a checkup, and the doctor -- it was a specialist, actually -- said, "There's no way that schools are going to open." She said it flat out. "Stop worrying about it. It's not going to happen." RC: And more and more people are saying that, including my colleagues. So I think we're preparing -- the college is preparing for students to come back, and at the same time, my colleagues are preparing for what it would be like to teach classes online. LB: Yeah, it's interesting. So, let's see. There, at Muhlenberg -- because you're at Muhlenberg College -- have there been layoffs, or have there been sections of the campus that have been affected? I was just talking to another person at another college who talked all about all the staff of the college, but didn't talk about like the food service providers and stuff. So, want to say anything about that? RC: Well I mean, I think that our food service provider is considered a third party. And I know that those individuals worked all the way up until -- so, we went remote sometime in mid-March. And those food service providers worked all the way into April. And it was a way to keep them employed, but also because we still had a number of students on campus. For various reasons, who were unable to go home. Their home was not conducive to them returning. International students who really could not go back to their home countries, and so there were so many students at the time. I think when we went remote we had over one hundred students that were still on campus after. And then we actually allowed some students to come back because the conditions at home were not optimal. So there were a number of people that were in food service in particular that were still here, on campus. So I don't know specifically what happened in terms of the numbers of people, how they managed that. But for students, for people who are, my colleagues, who are part of the Muhlenberg campus, they began to do shared work hours, where some people who could Monday/Tuesday. Other people would come Wednesday/Thursday, those kinds of things. That started to happen. They asked how many of us could do our job remotely. How many of us who were willing to do other jobs that had nothing to do with our particular area, but were willing to do other jobs so that we could continue to receive a paycheck. And so those kinds of things were offered up. So many students went home without taking their belongings, because they weren't prepared to do that. So many people stayed on campus to help box up those belongings, store those belongings. So that happened all the way throughout April and into May. So other colleges have done all kinds of things to try to make it so that people didn't have to go, what they call furloughed. Not layoff, but furlough. So that was happening in many offices outside of academic life, and outside of (inaudible) and Student Affairs, the department I'm underneath. To plan out housekeeping, grounds people. I'm going to say assistants. So they had a different kind of schedule that they were working under than other people. So I think now they are bringing those individuals back to more of a full work kind of schedule, preparing for the beginning of the academic year. LB: You don't have students on campus now, though, do you? Or do you? RC: We do. We do. Not many. I think we have maybe, maybe thirty? Thirty or so students. LB: They were in that situation, they're international students or they're in that situation? RC: Not as many international students now. Now more domestic students. So those students who came back because they are working for the campus, they didn't have optimal living conditions and came back. Those kinds of students. But they are in a suite style living situation where they have a full kitchen, their own restroom, you know. That kind of thing. (inaudible) An apartment. LB: Oh, that's good. Well, I certainly am fairly aware of all the different living situations there because of [Hannah Mesouani?], my dear friend who I just talked to recently. And he's in a very similar job as yours, actually, at Wesleyan University, or Illinois Wesleyan. And it's the same kind of thing, where the college really wants to open but the faculty is talking about the ethics of opening. And the concern for students and it's a very similar college to Muhlenberg in terms of size and the kind of students that are there, I think. Maybe not quite as culturally aware. Which is, you know. So are you communicating with people that you are friends with or family or something, a lot online and talking to people in other areas? Do you find you're doing that more now than what you would do -- RC: Yeah, I think I'm doing more of that with Allentown community. Well, No Promise Neighborhood. Some of the -- I almost wanted to say student action. Youth-led action groups around Black Lives Matter movement. And then our students, who have been so you know, they're back home in their own communities but they're still pushing Muhlenberg to be more engaged. And so it's as if they never left. I mean, it's never been this busy in the summer in my eleven years here at Muhlenberg College. And so we've had so many meetings between the president, the provost, and the deans around how are we going to make this more an anti-racist, ethical space. And that's from our indigenous community, our Asian community, our trans community. And certainly our Black and brown students who have really been really challenging our college leadership to be more proactive, and not waiting for the students to get back. You know, around our police security force, engage them and also engaging the Allentown police department. I did share with them there was some conversation about whether or not they had been, at the APD, trained in work with trans and LGBT community members. And I said, "I'm pretty sure the Sullivan-Brad-- that they've been doing some work there." And they made it seem like -- they made it seem like they hadn't been. I'm like, that's not true. LB: I want to make this perfectly clear. To say this, and feel free to pass this information on. I trained them five years ago. And the training was -- I mean, I've trained hundreds of people. I've trained thousands of people. I've trained 9,000 people in the last four years, and I trained them just before we opened the center. And they were not very good at [leaving?] that training. I would not consider them well-trained. That was five years ago. I mean, trainings have changed since then. Certainly drastically changed since then. I didn't find that group of people perceptive, and I have to say that we have actually removed from our list of places that we've trained, police departments. Because we don't want people to think that these police -- I also trained Bethlehem police. And even by the very virtue of it just being five years ago, that was too long ago. I mean, you can't count that as a training. But I have to say that training police is very, very, very hard to do. And I can just say this. I trained every one of those police officers. I trained them in groups of forty or fifty over five different trainings. And several of the trainings, I had an intern with me from [Potsdam?], who was a social work intern. At one of the trainings, she actually came out of the training, got in the car, and cried. And she cried all the way home. She told me she cried all the way, her drive home. And she was not part of the queer community. And she said, "I will never feel comfortable engaging with police again." RC: Wow. Well, that's the work they're trying to do now. So we'll see. Maybe that's what the -- LB: I think that training the police -- and I've made a video, because we had a grant, and I made a series of videos which I have available, to train. And they would work for security, too. And they specifically were made to train police, because of this. Police said to me, flat-out, "We don't want to be trained by anyone but other police officers." So, the training that I made was that I created a script. I used another video that was made by the Prince Edward, what is it called. Prince George's County Police, outside of (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible). And they have a very good training about -- that was made a long time ago. It was made about six or seven years ago. It was made by the National Center for Transgender Equality in conjunction with that police force. It's about training lice to work with the trans community. But it didn't talk about, it only talked about transgender women and it didn't talk about LGB people. It didn't talk about gender nonconforming people, so you know, I filled that in and we had a police officer. We filmed the police officer doing the training. So we have four, twenty-minute trainings, about twenty minutes, where the police officer -- and one of them uses that video, and then the other two talk about the other issues. They talk about cultural circumstances that cause LGBT people to be war of the police. All sorts of things like that. It's a very good training. RC: Yeah. I'm -- they're going to find that with our police officers too, given that even after the chief had put out that email recent, (inaudible) the chokehold, and then the next thing you know, it's a culture. The APD has a culture they have to really grapple with. This is going to take a lot of ongoing engagement on working with marginalized communities, and so I'm not really sure they're ready for that or even open to it. So, yeah, I don't know. LB: I don't feel comfortable about, unless there's drastic change in that police department, I don't feel comfortable. They had to force the people to come. They had to have a person sit there who was management, an upper-level person, so they wouldn't call out rude things to me. I mean, it was ridiculous. It was ridiculous. I've never had another training that was like that, and as I've said, I've trained over one hundred and seventy organizations. Never had anybody do this. I took into consideration, I had done the trainings a little bit more drastically before I did those trainings, and I changed some of the in reaction to that. But I ended up training Lehigh County Health and Human Services, which is every person who works -- and that includes juvenile detention, court people. Social workers, everything. And people were concerned about those, because those were mandatory trainings, too. And I actually got contact from people who said, "I don't think that these people are going to receive these trainings well. They haven't liked other mandatory trainings. They're going to be tough on you." And I was very careful about how I did that training, but it was pretty similar to what I had done to train the police. And as a result, I didn't have any problem training the Health and Human Services people. They actually gave me the highest ratings of anybody that ever had trainings there. And part of it was that other trainings were not as clear and useful. But in terms of training the police to be empathic, I don't think that'll ever happen. In terms of training them to stop using micro-aggressions and saying to them, "If you do use this language, you'll be fired." Maybe. Maybe. RC: Right. It'd be interesting. I don't know, because honestly they have so many protections, particularly when people think that we're in the height of the moment. They have to both be someone who can step up to engage in an uncertain situation, and they also have to maintain a level of professionalism, which is difficult in those -- I don't know. But that's what's happening right now, because our students really would love for us not to have an armed security on campus. And yet they don't want APD on our campus either, so all those things are happening simultaneously, and we will see how that shakes out. So I think that this summer has been nothing but, from the COVID-19, when that first hit, we were trying to figure out how to support students who were at home, who didn't have access to the internet. Families who were losing their jobs, and so food insecurity, housing insecurity, and all those kinds of things. And luckily enough we had just started our financial hardship support system, resource system, on campus. And so we were supporting many students and their families, to make sure they had access to the internet services, wherever they were located. California, Washington D.C., it didn't matter. Texas. So we were doing all that, and then also making sure that they had access to some funds to help them replenish their food stores. So all those things were going on on this end, to make sure they could make it through the semester. And then from then on, then George Floyd was murdered and then it's just been ongoing from then on. LB: Yeah. And this thing that happened in Allentown, it's just extraordinary. I mean, because it's not -- I don't know if you've seen the whole nine minute video. Did you see the whole nine minute video? RC: I did. LB: It's not just one instance when he's trying to handcuff the guy. He does it again, later, when the guy's completely handcuffed, for no reason at all. RC: I didn't understand (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) either. I didn't understand what they were doing. I mean, it's hard to say if they were fearful or they just didn't want to intervene because the officers were present. I'm not really sure what was going on there either, so it was really awkward and kind of mind-boggling about what they were doing or what they perceived themselves -- being a help to the officers? Or to the gentleman? I couldn't quite figure that out. LB: If you look at the expressions on their faces -- it's hard to watch. And I've talked to people, and people of color, who've said, "I can't watch it. I don't want to watch it." And I understand that. But I have to say that based on my privilege, I've been in a position where I've watched every second of that so I can call it out. And then I do call out that kind of stuff, and one of the things is that the police said that in their statement, that he fell to the ground and the other people, the police officers, [fell?]. It's a complete lie. They kick his feet out from under him and threw him to the ground. RC: Yes, yes, yes. LB: And you know, you can't just have it both ways. You can't say, "Well, we have to trust the police and look they're trying," and then they just lie to you. And you and I have been in situations where we've been talking to police officers who just blatantly will tell you something that isn't true, and it's very hard to not be very sensitive to that And I can understand how -- I mean, I was talking to a young black activist who said, "When these things are defunded and stuff like that." I went, "Boy, I hope that's true." And I know it should be. I know it should be. And you can see why we cannot send police officers out in a situation where there's a person who is sick or mentally ill, something like that. You could see why that is ridiculous. If you look at that video and you look at the healthcare worker's faces, some of them literally go -- like, they're concerned for the guy. Who knows what they're thinking. I mean, that's an impossible situation. RC: Yeah. Yeah, it's hard in too many ways, because I struggle on campus with being raised not to, what I call, bend my knee. You know? To authority. And yet I know young people in this generation are taught to just make it home alive. Make it home alive, right. So put your hands on the steering wheel, "Yes sir, no sir." And so I want them to make it home alive as well, but I struggle a lot with not interceding. LB: I know, I know. RC: So in that moment probably the thing in my mind would've been how could I have helped that gentleman? So, could I go over and put my arm around him and say, "Brother, let me take you into the hospital." Or, "What do you need?" And try to speak to him. But I think that so many people look at the officers as, now they are in charge. They come on scene, they're in charge, and so you give away all your power to them. Yeah. That's just not something that I'm comfortable with, so. LB: And I also think that you know, it [goes?] back to COVID-19. This was a person who was really potentially endangering other people because he was throwing up, he was spitting, things like that. So we are in that extra added level of fear, that is legitimate, you know. It really is. RC: It is legitimate. LB: And in fact, he could've been sick like that for that very reason. And yet, well you know, all of those things. And I remember saying this to Trish. I said, "Yeah, they're making the statement and they're not going to do this." And then that happened. Like four days later. RC: It wasn't unbelievable, but it was just so clear -- LB: A classic -- RC: We don't need another statement. No more statements. We do not need another statement. LB: You can't say anything. And the thing and I was talking to Ce-Ce Gerlach and I said -- their resolution, I think their resolution that they made was very, very significant and very well done. I don't think, anybody with any sense couldn't argue with any statement they made. It's actually the least that you could expect. But the whole thing about body cams could've -- because we're still not hearing anything about that. And people are saying, "Well, you don't know what they're saying." Well, it doesn't matter what he's saying, but the bottom line is, yeah, I would like to hear what he's saying. Because some people are saying, "Well, this man was insane. He was a danger to himself." Other people, we have no idea. So why do we think that at all? That's not really the issue, but it certainly isn't the issue with regard to kneeing somebody's head into the sidewalk when he's handcuffed. I mean, that's it. That's it. RC: Over the curb. That was just like, that was hard. You know, I was out at the fish hatchery and I was walking with a friend of mine and we had our masks on, so it was -- I wouldn't say at the height of the COVID-19 crisis, but it was when people were just feeling like they could start to walk outside in the park with a mask on. This white gentleman is coming the opposite direction and he's walking toward us and we don't think anything of it, and then he stops us and he just says to me, "I want you to know that I believe that Black Lives Matter." And I'm like, "Okay." Thank you? And then he tells me that, you know, he was a part of the Civil Rights movement back in the sixties, and all these things. But he didn't do enough. And I'm thinking, that's interesting. And I said, "Well, what do you mean?" He says, "You know, I kind of just got busy with my life." And I said, "We all do. We all get busy. Don't feel bad about living your life." He said, "But I realize now I should've helped push. And I want to push now." I said, "You know, I really appreciate you stopping and telling me that" -- LB: That's very gracious of you. RC: -- yeah. But (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) yeah. It was really kind of, it was awkward. At the same time, because we're all dealing with the COVID-19, we all keeping our distance. He was very respectful and aware that we had to maintain this distance, right, because of COVID-19. And yet you could see his desire to make a connection. I think that's the interesting thing, is that in the midst of this distance, there's still the desire for some of us to make a connection. And so I hope that he knew from me, I had no ill will against him. I didn't know this man from anyone. And yet he took a moment to say, "I see you," and I said, "I see you. And I appreciate that you wanted me to know that we're in this together." And that's what I did. I said, "We're in this together. It's all of us. We've all got work to do." But my person that walks with me, the white woman who's just now starting to think about issues of racial inequalities, and so she's like, this is a white man, she's a white woman, and I think she was thinking like maybe protecting me to some extent. Like, who's this white man approaching us on a dog trail? But it was really interesting and I didn't share that story with anyone because I thought, "Nobody wants to hear a nice, warm, fuzzy story." It wasn't that it was a nice, warm, fuzzy story. It was just that in the midst of so much, this damn COVID-19 that connections still could be made. And I probably wouldn't recognize that guy from anyone. But it will stick with me, and I'm sure it will stick with him as well. Interesting. LB: Good to hear that. But it still, I think, was very gracious of you to listen to his story about, "Oh, I really tried." RC: "I really tried, but then I stopped." LB: Well, I think it's gracious of you to do that. And I agree that, you know, yeah. I think people are trying. And I've talked to a lot of people I've talked to a lot of people of color in this, because I wanted to be -- I have to confess that I had to do ten interviews of people who were in the Lehigh Valley during the AIDS epidemic, and I talked to three women and seven men. And they were all white. They were all pretty privileged, to the point where they weren't really -- it was during now, it was during COVID -- and they weren't really negatively affected by COVID, other than just being concerned for people's health and stuff. They hadn't had it, they didn't know anyone who had died, that kind of stuff. And so I said to Trish, "Now I've got to do twenty COVID interviews," which is a lot, frankly. And I said, "I have to interview people of color or it's just going to look like the Aryan reaction to these things. It's ridiculous." So I tried to interview as many different kinds of people as I could. Also different age people, because everybody in the AIDS thing was all, you know, sixty or over. And so I talked to a lot of people, and one of the things that -- so this, I think, the eighth or the ninth interview. No, the eleventh interview I've done for the COVID things. And this universal thing -- because you cannot talk about this period of time without talking about Black Lives Matter, it's ridiculous to presume that you could separate that from this instance. And I said to the folks, I've said to everybody, "What's giving you hope about this?" And a lot of people have said that this response, particularly by young people, in terms of violence breeds activism, that kind of stuff, has been a positive thing for them. And I feel that way too. The thing that's killing me is, I can't join in. Because Trish is such at risk. I can't. And so a lot of older people that I've spoken to have said, "I can't do this, and I hate that I can't do it. But it's wonderful to see a lot of young people, who are being socially distancing and wearing the mask, but they are out there and they are doing what they should be doing. And that's the thing that's giving us the hope that we can grasp during this time." Because there's not a lot of things that we can be really, really hopeful about. I mean, you can always be hopeful, but it's tough. So, what do you think, for you in general, what's your biggest concern with regard to the pandemic? So, when you're thinking about this? RC: You know, I think a part of it has to do with that this is also the time when I'm hoping that in the next ten years or so I'll be retiring And not knowing, I've never ever faced any worries about being laid off or furloughed or things like that. And so my retirement account, paying attention to the stock market because the college puts our money into the stock market. So I'm thinking about that and how to safeguard that money, because if I were thinking outside (inaudible), it's just to supplement, not to (inaudible). So that's probably one of my concerns. I think the other one has to do with the way it personally, my personal concern. I don't have any concerns about my own health, which I think is really interesting. I've never really been unhealthy, so that's privilege and I'm aware of it. And I don't know anyone currently who's had COVID-19, and so that's also a part of it. But I have a dear friend who has leukemia. She's in remission currently, but has had a scare so we're waiting to hear back some information. But she's in Ohio. So I'm not in touch with her physically, but so I'm worried that there's a kind of, the other ancillary things around it. That if I needed to get home to be with my family, and some sort of network glitch would happen and I couldn't be in contact because technology would go down. Or all of a sudden, my money, I didn't have access to it and I couldn't get home, to campus or somewhere. Or if I got really ill myself and all my family was at my and they couldn't get to me. And so in conversations I've been having with people in Allentown, we've been talking about what would an underground railroad look like now? Where people in need needed support? Whether that was food, whether that was housing, whether that was finances, whether that was care. Those kinds of things. Who in our community could we say, "We got you?" You know? At one time, when there was a real scare here in Pennsylvania, you know that I was in the military at one time. And I can shoot a weapon. And I thought -- well, things got really, really crazy. It was when you couldn't go to the store and there was nothing at the grocery store. But in Allentown, people get crazy about like the snow is coming and you can't find any milk. I'm used to that. But it seemed a little bit different. And so you can't find toilet paper, you can't find (inaudible). You can't find like the food stuff, and so we were talking about this underground network of support for people who were going to need things and they're also going to need someone to protect them. And one of the things I was saying is, I do know how to shoot a weapon. I haven't done it in probably twenty years. My eyesight has changed. But I could do it if I had to. And if I had to train others, now's the time to start to prepare to do those kinds of things. So these are the kinds of interesting sort of ancillary things that's not COVID-19 specifically, how the virus may impact me physically. But what I would need to do if, in fact, it impacted the people that I love or cared about as a community, and we needed all the other things that could happen because of it. So, those are the kinds of things that I've been more acutely involved in. I've been worried about all the numbers and I've been in conversation with people who keep saying it's a hoax. (inaudible) Unbelievable things. And our governor is an idiot, you know. I've been trying my best to sort of help them understand, please pay attention. But for me, it's the ancillary things or the fall-out, how COVID-19 can impact us in ways, our community, Allentown proper. I'm not talking about the west end. I'm really talking about the city as I think of it. Where people don't have access to things because they don't have the resources. They don't have the insurance. They don't have finances to make sure they have food stores. Or lights, or those kinds of things. That's the kind of conversations I've been a part of, and that happened early on during the COVID-19 crisis. And that probably was an extension of so many students that I knew, were going back home to communities where their families and neighborhoods didn't have access to those (inaudible). So then that reconnected me to a community that I, really probably the closest I was connected to Allentown was when I was working the (inaudible) commission. That was the closest I was to really knowing the people in the city proper. And so through those students, it reconnected m to some of the work that was happening in the city. LB: That's interesting. Do you actually know people -- because I have to say, this is a factor of who I know and all the folks that I'm interviewing are part of the queer community, of the most part, or tangential parts of the queer community -- and so there's never people who like, think Rachel Levine is a bad person. Because she's really our hero, you know, and recognize that by extension Governor Wolf has been very, very good to the LGBT community in the state of Pennsylvania. And you know, both of them have been a real guiding light, compared to a lot of other states where they're just, "Yeah, so what if everybody dies?" Kind of thing. We've been very lucky, I think, at least to have that level of leadership. And I also think it's been a positive thing for our queer youth to be able to see that even -- you know, it's tough though, because I talked to somebody who said, "It is hurting our transgender youth to see Dr. Rachel Levine be attacked that way." They don't just look at this and say, "Oh wow, look at this wonderful brilliant woman of science who is this very high level of the government and is saying all these intelligent things." The first thing that young people are seeing is all the attacks that they're going to, that she's enduring, and thinking to themselves, "Well you know, if I come out as trans or if I'm in public with regard to my gender identity, am I going to be attacked that way?" They're not going to think, "Am I going to be able to achieve what she has?" They're thinking, "Am I going to just be beaten up and made a mockery of constantly?" It's a tough thing for our kids. RC: I saw that whole thing with the dunking booth of someone dressed up as, supposed to be Levine. And he blatantly denied, it was not meant to be a mockery of her at all, meant to be just for fundraising. But yeah. LB: It's hard, It's ridiculous. So, that was my next question, about Rachel Levine. So there you go. The next question is, are you spending time on any queer dating or hookup apps? RC: I refuse! I just can't! I can't do it! I so miss the Michigan Women's Music Festival. My heart! I just refused to do it, and I think I've come to accept that probably -- I have some really close friends here. Women, all women, that when I head home, that's when I'm in my granny shawl and my rocking chair. Perhaps I'll do it. But I have no desire to go through that route, because I tried it early on when I got here to Allentown and I struggled with the politics of it a little bit. My politics around it. And I guess I have this sort of, it's probably the old-school way of just thinking about meeting people. I'm sure it's just an old-school way, and it just felt so manufactured in a way that I just can't quite get myself -- and I've met people who've met lifelong partners, they have great relationships. I've met younger lesbians who, great partners, starting families. All these things. I just don't seem to have the time or the energy to go through that kind of a thing. So yeah. LB: I understand. Obviously this was not a question that was written by me. And interestingly, the demographic of people who have answered yes to that were not people who are in our age or (inaudible) demographic, quite frankly. Because of that, I think it's tough to -- yeah, and especially now during COVID-19, it's the last thing that you would do. In fact, nobody has said to me, even the younger gay men who would say, "Well, you know I'm not a stranger to these things, but not now. I want to be alive." RC: That's the focus. LB: I mean, their response is, if there's somebody using this, what would that person be like? They would be exposing themselves in every situation. They'd be the most likely person to be carrying the disease. So I think that's a pretty interesting thing. So, are you limiting going out? Are you going to the grocery store or stuff like that? How is that? RC: I have a dog. I walk him three times a day, at least four or five miles. He kills me. And I do go to the grocery store. I just started going back to work to the office. I do try to limit my contact with people as much as I can. And so luckily we have these great parks and we can do that. I wear my mask. Yeah. LB: Yeah, we are lucky that we have great parks here, it's true. I feel, though, that in my -- I normally will walk for miles and miles and miles every day. I walk five miles every day. But I am paranoid of just walking out my door because every minute I see people walk right by on the sidewalk that are not wearing a mask, and I just, it's too much risk for me. And I don't feel like I want to drive to the park, because people (inaudible). While I was at the park, I walked around and then this person came up to me and tried to talk to me and they didn't wear a mask. And I thought, "I can't deal with it. Can't deal with it." RC: The park is right across the street from me, so I have both the rose garden and Cedar Beach just right there. LB: So great there, yeah. RC: Yeah. But I've been going to the fish hatchery early in the morning because he gets up like around six, six thirty, so hardly anybody's out at that point in time, and that's nice. But I do think I'm going to have to start curtailing my exposure a little bit more, simply because the surge is starting to, and so I have to be a little bit more cautious. LB: Yeah, yeah, I think it's true. And yet, you've got to move around, you know? And so I have a bicycle desk where we have our garden. We have a bicycle desk, so I try to do ninety minutes of that a day or something like that. But boy, it's tough. I know a lot of people who've gained a lot of weight. I know a lot of other people who've been very concerned about it, and they've made a big effort to not become stagnant and stuff. Because that's hard to get out of, too. You do that for a year, it's awful hard to turn that around. RC: I mean, it's so easy -- and I'm an introvert, so it didn't bother me to be at home. That didn't bother me. But what I did find is, it's easy just to close your eyes to nap. And I like naps, so naps are good. But the routine of it. So I have to get up and get moving, otherwise it's -- yeah. The sun comes in the window and all that kind of stuff. The dog's sleeping, you know. LB: Yeah. So, there's a question on here. And has it been hard to be out? And that really is for young people how are in circumstances where they're with families that are not supportive, and I would wonder that you might be coming in contact with students that might let you know that they might be out on campus but now they can't be that way at home. Have you come in contact with anybody that's in -- RC: That's my biggest concern when we went remote, is that -- so we have our GSAs. And most students, when they come to college is when they really feel they can express themselves fully, if they haven't come out. Now they're at home, they're cloistered, they're in quarantine, and either they go back into this space where they're not fully able to express themselves, or they try to find a way to find community. And how do we do that virtually? That's a difficult one, because they're in a situation where they have to maintain their safety because of COVID, so they can't be thrown out on the street where they have no way to protect themselves physically, because of this virus. And yet they can't protect themselves emotionally and mentally, either, because they can't really express themselves fully as queer folk. So we've been struggling with trying to provide virtual spaces by GSA where they can at least find a way to be in that space of GSA queer students for support. And so I am worried about how many of our queer students have supportive family members, and are safe either to come out or will stay isolated for fear of being pushed out and nowhere else to go. Particularly now. They may not be able to come back to campus, or their immune system would even allow them to come back to campus. That's the other thing. Some of our students can't come back because of that, so I'm very conscious, specifically, about our LGBT community because of that concern. That's a scary one, that's a scary one. And we were just beginning to, there's kind of a tipping point at Muhlenberg where more and more of our trans students know that before they even walk on campus, they can contact our registrar and say, "This is the name that I want on every single piece of documentation. I do now want to walk onto this campus and somebody call me by that name." And so they were very comfortable with this information and sharing it, before even I would know. Which is great. I don't need to have that information. Now, what I'm finding is there's a few students who I know who are transgender students who have not found a connection on campus and they're almost, I think a little bit of fear to let people know so they can make sure all the stuff happens earlier rather than later. And I think partly it's because there's a delay in their resources back home. That something's happening back home where they can't get the resources they need to make that connection on the other side, going into college. So I had a couple students who -- you probably have met a few of my students a few years ago, who had those issues at Muhlenberg where they actually quit. They came back a year later because they didn't want to be known by their dead name. They wanted to be known by the name (inaudible). Well, I don't know. I think our LGBT students are going to be, I hope that they're not subjected to violence. Both physically or emotionally, because they need to be themselves and they come out to their family members. LB: That certainly is a thing about going to college, where you can totally reinvent yourself. You can really explore (inaudible). You can totally be the gender you know yourself to be, and you don't have to answer to anybody. RC: No one. LB: And if there are people that have problems with it, particularly on the Muhlenberg campus, there are other people that are going to be your friends. And that can happen, but I think you get to a certain point once you've gone to college where when you go home you go, "Yeah, I can stand this at home for about two and a half days." And that's about it. Two and a half days, probably max a month for both me and my parents. I love them, they were great, but two and a half days max. And then I had to leave because -- and I'm always amazed at kids, students who will say, college-age students will say they talk to their mother every day. I'm like, really? (inaudible) No kidding. But I know that's much different now than it was then, when I was a kid and nobody talked to their parents about anything. Certainly not about sex. For heaven's sake, it's crazy. But good for them, if they can do that. I think it's wonderful, and it certainly makes families so that they don't have a maximum of two and a half days. Because (inaudible) be realistic, I think, but I think it's great. And I think it's great that there are colleges that are offering, and really supporting people. I mean, you're seeing it from the other perspective. From the way I see it, when people say things like, "Well, you know, is there a supportive college?" I can say, "Look, Muhlenberg College has gender neutral housing, for heaven's sake." Has had it for quite a while. So if you're saying, "Well, it's not up to date" or something, it's like, compared to what? You know, I guess, but I don't know. I think for colleges similar to Muhlenberg, they're pretty good. They're better than Illinois Wesleyan, I'll say that. RC: Poor Illinois. Yeah, we definitely done some work. We still got work to do, but yeah. And always, always. LB: And certainly, and now's the time to do it, I think. This is a good time to do it. I'm so glad to hear that students are demanding that kind of introspection now. It's a good thing. RC: It is a good thing. It's tiring, but it's a good thing. LB: It is really tiring. And young people want it now, too. [Get you?] everything right now. RC: And then they leave us. They're gone. Yup. LB: So, so what's giving you hope, now? What's giving you hope? RC: You know, just the new day. I think that every day that I'm not online looking at all the news is a good day. I think the fact that my friends are still healthy, I'm healthy. That November, oh God, please November -- I just hope, it was hard for me to see when John Lewis passed. When I saw that Ruth Ginsberg was back in the hospital, my heart. LB: I know. I started to cry. RC: I know, I love her. LB: Both of those. RC: So you know, I'm hopeful that these young congress people like Alexandria, Ayanna, and all those others, they are strong enough to hold fast, like Ruth and John Lewis. Because it's not like ten, twenty -- it's a lifetime. So -- LB: John was a lifetime of that. But I've got to tell you that when Ruth Bader Ginsberg was put on the court, she was pretty moderate. I mean, she was not seen as the leftist. She progressed. So we have that going for us, too. She may even roll back and become -- RC: But look at how -- oh God. LB: I know, I know. I know exactly what you mean. People who are looking at this in the future, we're talking about the Supreme Court. We're just groaning about the Supreme Court. RC: So I'm hopeful that we see more and more people that will run for city council. I'm glad Ce-Ce kept moving toward that direction. I thought she always wanted to be on the city council. She's on the city council. She's working with some very interesting people but she's on the city council. I want to see more young people take up that kind of work. I've heard that human, what was our -- LB: Human Relations Commission. RC: I've heard they're starting to move in a better way. I hope so. But they finally got a person who's actually going to be paid to do the job, after how many freaking -- yeah. So I think they need pressure on that group, and I'm hoping that the connections that the college says they want to make to Allentown -- because what I said to Muhlenberg College is, I think the city needs to hold Muhlenberg accountable. I mean, they are in the city of Allentown. Honestly, the work they do is not enough. I feel like if you want to be seen as experts in different fields of study, that's all great and dandy. But if you want to be seen as people who can be servants to the community at large, then you're not doing the job you've been called to do. And I think I would love to see the city be able to hold Muhlenberg accountable to that kind of framework. And I think that's what students are calling Muhlenberg to be. LB: Well, that's great to hear. RC: So that would be a fantastic shift, if we could make that. LB: I mean yeah, it's an integral part and it's not just like, "Don't go below Seventeenth street," kind of thing. You know, Adrian went there and he went below Seventeenth street and my first experience with him was him saying to me -- I don't know if you know this -- but the first thing he said to me was, Patty Middleman had him call me because he wanted to get the college to include gender identity in its nondiscrimination policy. And he said he wanted to get a petition and have them, and I said, "You don't have to do that because the city already has this law in place." The laws had been in place by the time he was a student -- I think it was in -- so we'd had it in place for two years. And I said, "The college has to follow it. You can't discriminate against -- so just tell them it's already in the law." So then he comes back with, "Well, the administration of the college said that because we're a not-for-profit, we don't have to follow the law." I said, "That's not true. That's ridiculous. What do you think, you think that the hospital doesn't have to follow the law, they can discriminate against black people? That's ridiculous." And he goes, "Oh, okay." And I said, "So, this is what you do. Don't worry about a petition. This is what you need to do." This is the last time he goes to me. Because he was, what, 18 then. So I said, "What you need to do is tell them that Lehigh already has the policy." (inaudible) on it like, you know, two seconds. RC: That [petition's?] going to be good. LB: And that, and also it's the law. It's the law and you can't -- and he was saying, "Well, it's a religious college." I said, "It's not a religious college." If it were a religious college -- I said, "Look, frankly, there are colleges in the Lehigh Valley -- DeSales, for example -- that is a religious college. Or even Cedar Crest, which it's all about the mission. And the mission of the college, if the mission of the college was to follow Lutheran principles -- which it is not, the mission of the college is to educate young people. That's what it is. Or just educate people in general. It's an education. That's the mission, that's it. They're not saying, "We're going to only do Lutherans." That's not what they say. Cedar Crest College's mission is to work for women in education. And so technically they can make decisions about gender with regard to how they educate people or whether they've inclusive or not, of men. They can say, "We don't want men in the dorms." Because it's their mission, if they want to do it. That's their mission. And DeSales has a right to say, "We follow Catholic principles," because they're a Catholic college. Everybody knows that. So Adrian then comes back, literally the next day and he has a meeting with the president. They had the policy changed in a couple of days. I said, "Just play the Lehigh card." And it totally did it. RC: I can see [Reggie Ham?] falling for that. LB: Yeah, totally. Well, it was Taylor. RC: Oh, it was Taylor! Oh, it was Taylor. I never got a chance to meet him. LB: He was, you know, the other thing is that he would meet with Adrian because Adrian was so pushy, and he was successful in doing it. And I have to also that back when Adrian was -- and I mention this all the time when I talk about GSAs -- when Adrian was the head of the GSA, there were seven hundred students in the GSA. There were forty-five. He was there, and then when he left there were forty-five again. But there were seven hundred, and the reason is he did really interesting fun, exciting events, and he just made that happen. He also made everybody go out and vote. It's a big deal. I think our college student vote is what will win this election for us, because that's the swing vote. RC: I hope so, I hope so. LB: That's why I do want them to come back, because Pennsylvania's a swing state and if they're in California it doesn't matter. Or New York, or D.C.. So, yeah. RC: I'm trying to be positive. Just hold out hope. LB: Try to be, try to be positive. Trying to be positive in the last election and we got kicked in the head. I know, I know. I mean, yeah. Shit. So, anyway, I think that's everything. I did want to, so here's one little thing. There's a question here that says, "What are your frustrations and challenges?" And you've already talked about some of that stuff, but have you had any like one little thing that's an epiphany about your life that you figured out? Like, now I'm home all the time I realize this about myself that's kind of frustrating, and I'll give you an example. It's that Trish is extraordinarily frustrated by -- I mean, the world, we wake up every morning, we're concerned about the world. But she's frustrated that she cannot shop for herself because it is costing so much more money than when you can go to buy something on sale. She can't find any sales for food, so it's costing us almost twice as much money for food because we will order by the list. So she'll say, "Get this chicken," and stuff like that. She can't go to the farmer's market because it's so dangerous there. And they won't do curbside pickup and stuff. Or a lot of the booths. And so she can't go to Elias Market, she can't go to Produce Mart because it's not really set up for that. And she said, "That's what's killing me. I need to get the sale on this thing." And that was the frustrating -- so has anything like that, where you started to think like, "Oh, this thing is the thing that's turning out to be so irritating for me?" I mean, in the grand scheme of things we're very, very privileged and we're lucky that we have a place to live, and food, and a job, and stuff like that. RC: I've been thinking ; I realized that three years ago, when my mother died, that I was not going to waste time enjoying me family and friends, and then COVID-19 happened and my best friend, who has leukemia, I can't be around her. And so she could die. And I would not be able to physically be with -- all this time, I cannot spend any time with her. And I wouldn't even, I wouldn't even want to be close to a human within six feet or ten feet. I just don't want the chance. So I think that that's the hard thing, is now when I finally realize don't waste time, time's all I got, that COVID-19 happened and I have no choice. LB: Yeah, we're just waiting for it to be over. I know exactly what you mean. I feel like we're older. For younger people it's sort of an inconvenience and, might not be so true for college students, but that sort of millennial who's thinking, "Well, I have to work differently and I can't go out to the bars and I can't see as many people," and stuff like that. But for me, I'm thinking like, "How many years do I have left? And am I wasting twenty percent of them hanging around the house?" RC: Yeah, I don't like that. LB: No, it's just (inaudible). We have to try to do projects that we wouldn't normally do, but we know they need to get done. RC: Yeah. Like painting my house. I don't know, and those things seem frivolous, but I don't know. We'll see. LB: That's what I've been doing, is fixing my house. RC: But you're a fixer. (inaudible) LB: I'm a butch dyke with two power tools, so -- RC: I have a lot of friends like that who are -- what's nice about it is that more and more young women that I've met, or colleagues of mine, have grown up being butch dykes but they're not. You know? They do all the things that I think they -- one of the scientists, and she just tore down her shed and built a new one. And it's this beautiful thing ; she has all these tools, and all the tool belts and everything, and it's just like amazing. So I love these young women of today because they are who we were, (inaudible). So I think that that's cool. But no, that's what I miss, is just not being with people that I really like to be close to. LB: I think another thing that really sucks is that people who need help -- like I have a friend who, a good friend, whose aunt died and she's the executor and she needs to clean out her house and stuff like that. And she had to do it all by herself. I said, "We would've all helped you. We could've done this in one day. We could've done this in one day, instead of you having to slog away with this. This would've been something." We knew the aunt. We just would've come in and done the whole thing. It could be all over, and we would've felt good about it. And instead you can't help somebody who's in that kind of situation. Can't come and fix something for you, or make you feel better, just make you feel less lonely. People who have had those losses that we can't be with them, is really awful. Well anyway, it's wonderful to hear about really positive things. A number of the things that you said about the students are very heartening for me. I'm sucking out as much hope as I can out of this, because we all need to get that. So it's wonderful to hear about (inaudible). Well, and I just think that they're the ones that are going to save us in this world right now. And I think that this kind of circumstance is upsetting, but for young people they're not disillusioned. They're angry, and that's the way I want them to be. RC: I agree. If they can use that anger for good, that's fabulous. Go for it. LB: Because often, I don't know about you, but often I just think, "Ugh, could this be any worse? What else?" You know? (inaudible) It can't be -- oh, there's another thing! RC: Oh my God, there's always something else, you're right. LB: It's just awful. And it's in the way. And so I think young people look at that and (inaudible) "I want to do something. Got to march about this." And that's what I want to see them do, because they're not just sitting back saying, "Oh, this is so awful. There's nothing we can do about it." I like hearing that, and I like hearing when young people say, "If this doesn't work, we'll take it. We need to take this." And I like to hear them say that. Scary, but I have to hear them say it. Because that's where they need to be, I think. RC: We haven't seen that kind of apathy yet, which I am thankful for. LB: Well, good for you, Robin. Thank you so much for talking to me. It's been terrific, and I usually ask people if they want to say anything else to somebody in the, 30 years from now and going to look back and, no, you're pretty much -- RC: No, all I have to say is that I was here and I hope that I made, this video is just to say that we all got work to do -- LB: It is, it is. And we're working, and I hope the people watching it in the future will say, "Yeah, it worked." RC: That would be nice -- LB: But they know the future. RC: Yeah. Only they will know. LB: They needed to also know what you were doing in the present, and thank you so much for telling me about that and being, let's see if I can say the thing. And, to give me your time and thank you so much. It was great to talk to you. I miss talking to you, so -- RC: It's been a while. LB: It has been a long time. Ridiculously long time. (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) Thank you, and going to turn off the recording now. 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01:11:49
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Robin Casey, July 21, 2020
Description
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Robin Casey talks about how the current COVID-19 pandemic is affecting her as a faculty member at a local college. She talks about her concerns regarding the opening of the college during the pandemic, the LGBT students who need support, and the relationship of the college and students to the Black Lives Matter movement in regards to recent police brutality issues in Allentown.
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PH40_25
Subject
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COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-
Date
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2020-07-21
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/76a5bcfc195c7399788b9e0cee4005ee.png
c99d3c363eb7065bb8532b60063b0e84
Dublin Core
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Title
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40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: COVID-19
Description
An account of the resource
In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19.
The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism.
The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Liz Bradbury
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Ricardo Almodovar
OHMS Object
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Viewer)
https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_27.xml
Interview Keyword
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COVID-19
OHMS Object Text
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5.4 July 20th, 2020 Ricardo Almodovar, July 20, 2020 PH40_27 01:08:39 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg COVID-19 COVID-19 Lancaster LGBTQ+ Pandemic Family Allentown Ricardo Almodovar Liz Bradbury video/mpeg AlmodovarRicardo_20200720_video.mp4 1.0:|28(5)|48(8)|87(2)|116(12)|142(13)|159(3)|181(7)|204(12)|261(9)|282(11)|303(2)|325(4)|344(14)|369(10)|397(14)|409(3)|435(14)|457(16)|484(14)|500(2)|515(16)|544(8)|562(16)|587(7)|613(11)|636(8)|659(17)|677(5)|693(13)|710(5)|731(5)|756(3)|776(9)|797(3)|820(14)|841(12)|866(4)|890(2)|911(4)|934(2)|969(16)|1000(2)|1010(3)|1024(5)|1046(5)|1071(12)|1088(14)|1111(13)|1132(8)|1157(4)|1186(3)|1208(6)|1220(4)|1239(10)|1262(2)|1277(14)|1290(9)|1316(5)|1335(12)|1355(3)|1372(7)|1386(11)|1396(7)|1410(3)|1429(4)|1447(2)|1468(15)|1491(5) 0 https://youtu.be/4fUbg17RmDk YouTube video 0 Interview Introductions RA: I hope I’m camera-ready.
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 ; LB: You look terrific ; you look good. And it’s really good ; the lighting is really good, you’re in a good place, that’s great. So I’m going to read you this stuff. I have to be sure that my [drink?] (inaudible). With this project, Bradbury Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury and I am here with Ricardo Almodovar -- I spelled your name wrong -- Almodovar. Is that right?
 ; 
 ; RA: Almodovar. Almodovar.
 ; COVID-19 ; Introductions ; LGBT ; Liz Bradbury ; Ricardo Almodovar 0 209 Almodovar's Living Situation LB: Okay, and here, so I already sent you some of the questions and stuff. We can really talk about whether you want. But one of the things we start out with is, in the place where you live, who is there with you, sort of quarantined or locked down or in that space?
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 ; RA: My partner and I.
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 ; LB: Okay, the two of you. All right, that’s great. So are you working now?
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 ; RA: Oh, and in addition to that, actually, my brother had COVID, and he’s currently working on renovations with his house so my mother has been staying as well, so we have an additional room so there’s three of us. 
 ; COVID-19 ; Liz Bradbury ; Quarantine ; Ricardo Almodovar 0 380 Almodovar's Job at the Local Shelter RA: So, folks aren’t allowed visitors, so folks are to mostly stay in their rooms. The only areas that are shared are the common areas. We have two lounges, an adult lounge, a family lounge, and then a veterans lounge. And so they have to schedule that in advance with their case manager. We have case managers onsite that are licensed social workers that helps with budgeting, money management, house search, job search, and other issues, basically bridging that gap from homelessness to permanent sustainable housing ; that’s ultimate goal.
 ; Job ; Lancaster ; Liz Bradbury ; Ricardo Almodovar 0 569 Transgender Women in the Military LB: It’s a one-in-two chance. So if you do come in contact with somebody and since you’re giving services for people who are trans, or who are veterans, and you know, if they say to you that they’re transgender, or you recognize it, maybe, you recognize that they’re trans, and they’re over sixty-five, chances are really good that they’re a veteran. Liz Bradbury ; Transgender ; Veterans ; Women 0 723 Family Struggles with COVID RA: Both, both reasons. He is also in the military, and actually, since they’re renovating the family house, I actually lived there when I was in college before I moved to Allentown. In fact, I left that household to move to the Lehigh Valley, and then my partner and I moved back for work. And then in that, I guess, somewhere in that timeframe, my brother decided to renovate the house. He realized one problem led to the other, and was like, let’s just tear down the whole thing, except for the bare bones, which is pretty much what the house was. And then he was staying with my father, and he ended up contracting COVID through his work, sadly. And his experience was terrible ; he was under a ventilator for two weeks. The whole family was terrified of what would happen. And mind you, there was no way to visit, so I’m basing this on virtually. Thankfully that happened, you know, in about two months ago, and now he’s been almost a month out of the hospital. And, but you know, with my mom being here, I feel like she’s in a safer place, and she undergoes dialysis ; she’s diabetic, so she’s already immunocompromised ; she can’t risk it enough as it is.
 ; Allentown ; Brother ; COVID-19 ; Family ; Military ; Ricardo Almodovar 0 948 Almodovar's Experience with his Father's COVID-19 Situation RA: Yeah, so it just happened, you know he came from home one day scared and saying really bad chest pain and lack of breath, really. And so he called up his doctor, and they advised him to just stay home. So he stayed home for a while, he couldn’t work, he couldn’t go anywhere. Then it just got worse and worse. I would say after a week, they finally had to rush him to a hospital. And they had to put him under a ventilator, tubes going up both nostrils. Very painful procedure. (laughter) At least from what I heard. In our family, we’ve been communicating via, or through video, both from WhatsApp and Facebook Chat. And so, you know, it’s sad to, you know, see someone, you know, especially a parent, under such pain and having to deal with, you know, something like this, and being under a ventilator for not just one but two weeks, over two weeks, actually, two weeks and about two days or something like that. A very long time.
 ; COVID-19 ; Father ; Hospital ; Ricardo Almodovar 0 1144 Biggest Fears About Getting COVID-19 LB: Yeah, so everybody that I’ve spoken to, I’ve spoken to a lot of people, their biggest fear, and I’m going to ask you what your biggest concern is but it sounds like this is what your biggest concerns it too, is that for people that are your age, that they’re going to get it and then give it to somebody. There’s a lot of young people, I mean, a lot of young people are at risk. I just was talking to somebody who knew of a young person who had really serious contemplations, and they were younger ; they were twenty. But their biggest concern is, you know, getting it and giving it to someone in their family, so that the loved ones ,and I would guess it sounds like one your concern is too.
 ; 
 ; 
 ; RA: Yeah, right, because so many people are asymptomatic, and I don’t know if I may be or who knows if I have it now? But my mom wears her mask every day. Like I’ve mentioned, she undergoes dialysis three times a week. They won’t let her on the bus unless she wears a mask, potentially through a program she gets from transportation to and from the dialysis clinic. And she comes back just fine, and I’m sure at the clinic, she gets her treatment done, they go above and beyond with making sure that everything is sanitary.
 ; Asymptomatic ; Concerns ; COVID-19 ; Liz Bradbury ; Ricardo Almodovar 0 1374 Comparing Gardens LB: We have a big vegetable garden, so you didn’t get any carrots, they just didn’t make it, is that the thing?
 ; 
 ; 
 ; RA: No, well I tried to germinate them or put them in the little cup and let it grow slowly. But we had one really bad rainstorm, and I should have just brought it in, and they just drowned. So I had cucumbers, carrots, green peppers, and so on. Now I just have basil, tomatoes, and I actually, interestingly enough, have done orange plants or mandarin plants. (laughs) I found I have somewhat of a green thumb, I guess half a green thumb, because I have much more experience with indoor plants. I have about seven, eight indoor plants right now, and somehow, I found a sprout growing out of one of them. Mother-in-law’s tongue I guess is what it’s called. (laughs) And it had --
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 ; 
 ; LB: Which is kind of a politically incorrect thing to say. There are other names for that which I think we should think of, and I can’t remember what it is. But it’s more Latin, like a Latin designation, like the Latin, because really it’s kind of rude. But (laughs).
 ; Basil ; Carrots ; Cucumbers ; Gardens ; Green peppers ; Liz Bradbury ; Ricardo Almodovar ; Tomatoes 0 1550 COVID-19 Rules with Family RA: And my mom wants to spend time with other relatives, so sometimes, she’ll go to my cousin’s house, for instance, to help babysit. And so, you know, when it comes to family, like we like to remain close. But other guests, not so much, like acquaintances, we like to keep a distance.
 ; 
 ; 
 ; LB: Yes. It’s tough, but I think that there, you have to do a certain amount for your family to make everybody feel like there’s cohesiveness I think, there’s no question. So you have a partner so I’m not going to ask you about -- I have a question on here that talks about dating apps. So I don’t know whether you’re using that or not, but I’m not going to ask you anyway, since you have a partner, and I’m, you know, making my moral presumption on that. Let’s see, so in terms of you being worried about the virus, do you have illness, you know, like preexisting conditions that worry you, or are you more concerned about other people around you or what do you think?
 ; COVID-19 ; Family ; Guests ; Liz Bradbury ; Mother ; Preexisting Conditions ; Ricardo Almodovar 0 1714 The Most Frustrating Part of the Pandemic RA: I think it’s, I would say the most frustrating is just the uncertainty of the situation right now not knowing, or the unknown. And that creates a lot of anxiety for other people. I’m not an anxious person. (laughs) I would say for the most part I’m stress-free. I believe there are so many alternatives to dealing with stress and anxiety. You know, I practice my own person of, I guess, a makeshift-type yoga and meditation almost every single day, and I’m very blessed to have, you know, the love and support of, you know, friends and family members, and even, I feel like now I’ve been trying to take action more than ever, you know in addition to helping out at TLC, I’ve also applied for grants for a community action project. And they’re helping to fund initiatives to not just help TLC, but work on highlighting the needs of low-income communities, and in additional to TLC, Crispus Attucks, and it’s a black-owned organization focused on equity and inclusion and they have a food bank every week and they provide these folks in the southeast of the city, which is the most condensed and racially-diverse part of the city. And so through this grant, I was able to purchase carts, pushcarts for folks to use for necessary items, and work with a graphic designer to produce a video to let folks know that there are people who are going through a difficult situation, whether it’s having to go to a foodbank, or being homeless. And what you can do to take part, whether that means donating food, or Crispus Attucks does need, you know, people with muscle, folks that can help back these boxes, and I myself have packed, I would say at this point, hundreds of boxes. in the last few months. You know, they give out every, like I said every week, every Wednesday at that, at least 300 boxes. It used to be where folks would have to come in and show their ID, but now it’s just, that food is provided to the Central PA food bank at no cost, without any, you know, folks just, take your food, take what you need. If you can’t use it, then pass it along to your neighbor. And so my goal was to not just provide those pushcarts to help out folks, but to also highlight those needs and what folks can do to take action. Family ; Meditation ; Ricardo Almodovar ; TLC ; Yoga 0 2025 Leadership Cohort for Lancaster Clean Water Partners RA: For sure. And then what also motivates me to do that is that, I recently signed up for a leadership cohort through the Lancaster Clean Water Partners. It’s like a year program regarding leadership development and how to take collective action for clean water, sustainability and conversation in Lancaster. It’s a grant they were provided through Penn State and the Lancaster Conservancy. Like I said, it’s the Clean Water Partners. It’s a partnership, and so we meet monthly. We used to meet in person, but obviously we had to transition to Zoom. And so, I’ve always wanted to do sustainable work and conservation, and I love the environment, and you know, learning about what’s being done in Lancaster, and what I can do to, you know, help to take collective action for clean water, is one thing that I’m passionate about. And going out to the park and also participating in this leadership cohort, you know, makes me more appreciative, not just, you know, mentally, but also emotionally, and even physically, for that matter.
 ; Clean Water ; Lancaster ; Lancaster Clean Water Partners ; Penn State ; Ricardo Almodovar 0 2120 The Difference Between the Counties Clean Water RA: Kind of both. So each session is different. We had a county tour, for instance, where we visited local water treatment facilities. And then another one, we also visited a water sewage treatment facility, and what is being done for water quality. You know, we all drink water, we all take showers, or at least we would hope, so. But where does that water go? How is it treated? And even what businesses are doing with that water. For instance, what are beer distributors or brewers doing, because they heavily depend on water quality. Water in Lancaster is going to be different from water in the Lehigh Valley or even across the country in California, and so depending on your recipe and what the water is made up of, that’ll change the flavor of not just beer, but products if you’re a business owner.
 ; California ; Clean Water ; Lancaster ; Lehigh Valley ; Ricardo Almodovar ; Water 0 2383 Friend From Morocco LB: Oh, who’s from Morocco, and another friend of ours went to visit her in Morocco, visit her family, and they went to the part of the sea there, part of the Mediterranean that’s there, that comes up to the coast, and the entire beach area and everything was completely unusable, just completely, just devastated, like you couldn’t even, like the worst, horrible pollution that you could even imagine. You couldn’t even put your foot in it, you know? And it’s a beach ; the beautiful beach area. But it’s just totally fouled, and what we’re doing in the United States is exactly the same. It’s just, well, you know, it doesn’t matter, we’ll just do it a little bit more, and we’ll just me, and we have that, we have no leadership that is stopping that from happening. Let’s talk a little bit about Black Lives Matter, because I don’t think we can talk about COVID-19 without talking about -- 
 ; COVID-19 ; Liz Bradbury ; Morocco ; United States 0 2494 Housing Situation LB: Your house looks like, just from those bricks, it looks like it’s from the 1800s.
 ; RA: I wouldn’t, I couldn’t tell you. We would love to buy a house. Sadly as LGBT people of color it’s a little more difficult. And plus we want to do more traveling. Maybe in my mid-thirties, I just turned thirty. Or rather, I’d be thirty-one in February, so I’m in no rush to buy a house. House ; LGBT ; Liz Bradbury ; Ricardo Almodovar 0 2724 Police Brutality LB: Yeah, there’s no question, that was just a few blocks from my house where that happened with the police officer. I’ve worked with the police before and I’m not surprised by that happening, and I’m not surprised by them already dragging their feet with regard to what (inaudible), and then they did it. And then they said, well not this time. And I’m not surprised that they released a nine-minute video that happened to be from a CCTV across the street, and that nine-minute video, I don’t know if you’ve seen that, the longer video, is actually goes, the police officer when he’s first handcuffing your guy with the other people after they’ve thrown him to the ground, after they’ve kicked him to the ground, which is what he did, he said, the police said that he fell down, but then you can see that that’s not true at all, they kicked his feet out from under him and pushed him to the ground. They’re trying to handcuff him and the guy kneels on his neck. But then, but people say well, you know, but then, about two minutes later after he’s been handcuffed completely there the police are no longer touching him, and the police officer says something to him and he raises his head up about an inch, and the police officer knees his head right back down into the ground again. And he’s handcuffed, there’s absolutely, you know, so even the ridiculous sort of excuses of the first action, there was no excuse for the second action. Absolutely assault ; it’s against this person who was completely unable to move at all, and then to have a police officer do that. And it’s a terrible situation because I think that, you know, it’s based on white supremacy but it’s also based in police power. Those two things are so closely related. But there are also a lot to do with the training of the police which causes anybody who’s a police officer to feel like (inaudible) it’s even if they’re not white, frankly. And working with guys who are unbelievably scary.
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 ; RA: Yeah, and the police enforcement has a long history of discrimination and brutality and if you look at its inception, you know it was born too, out of a need within the white community to capture escaped slaves. And you can see some of those roots, or remnants are still, you know, still exist, whether people realize it or not. George Floyd ; Liz Bradbury ; Police Brutality ; Ricardo Almodovar 0 2890 A Stance on Gun Control LB: And then, people will say that the militarization of the police started during the civil rights movement in the 1960s. You know, these people have rights ; now we’re going to have to have the police officers to have machine guns and AK-47s, and dogs, and stuff like this, which actually, it was a different kind of attitude in the earlier parts of, where every police officer didn’t carry a gun, for example. Most police officers didn’t carry a gun, and in other countries where police officers don’t carry guns. So.
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 ; RA: Yeah, I don’t carry a gun, and I don’t feel safe around someone that carries a gun. There should be no reason why you need a gun around at all whatsoever. AK-47's ; Guns ; Liz Bradbury ; Police Officers ; Ricardo Almodovar 0 3083 Risks of Opening Up Schools LB: And you know, it’s only one kid. And he was also talking about, this is pretty interesting, he was talking about how most inner-city schools, and I’m sure this is true in Lancaster public schools too, they all don’t have air conditioning. A lot of inner-city schools in Allentown are not air conditioned, or only parts of them are air conditioned. And even some of the more recently built buildings are not air conditioned. So as a result, they will take kids who are in rooms where it’s very, very hot, and they’ll take all the hot rooms and bring them down to the air-conditioned rooms. So now you don’t just have one class of kid, you have fifty kids. And how do you keep those kids from not infecting each other? Or you leave them in the room where it’s one hundred and one degrees, or you bring them to a room where there’s fifty kids, and a bunch of them have their masks down like this because they don’t know how to wear them. So, it was really interesting what he said ; I hadn’t even thought about that. And he said, oh yeah, I think about that every day.
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 ; RA: Yeah, and then the whole, going back and forth right now, school districts don’t know whether to open or close, and there’s just so much controversy.
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 ; LB: Yeah, and it’s really based in greed. I mean, the only reason to open schools is so that you can let parents go back to work so that they can do minimum wage jobs to support rich people. Because truthfully, you know, we need to be able to -- parents need to be able to stay home with their kids right now. And yeah, they need money. But who really needs, you know? I was talking to one of the people I interviewed that has a daughter who has a congenital heart defect, and she was called back to work because she’s an essential worker because she’s a waitress ; she’s a food service person, where she makes below minimum wage and the restaurant wasn’t using precautions. There were people that were sick there, and her mother said to me, if she gets sick, she’s going to die. But if she doesn’t go to work, she’s going to lose her job. Because they told her, if you don’t come to work, it’s your resignation. She said, but you’re not -- nobody’s got a mask on here. I’m coming in contact with all these people, you know, particularly wait staff because people who are eating are not wearing masks. So, and you know, this is not somebody who’s making $300,000 a year as an essential worker. The most essential workers are the ones who don’t make any money.
 ; Allentown Schools ; Lancaster Public Schools ; Liz Bradbury ; Ricardo Almodovar 0 3379 Pennsylvania State Politics RA: So the statehouse is majority Democratic ; however the state senate, not so much. So we’re having some trouble, and I recently met an open queer person of color, Malcolm Kenyatta from the Philadelphia area, and he’s been championing COVID relief and raising the wage, and talking about, you know, the hypocrisy within the Republican Party, and highlighting that it’s not a political issue ; it’s a human issue. It just so happens that Republicans time and time again are trying to take away our healthcare, and they don’t want to pay it. And sadly, they have the wealth, they have the representation, and the power, and so we want a more evenly distribution of that wealth, and we’ll do that at any cost necessary, or rather, any means necessary.
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 ; LB: I think it’s true, you know, people have often, and I’ve been fighting for equal rights for the LGBT community and other communities for my whole career, and for years and years and years, and a long time ago, when we were fighting to pass the anti-discrimination ordinance in the city of Allentown, which was the first passage that included gender identity in the state ; nobody else had gender identity anything, not Philadelphia, anything, it was just Allentown. The effort to pass it started in 1998, and we were successful, and finally successful in 2002.
 ; COVID-19 ; Democratic ; LGBT ; Liz Bradbury ; Republican ; Ricardo Almodovar 0 3687 American Jobs in Today's Day and Age LB: They’re incredibly short-sighted. It’s short-sighted (inaudible) because if you have a living wage, a living minimum wage, it improves and makes a robust economy ; it just does. So if you’re looking at it purely from the viewpoint of greed, which is often the other side’s viewpoint, pretty much it’s the entire viewpoint, it’s incredibly short-sighted to say, well we’re not going to spend the money to give this population, this worker population a living wage because it will come out of our pockets. But it really doesn’t, because if you pay people living wage, frankly, that's the whole basis of capitalism. Now you have people, even one of the most dastardly capitalists in the world, Henry Ford, who started Ford cars and changed the whole circumstance, he said, I want to produce a car that my own employees could buy. And so, you know, it has to be a good, cheap thing, and I have to pay them enough so that we can continue this American project which is based in capitalism. Capitalism has become this enormous seesaw of the incredibly rich and the incredibly poor, and the poor are the workers. And one thing we’ve totally seen about COVID-19 is without people who are making minimum wage, everything grinds to a halt. We can’t do anything you know? Now you have to spend millions of tax, billions of tax dollars to just make it so that this population is still going to be able to come back to work when things open. I mean, that’s speaking from a totally greed basis, which is a terrible basis to look at anything. But it’s ridiculously short-sighted to say, well we’re not going to pay you, but we want you to buy our computers. Or we want you to buy food in the grocery store. But we’re not going to give you any money to do it. Well, that’s not going to work. You know, and we also know that corporations, or companies that are justice-based will actually do that and it doesn’t hurt their profit margin at all. Like Costco, or Ben & ; Jerry’s or something like that who just pay a living wage. They pay a living wage, and they pay their workers, and they pay for their worker’s healthcare, so what comes out is a real sense of support. You know the workers themselves have a sense of loyalty to their employer, and they work hard, instead of thinking, well, they don’t care anything about me. You know, it’s just a bad circumstance ; it always comes from greed.
 ; Capitalism ; COVID-19 ; Economy ; Liz Bradbury 0 3975 Inspiration for the People Going Through Struggles
 ; RA: Yeah, sure. So things might look a little stark ; we’re in the middle of a global pandemic. We have constant rioting, we have violence. But in the midst of all that, there is good, there is love, there is support, support for black folks, for LGBTQ-plus folks, for folks in the Latinx community, for refugees, for folks that are disabled. We’re all in this together, and it’s July 20th, 2020, but I hope that when you see this video, things are much better, and I know that, you know, with the work that we’re doing now, we can together collectively develop policy solutions for some of the major problems we’re facing, not just today, but hopefully, by the time you see this, these problems will be long resolved.
 ; Latinx ; LGBTQ+ ; Pandemic ; Ricardo Almodovar 0 4073 Closing Remarks LB: Yeah. Well thank you very, very much for talking to me and taking an hour and a little bit more out of your day to do this. I really appreciate it very, very much and everybody who will see this will appreciate it as well. And I love everything you said, and you give me a great deal of hope, so thank you for doing that. And I appreciate it, so what you’ll get a transcript of this, and as soon as they’re finished transcribing it, we send them to another college and they fix that, and then they give it back to us, so thank you again, and have a great day, and have a great weekend. Keep up the good work.
 ; 
 ; RA: Yes, great. Thank you so much for inviting me, and I hope we stay in touch, and I’m sure we’ll cross paths again soon.
 ; 
 ; LB: I hope so. Okay, bye-bye.
 ; 
 ; RA: All right.
 ; 0 MovingImage In this interview, Almodovar and Bradbury talk about how people's lives have been impacted under the pandemic, and how LGBTQ+ people fit in a pandemic. They talk about the problems in Allentown and Lancaster while even mentioning their own families. Ultimately, this interview generally talks about the effects of the pandemic in both the Allentown and Lancaster community. Ricardo Almodovar 2020-07-20 RICARDO ALMODOVAR: Okay. LIZ BRADBURY: Now I'm going to turn my audio backup record on too. And -- RA: I hope I'm camera-ready. LB: You look terrific ; you look good. And it's really good ; the lighting is really good, you're in a good place, that's great. So I'm going to read you this stuff. I have to be sure that my [drink?] (inaudible). With this project, Bradbury Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury and I am here with Ricardo Almodovar -- I spelled your name wrong -- Almodovar. Is that right? RA: Almodovar. Almodovar. LB: Yup, there we go. To talk about his experiences in the Lehigh Valley, in the Greater Lehigh Valley, Scranton-Stroudsburg area, LGBT community during this time of COVID-19 pandemic as a part of the Lehigh Valley's LGBT community archive. We're meeting on Zoom on Monday, July 20th, 2020. So, thank you so much for your willingness to be speaking with us today. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? RA: Yeah, sure. My name is Ricardo Almodovar, R-I-C-A-R-D-O, Almodovar, A-L-M-O-D-O-V-A-R. LB: Okay, and can you please share your birth date? RA: My birthdate is November 15th, 1989. LB: Could you say the last word again, because it disappeared? RA: Oh, November 15, 1989. LB: Okay. Let's see. Okay, and what town are you in? RA: I currently live in Lancaster City. LB: But, when I'm taking this picture of you, you are in Lancaster? RA: Correct. LB: Okay, so that's fine. So, because there's a part that says where are you, and where is the interviewee, so I wanted to know where that is. So this part is the consent part, so I'm going to read you this stuff. Do you consent to this interview today? RA: Yes. LB: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, made publicly available online in searchable formats? RA: Yes. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes and other formats, including films, articles, websites, presentations, and other formats we may not even know about today? RA: Yes. LB: Okay. Do you understand that you will have 30 days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview, identify any parts you'd like to delete and/or withdrawn from your interview, or you could withdraw the whole interview from the project? RA: Yes. LB: Okay. So this is just some identity things. What is your zip code where you are? RA: 17602. LB: Okay, and what is your age? I think you indicated that. RA: I am thirty. LB: Okay, and how do you identify with the LGBT community? RA: I identify as a gay cisgender man. LB: Okay, and here, so I already sent you some of the questions and stuff. We can really talk about whether you want. But one of the things we start out with is, in the place where you live, who is there with you, sort of quarantined or locked down or in that space? RA: My partner and I. LB: Okay, the two of you. All right, that's great. So are you working now? RA: Oh, and in addition to that, actually, my brother had COVID, and he's currently working on renovations with his house so my mother has been staying as well, so we have an additional room so there's three of us. LB: Oh, I see. Okay, so are you working currently? RA: Yes. LB: Are you working at home, or at work? RA: Yes. A little bit of both. So yeah, well my background is community organizing and Spanish language, and so I lived in Allentown for three years working for Make the Road, and then I moved out here. I just finished a fellowship with the DNC, the Democratic National Committee, and now I actually recently, as of tomorrow, I accepted a new role as an organizing associate with We the People, the project of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center. LB: Oh that's great, cool. And so, and will you be working on that from Lancaster, is that the thing, or do you have to go to Harrisburg to do that? RA: Well, it is virtual ; it is based in Harrisburg and so, I don't foresee traveling anywhere quite yet because of COVID. Everything is via Zoom, or Google Hangouts, or many of the multiple video platforms. But then, in addition to my organizing work, I do work part-time at, I help out at a local shelter here in Lancaster called in the Transitional Living Center. And so, as an essential worker, we are there on-site providing front-line support for folks that are experiencing homelessness and trauma, including veterans, families, children, folks going through recovery. A two-unit building, and so 24-hour facility, and we basically just man the front desk providing support and whatever they may need in that facility. LB: Are you doing that now? RA: Yup, just on the weekends though. LB: Okay, is it hard to be social distanced and stuff in that kind of arrangement? RA: So, folks aren't allowed visitors, so folks are to mostly stay in their rooms. The only areas that are shared are the common areas. We have two lounges, an adult lounge, a family lounge, and then a veterans lounge. And so they have to schedule that in advance with their case manager. We have case managers onsite that are licensed social workers that helps with budgeting, money management, house search, job search, and other issues, basically bridging that gap from homelessness to permanent sustainable housing ; that's the ultimate goal. LB: Yeah. So, would you say that, have you come in contact with a lot of LGBT people there, or any? RA: Actually, surprisingly yes. And they have program under Tabor Community Services and they have a very strong religious background. LB: Oh, what's the program again, because I didn't hear that. Say it again? Community -- RA: Tabor Community Services. T-A-B-O-R. And so, they got a lot of heat, not necessarily recently, but over the years. And so, my partners, interestingly enough, he is there full-time while I'm only there part-time. And so he's openly gay, they know we're together and engaged. They're very open and supportive. And then we have another openly lesbian black woman who's also on staff. And so the front desk staff which is who we are as program reporting assistants -- LB: You're pretty queer. (laughs) RA: Excuse me? LB: You're pretty queer, the front desk staff. RA: Yes, yes, which is great. LB: Yeah, it is. RA: And so, they've been working on getting the participants' demographic much more diverse as well. We've had a few lesbian couples -- actually, not very many gay couples, interestingly enough. But mostly, you know, women with their children. And they prioritize children, obviously. LB: And with the veterans, are you seeing transgender veterans? RA: That is a good question. Not that, and not any of that have been open. LB: Okay. Because you know, transgender of transgender women who are over sixty-five, one out of two of them, or fifty percent of them, are veterans. You know that? RA: Yeah, I didn't know that. LB: Amazing, isn't it? But it's really true, particularly from the Vietnam era. So if you come in contact with a transgender woman who is over sixty-five, chances are very high that she's a veteran. RA: Oh, wow. LB: It's a one-in-two chance. So if you do come in contact with somebody and since you're giving services for people who are trans, or who are veterans, and you know, if they say to you that they're transgender, or you recognize it, maybe, you recognize that they're trans, and they're over sixty-five, chances are really good that they're a veteran. RA: That's interesting, I never really thought -- LB: Yeah, it's remarkably true, actually. And that's, as a result of that, it means that a lot of transgender people over 65 are getting healthcare from the VA. And it sounds -- RA: Yeah, that makes sense. LB: -- pretty good. It's not the worst possible circumstance for them, so that's true. Not as good now as it used to be, but you know, it's not terrible ; it's not a terrible situation. RA: Yeah. It's just tough because Lancaster, when it comes to the nonprofit world is heavily controlled by religious organizations and institutions. I mean it's really common across the board when it comes to nonprofits. And that's not like a judgment or a critical call or anything ; it's just, you know, as long as their beliefs don't infringe on our rights. LB: Right, right, right. It's not necessarily a bad thing ; it's just that when they use their religious exemption to not be supportive, that's the dangerous thing. So we have religious organizations here in the Lehigh Valley too, as I'm sure you know, that are fine. They're fine. And other ones who will say, well because we're a religious organization, we're not going to support gay people, and it's interesting, or trans people. It's interesting that in Allentown's law, it specifically says that if an organization gets money from the city, it doesn't matter what their religious circumstance is ; they can't just go against the Allentown nondiscrimination law. It's actually written into the law, so yeah. So you were saying that, did you say your mother is in your house? RA: Yes. LB: Yeah, and is she there because it's safer for her, or just because your brother is working on the house? RA: Both, both reasons. He is also in the military, and actually, since they're renovating the family house, I actually lived there when I was in college before I moved to Allentown. In fact, I left that household to move to the Lehigh Valley, and then my partner and I moved back for work. And then in that, I guess, somewhere in that timeframe, my brother decided to renovate the house. He realized one problem led to the other, and was like, let's just tear down the whole thing, except for the bare bones, which is pretty much what the house was. And then he was staying with my father, and he ended up contracting COVID through his work, sadly. And his experience was terrible ; he was under a ventilator for two weeks. The whole family was terrified of what would happen. And mind you, there was no way to visit, so I'm basing this on virtually. Thankfully that happened, you know, in about two months ago, and now he's been almost a month out of the hospital. And, but you know, with my mom being here, I feel like she's in a safer place, and she undergoes dialysis ; she's diabetic, so she's already immunocompromised ; she can't risk it enough as it is. LB: Wow, so that's amazing stuff. Does your brother know how he got it? Were there other people in his workspace that were sick? Was that the circumstance? RA: It wasn't my brother ; it was my father that got it. LB: Oh your father, yeah. RA: From his job. And he's on the verge of retirement ; he's a long-time labor worker. He's worked in factories all over Lancaster County mostly, and so I guess the company wasn't moving fast enough regarding some of the safety protocols regarding COVID, and he ended up getting it. Thankfully, they were able to pay him throughout this whole process, and now they're taking precautions but it's like from the very beginning, a lot of companies and businesses and even organizations were very skeptical about the gravity of the situation and how serious it was. LB: Wow. Had he had other kinds of conditions that made him susceptible to it, or -- RA: He's diabetic. LB: Perhaps how old he is? RA: He was born in 1960, what would that be? (laughs) LB: He's sixty. I already know that because of when I was born, so. RA: Okay. (laughter) LB: This is a birthday year for him. RA: Yes, he just turned sixty actually, the 13th a few days ago. LB: Oh, there you go. Okay. So did he have some kind of existing condition that caused him -- I mean, just people over sixty are at risk ; I know -- RA: Yeah, that, and he was diabetic, and he suffers from high blood pressure, but that's about it. LB: I don't know that those things necessarily make you that much more susceptible to COVID, but wow, that's a terrible thing. And did it happen fast? Or you know, did it just, oh, I have a cold or something like that? I haven't talked with any of the people who were so close to somebody who was sick, so I'm sort of probing. RA: Yeah, so it just happened, you know he came from home one day scared and saying really bad chest pain and lack of breath, really. And so he called up his doctor, and they advised him to just stay home. So he stayed home for a while, he couldn't work, he couldn't go anywhere. Then it just got worse and worse. I would say after a week, they finally had to rush him to a hospital. And they had to put him under a ventilator, tubes going up both nostrils. Very painful procedure. (laughter) At least from what I heard. In our family, we've been communicating via, or through video, both from WhatsApp and Facebook Chat. And so, you know, it's sad to, you know, see someone, you know, especially a parent, under such pain and having to deal with, you know, something like this, and being under a ventilator for not just one but two weeks, over two weeks, actually, two weeks and about two days or something like that. A very long time. LB: Yeah, but he's okay? Relatively okay now, I'm guessing? RA: Yes, he's a firecracker. He's been wanting to like get back to normal lives right away. But you know, his health has to come first, and he has to, you know, take things easy ; he can't breathe as well as he used to, and plus he was a smoker. He quit about ten weeks ago. LB: Wow, yeah. RA: So he's much better. I wouldn't say he's fully recovered ; I'd say -- LB: It took a long time to get better. RA: Yeah, and they say that COVID-19 could have caused permanent lung damage. LB: Oh yeah. RA: But we haven't noticed, or rather, it's too early to tell whether it is going to cause -- LB: Yeah. Does he seem -- is he scared about going out and stuff? Does he think that he's safe now because he's had it, or does he fear that he's, it's interesting because sometimes people can say you could get it again and.. RA: Yup. So he's been pretty much enclosed in his house. He lives with his wife, and my brother now with the renovations and so, it's just one big happy family right now. So at least he's not by himself ; at least he has people he can talk to. I don't know, who stares, video chat, and (inaudible), you can make a quick phone call. So it's not completely isolated, but sadly I haven't been able to see him in person quite yet, but I know hopefully soon, you know, I've been trying to take the lip precautions. I can't imagine if I were to, you know, go visit, and you somehow I'll bring it over and my mom gets it. LB: Awful, wouldn't it be terrible. RA: Yeah. LB: Yeah, so everybody that I've spoken to, I've spoken to a lot of people, their biggest fear, and I'm going to ask you what your biggest concern is but it sounds like this is what your biggest concerns it too, is that for people that are your age, that they're going to get it and then give it to somebody. There's a lot of young people, I mean, a lot of young people are at risk. I just was talking to somebody who knew of a young person who had really serious contemplations, and they were younger ; they were twenty. But their biggest concern is, you know, getting it and giving it to someone in their family, so that the loved ones, and I would guess it sounds like one your concern is too. RA: Yeah, right, because so many people are asymptomatic, and I don't know if I may be or who knows if I have it now? But my mom wears her mask every day. Like I've mentioned, she undergoes dialysis three times a week. They won't let her on the bus unless she wears a mask, potentially through a program she gets from transportation to and from the dialysis clinic. And she comes back just fine, and I'm sure at the clinic, she gets her treatment done, they go above and beyond with making sure that everything is sanitary. LB: Yeah, it seems like they're working very hard to do, in places like hospitals and stuff are really safe, and in comparison to other places that you might have to go to, like have you been to other places where you didn't feel so safe? RA: Yeah. LB: I don't know. What do you -- RA: Well, Lancaster is -- and I'm sure it happens, you know, in Allentown. So we have our city council members and our mayor who wants to keep businesses closed for health reasons, and they're majority Democratic and progressive, whereas our county commissioners are Republican and want to open businesses back up. The state government, Rachel Levine and Tom Wolf want to close businesses, or leave them closed, whereas the federal administration want to open up businesses, and so all these levels, and there's so much confusion, and thankfully with the work that I do, I'm been trying to clear up some of those misconceptions and let folks know that, you know, we have to take the steps in order to protect ourselves and our loved ones whether we have it or not. And that is beyond politics. LB: Yeah, well it's wonderful to hear you say that ; it makes me feel hopeful. (laughs) So, do you have other friends that you're talking to? You know, are you talking to other people online, or have a circumstance where you can see people social distanced? Or what do you think about that? RA: Yeah, and so I, like I said, we live here ; this is our little house, this is our backyard. We have a nice little setup here. We have our little fireplace there, I have my little plant there, there's my car. I've been growing some tomatoes and some basil. I try to grow carrots, tomatoes. Or not tomatoes, I do have tomatoes, other vegetables, and they didn't turn out well, they ended up -- LB: Didn't get any carrots? RA: But what happened? LB: We have a big vegetable garden, so you didn't get any carrots, they just didn't make it, is that the thing? RA: No, well I tried to germinate them or put them in the little cup and let it grow slowly. But we had one really bad rainstorm, and I should have just brought it in, and they just drowned. So I had cucumbers, carrots, green peppers, and so on. Now I just have basil, tomatoes, and I actually, interestingly enough, have done orange plants or mandarin plants. (laughs) I found I have somewhat of a green thumb, I guess half a green thumb, because I have much more experience with indoor plants. I have about seven, eight indoor plants right now, and somehow, I found a sprout growing out of one of them. Mother-in-law's tongue I guess is what it's called. (laughs) And it had -- LB: Which is kind of a politically incorrect thing to say. There are other names for that which I think we should think of, and I can't remember what it is. But it's more Latin, like a Latin designation, like the Latin, because really it's kind of rude. But (laughs). RA: Yes. Anyway, I found this sprout growing out of that plant, and I planted it in my -- I don't know if you can recognize it, it's right here. It just grew out of it, and my friend told me to just pick out a leaf and smell it to see what it smells like. And it smells like citrus. LB: Well there you go. Well that's great. RA: So it might be, I'm assuming it's an orange, but who knows? LB: Yeah, well once they grow, that's beautiful. So by the time that grows at the end of the season, you can dig it out and bring it inside, and it'll be lovely. Great. RA: Yeah. So I've been using this time to do some more planting. This is the first time I ever started to garden, and it's not huge ; it's not impressive quite yet, but that's just, you know, one little pot that I've been trying to work. LB: Sure, yeah. It's a good time to do that ; I think that growing things like that makes you feel really much more in control of the world. You know, there's something about that, that if you can eat something from your garden, you feel really like, okay I got this. (laughs) RA: And I'm looking forward to it. LB: Well that's great ; that's so great that you're doing that. So, you're saying that you're inviting people over and they can stay farther away, or your family can (inaudible) or something like that? RA: Yeah. LB: That's great. RA: And my mom wants to spend time with other relatives, so sometimes, she'll go to my cousin's house, for instance, to help babysit. And so, you know, when it comes to family, like we like to remain close. But other guests, not so much, like acquaintances, we like to keep a distance. LB: Yes. It's tough, but I think that there, you have to do a certain amount for your family to make everybody feel like there's cohesiveness I think, there's no question. So you have a partner so I'm not going to ask you about -- I have a question on here that talks about dating apps. So I don't know whether you're using that or not, but I'm not going to ask you anyway, since you have a partner, and I'm, you know, making my moral presumption on that. Let's see, so in terms of you being worried about the virus, do you have illness, you know, like preexisting conditions that worry you, or are you more concerned about other people around you or what do you think? RA: I don't have any preexisting conditions. I'm more so worried about other relatives, and other people, particularly folks that are more susceptible like older folks or immunocompromised folks. So for the most part I am fine, but it's selfish of me to not take the necessary precautions (inaudible). LB: Right, right. What, when you're working with the people who are at the place where you're volunteering for and where your partner is working full-time, are you seeing people that are sick there, or are they indicating that they're knowing about people who are sick? RA: Well, we have not heard any reports of anyone getting coronavirus or any of them saying that they knew someone, which is great ; it's good news. No news is good news. But we have, you know like I said, we have, we were trying to mitigate further infection by having these policies like no visitors. We have an electronic thermometer to test every person every single day. We also have hand sanitizer, and a lot of these items are either donated or provided by the org. LB: Yeah. What's the most frustrating thing, do you think, that's happening for you? How are you the most frustrated? RA: I think it's, I would say the most frustrating is just the uncertainty of the situation right now not knowing, or the unknown. And that creates a lot of anxiety for other people. I'm not an anxious person. (laughs) I would say for the most part I'm stress-free. I believe there are so many alternatives to dealing with stress and anxiety. You know, I practice my own person of, I guess, a makeshift-type yoga and meditation almost every single day, and I'm very blessed to have, you know, the love and support of, you know, friends and family members, and even, I feel like now I've been trying to take action more than ever, you know in addition to helping out at TLC, I've also applied for grants for a community action project. And they're helping to fund initiatives to not just help TLC, but work on highlighting the needs of low-income communities, and in additional to TLC, Crispus Attucks, and it's a black-owned organization focused on equity and inclusion and they have a food bank every week and they provide these folks in the southeast of the city, which is the most condensed and racially-diverse part of the city. And so through this grant, I was able to purchase carts, pushcarts for folks to use for necessary items, and work with a graphic designer to produce a video to let folks know that there are people who are going through a difficult situation, whether it's having to go to a foodbank, or being homeless. And what you can do to take part, whether that means donating food, or Crispus Attucks does need, you know, people with muscle, folks that can help back these boxes, and I myself have packed, I would say at this point, hundreds of boxes. in the last few months. You know, they give out every, like I said every week, every Wednesday at that, at least 300 boxes. It used to be where folks would have to come in and show their ID, but now it's just, that food is provided to the Central PA food bank at no cost, without any, you know, folks just, take your food, take what you need. If you can't use it, then pass it along to your neighbor. And so my goal was to not just provide those pushcarts to help out folks, but to also highlight those needs and what folks can do to take action. LB: So, is there a TLC in Easton? RA: I couldn't tell you. I think I've heard of something (inaudible) -- LB: Is that a whole thick -- RA: -- but they're not affiliated. LB: Is it, oh it's not affiliated, okay, because it sounds like they have a similar program with the food distribution and stuff. RA: Well that's through Crispus Attucks ; TLC is the shelter. LB: Oh, I see. So is TLC a network across the state? Or one that's called TLC in Lancaster? RA: Correct, correct. And it's through Tabor Community Services, and they've been in existence for over thirty years. It used to be an old hotel ; it was called the King Douglas Hotel in Lancaster City, and so a couple purchased the building and just converted it into a shelter for those experiencing homelessness in the mid-eighties. LB: Oh, there you go. Looks pretty interesting. What -- RA: It's a little unique. LB: It is, although I think that that happens to hotels, or you know, places that have multiple rooms like that that are harder to figure out what to do with when they're older. So you've just described your mental health as pretty good ; you sound like you're in pretty good shape as far as that goes. RA: Yeah. LB: Are you getting exercise, or do you just normally have exercise from your job? RA: (laughs) Well I am lucky because I live walking distance to Lancaster County Central Park. And they have amazing hiking trails. The Conestoga River crosses right through the park. And so I hike at least four times a week, I would say, at least. And especially in the summer where it's nice. Even if it's hot out, just put on a pair of shorts and t-shirt, sneakers, good to go. LB: Good for you ; that's great that you're getting the exercise. RA: For sure. And then what also motivates me to do that is that, I recently signed up for a leadership cohort through the Lancaster Clean Water Partners. It's like a year program regarding leadership development and how to take collective action for clean water, sustainability and conversation in Lancaster. It's a grant they were provided through Penn State and the Lancaster Conservancy. Like I said, it's the Clean Water Partners. It's a partnership, and so we meet monthly. We used to meet in person, but obviously we had to transition to Zoom. And so, I've always wanted to do sustainable work and conservation, and I love the environment, and you know, learning about what's being done in Lancaster, and what I can do to, you know, help to take collective action for clean water, is one thing that I'm passionate about. And going out to the park and also participating in this leadership cohort, you know, makes me more appreciative, not just, you know, mentally, but also emotionally, and even physically, for that matter. LB: So what's involved with the Leadership? It's a program that is helping you to do, attain leadership skills? Or it's providing you as a leader? How does that -- RA: Kind of both. So each session is different. We had a county tour, for instance, where we visited local water treatment facilities. And then another one, we also visited a water sewage treatment facility, and what is being done for water quality. You know, we all drink water, we all take showers, or at least we would hope, so. But where does that water go? How is it treated? And even what businesses are doing with that water. For instance, what are beer distributors or brewers doing, because they heavily depend on water quality. Water in Lancaster is going to be different from water in the Lehigh Valley or even across the country in California, and so depending on your recipe and what the water is made up of, that'll change the flavor of not just beer, but products if you're a business owner. LB: How clean is the Conestoga River? RA: Not very clean. (laughs) From what I learned, less than twenty percent of the rivers and streams across Pennsylvania are up to par when it comes to the statewide standards regarding pollution and contamination. LB: And is that also because of upriver dumping, or is it coming from -- I'm just fascinated by this ; it doesn't have anything to do with COVID. RA: That's fine. LB: I wanted to know if that, you know, in places where I've lived, a great deal of the pollution comes from storm water overflow, or it comes from runoff from fertilizer. RA: Farms, yeah. LB: Or farms, or it comes from grass fertilizer, where particularly in suburban areas that clog -- that cause the algae to bloom and grow because they're fertilizing this algae that shouldn't have all this artificial fertilizer, and it clogs, it looks awful actually. RA: Yeah, and not just that, but you know, we have fracking going on in Pennsylvania, and that's a huge issue. And most recently, Maryland is suing Pennsylvania for not taking steps to mitigation pollution and contamination, and it's affecting Maryland's livelihood, particularly around the water, or rather the fishing industry and crabbing industry. LB: Yeah, so it's running through the River Susquehanna and the -- RA: Oh my goodness, over forty streams and rivers empty out into the estuary in the Chesapeake out into the Atlantic Ocean. LB: It's got to go someplace ; that's where it goes. RA: Yeah. (laughs) LB: Ugh, it's terrible. So, I'm glad that there are people that are looking after that ; that's very, very [important?]. It's, yeah. And you know, it's interesting that where I grew up, which was a quite affluent area of Connecticut, the whole east coast along the Long Island Sound was totally fouled by the fact that people put so much fertilizer in their grass, and then weed killer too, that it's just like, you know, and people think oh, it's so beautiful here, and everything, it's like yeah, you just killed everything. RA: Right, exactly, and I always say, and I keep repeating myself, you know, the work that we do, or our future depends on the work that we do now, and there is no plan B. If we don't save our environment, then you know, and I would say that it's one of our most, not just important, but pressing issues around the globe. LB: Yeah, that's definitely true. I have a very good, very, very close friend who's from Morocco. What happened? Oh, there you are. (laughs) RA: I just saw a notification ; I had to close it off, yeah. LB: Oh, who's from Morocco, and another friend of ours went to visit her in Morocco, visit her family, and they went to the part of the sea there, part of the Mediterranean that's there, that comes up to the coast, and the entire beach area and everything was completely unusable, just completely, just devastated, like you couldn't even, like the worst, horrible pollution that you could even imagine. You couldn't even put your foot in it, you know? And it's a beach ; the beautiful beach area. But it's just totally fouled, and what we're doing in the United States is exactly the same. It's just, well, you know, it doesn't matter, we'll just do it a little bit more, and we'll just me, and we have that, we have no leadership that is stopping that from happening. Let's talk a little bit about Black Lives Matter, because I don't think we can talk about COVID-19 without talking about -- RA: Sorry, I just had to say bye to my partner. Say hi. LB: Bye! IAN: Bye! LB: Have a good day. IAN: Nice to meet you, I'm Ian. LB: Nice to meet you. RA: He has to get going to work. LB: What a nice beard. RA: Yeah, he starts at four. LB: Oh. What did he say? I didn't hear him. RA: Oh, what am I going to do to get the car. I'll get the car later on. Sometimes I drop him off, but it's fine. LB: Oh. Do you own your house? RA: We don't, it's a rental. LB: Because it's old. RA: What? LB: Your house looks like, just from those bricks, it looks like it's from the 1800s. RA: I wouldn't, I couldn't tell you. We would love to buy a house. Sadly as LGBT people of color it's a little more difficult. And plus we want to do more traveling. Maybe in my mid-thirties, I just turned thirty. Or rather, I'd be thirty-one in February, so I'm in no rush to buy a house. LB: Yeah, it's just as well. Things are a little uncertain right now ; it's probably not a good idea to make that kind of choice. RA: Yeah, that's -- LB: Other people are saying it's a great time to buy and sell a house. I don't know why that is, but they're saying that. I think it's because people are paying so much attention to their houses right now because they're stuck in them. So, I'm really seeing that. But I was going to say that I don't think that we can talk about COVID-19 without talking about the current political situation and Black Lives Matter, so let's talk about Black Lives Matter a little bit, you want to say some things about that. RA: Yeah, so my partner is black and Puerto Rican. Very strong African roots in his family. Very strong Caribbean, indigenous, and even Spanish roots. His whole family speaks Spanish, and he's been highlighting that intersection of Latinx and black communities and LGBTQ+ folks, and he falls in all of that. (laughs) And so we've been fighting for black lives for years. I remember when Joey Santos was shot and killed in front of Dorney Park years ago, and here we are fighting the same fight. But we believe that black lives do matter, and that we need to push for comprehensive, not just reform, but you know, the whole system needs to change, it needs to be dismantled. You know, but that's going to take a lot of work. We need to be bold ; we need to be brave. But at the end of the day, know that we're in this together, and if your liberation is bound with ours, or rather, what is that quote? They always say, if you're here to help me, you're wasting your time, but if your liberation is bound with mine, then let's do something together. And I wholeheartedly believe that. And here in Lancaster, and even in the Lehigh Valley most recently with the officer that put his knee on a black man's neck -- yeah, you would think that the cops would learn, but you know, there's no negotiating with white supremacists and racists, especially when they are used to the power, and they oftentimes abuse it. And we even see it within the LGBTQ+ community, the reason why we have pride is because the police raided Stonewall fifty-one years ago, and trans, brown, and black folks decided to fight back against that abuse of power and police brutality. And here we are, we're still fighting police brutality and abuse of power. LB: Yeah, there's no question, that was just a few blocks from my house where that happened with the police officer. I've worked with the police before and I'm not surprised by that happening, and I'm not surprised by them already dragging their feet with regard to what (inaudible), and then they did it. And then they said, well not this time. And I'm not surprised that they released a nine-minute video that happened to be from a CCTV across the street, and that nine-minute video, I don't know if you've seen that, the longer video, is actually goes, the police officer when he's first handcuffing your guy with the other people after they've thrown him to the ground, after they've kicked him to the ground, which is what he did, he said, the police said that he fell down, but then you can see that that's not true at all, they kicked his feet out from under him and pushed him to the ground. They're trying to handcuff him and the guy kneels on his neck. But then, but people say well, you know, but then, about two minutes later after he's been handcuffed completely there the police are no longer touching him, and the police officer says something to him and he raises his head up about an inch, and the police officer knees his head right back down into the ground again. And he's handcuffed, there's absolutely, you know, so even the ridiculous sort of excuses of the first action, there was no excuse for the second action. Absolutely assault ; it's against this person who was completely unable to move at all, and then to have a police officer do that. And it's a terrible situation because I think that, you know, it's based on white supremacy but it's also based in police power. Those two things are so closely related. But there are also a lot to do with the training of the police which causes anybody who's a police officer to feel like (inaudible) it's even if they're not white, frankly. And working with guys who are unbelievably scary. RA: Yeah, and the police enforcement has a long history of discrimination and brutality and if you look at its inception, you know it was born to, out of a need within the white community to capture escaped slaves. And you can see some of those roots, or remnants are still, you know, still exist, whether people realize it or not. LB: And then, people will say that the militarization of the police started during the civil rights movement in the 1960s. You know, these people have rights ; now we're going to have to have the police officers to have machine guns and AK-47s, and dogs, and stuff like this, which actually, it was a different kind of attitude in the earlier parts of, where every police officer didn't carry a gun, for example. Most police officers didn't carry a gun, and in other countries where police officers don't carry guns. So. RA: Yeah, I don't carry a gun, and I don't feel safe around someone that carries a gun. There should be no reason why you need a gun around at all whatsoever. LB: Yeah, I think that's true, and I think that people really put themselves at risk if they advocate to proliferate arms. It just makes it scarier and scarier. I don't think that helps anything. I do think that the rapid action to marching and protesting and speaking out and photographing and talking about it is a very positive thing that I've been seeing ; I'm very excited about that. RA: Yeah, it seems like folks aren't just waking up, but you know, they're having these very difficult conversations, including you know, religion, anything LGBTQ+, and you know, these are, and politics, and these are things that you don't talk about at the dinner table. LB: Yeah, I don't think many people -- I mean, I've talked to a lot of people ; I have to say that, I haven't interviewed anybody who said, yeah, I'm not wearing a mask, and I think that, you know, I don't interview people like that because I'm not interested in reaching out to that population, but also, I'm only interviewing people who are part of the queer population, and frankly, I'm not coming across a lot of people in the queer community saying, yeah, go ahead and kill everybody, I don't care, as long as I'm alive ; I'm just not finding within our own community. There are people but not people who are going to talk to me, because they know I'll [yell at them?]. So, you know, I know that there are people who want to get back to work. And I was just talking, the last person I spoke to just before you was a person who's retired now, but he was a schoolteacher and he was talking about all the ramifications of sending kids back to school. And pointing out all sorts of reasons why that's just not going to work. He was talking about, he was a music teacher, and he came in contact with, of three schools, with every single kid in a week, he would come in contact with every single one of those kids, and so his potential for spreading it himself to all of those people, or having all of those kids in contact with him, he said, you know, if I were there, I'd get sick ; how can I not? I'm coming in contact with, you know, 800 kids. RA: Oh my goodness. LB: And you know, it's only one kid. And he was also talking about, this is pretty interesting, he was talking about how most inner-city schools, and I'm sure this is true in Lancaster public schools too, they all don't have air conditioning. A lot of inner-city schools in Allentown are not air conditioned, or only parts of them are air conditioned. And even some of the more recently built buildings are not air conditioned. So as a result, they will take kids who are in rooms where it's very, very hot, and they'll take all the hot rooms and bring them down to the air-conditioned rooms. So now you don't just have one class of kid, you have fifty kids. And how do you keep those kids from not infecting each other? Or you leave them in the room where it's one hundred and one degrees, or you bring them to a room where there's fifty kids, and a bunch of them have their masks down like this because they don't know how to wear them. So, it was really interesting what he said ; I hadn't even thought about that. And he said, oh yeah, I think about that every day. RA: Yeah, and then the whole, going back and forth right now, school districts don't know whether to open or close, and there's just so much controversy. LB: Yeah, and it's really based in greed. I mean, the only reason to open schools is so that you can let parents go back to work so that they can do minimum wage jobs to support rich people. Because truthfully, you know, we need to be able to -- parents need to be able to stay home with their kids right now. And yeah, they need money. But who really needs, you know? I was talking to one of the people I interviewed that has a daughter who has a congenital heart defect, and she was called back to work because she's an essential worker because she's a waitress ; she's a food service person, where she makes below minimum wage and the restaurant wasn't using precautions. There were people that were sick there, and her mother said to me, if she gets sick, she's going to die. But if she doesn't go to work, she's going to lose her job. Because they told her, if you don't come to work, it's your resignation. She said, but you're not -- nobody's got a mask on here. I'm coming in contact with all these people, you know, particularly wait staff because people who are eating are not wearing masks. So, and you know, this is not somebody who's making $300,000 a year as an essential worker. The most essential workers are the ones who don't make any money. RA: Yeah, minimum wage jobs. LB: Yeah, yeah. Warehouse workers, talk to people who are warehouse workers, and the dangers in their circumstances are very, very high. So okay, I think you were covering most of the stuff. So you seem to be in pretty good shape, I have to say, Ricardo, that you're the most stable person I've talked to, the last eighteen people. RA: Appreciate it. LB: And you're giving me a great deal of hope. What other things give you hope about right now? RA: What gives me hope is, oh my goodness, that's a big question. (laughs) What gives me hope is the prospective of a better future, that we'll get over this pandemic, that we'll be able to live full, authentic lives, and that finally we're highlighting black lives, but also trans lives and LGBTQ+ lives, and that we're highlighting that intersection and the need to lift those voices. And just because a group is gaining more rights doesn't take away someone else's. (laughs) That's not how -- LB: We're not rationing rights. RA: Yes, yes. I never understood that rationale. But what gives me hope is that we're putting in the work, that we're taking collective action, that I'm meeting with so many organizations, so many leaders on the ground, or rather on the computer (laughs) doing amazing things from virtual workshops, training sessions, webinars, community forums, and building relationships with legislators, people that are decision-makers, and building those relationships with their constituents, and that's part of the work that I'll be doing too. LB: Are you finding some positive things from people who are in the statehouse and stuff? I mean -- RA: So the statehouse is majority Democratic ; however the state senate, not so much. So we're having some trouble, and I recently met an open queer person of color, Malcolm Kenyatta from the Philadelphia area, and he's been championing COVID relief and raising the wage, and talking about, you know, the hypocrisy within the Republican Party, and highlighting that it's not a political issue ; it's a human issue. It just so happens that Republicans time and time again are trying to take away our healthcare, and they don't want to pay it. And sadly, they have the wealth, they have the representation, and the power, and so we want a more evenly distribution of that wealth, and we'll do that at any cost necessary, or rather, any means necessary. LB: I think it's true, you know, people have often, and I've been fighting for equal rights for the LGBT community and other communities for my whole career, and for years and years and years, and a long time ago, when we were fighting to pass the anti-discrimination ordinance in the city of Allentown, which was the first passage that included gender identity in the state ; nobody else had gender identity anything, not Philadelphia, anything, it was just Allentown. The effort to pass it started in 1998, and we were successful, and finally successful in 2002. RA: Congratulations. LB: Thank you. And then after that, I mean there were only six communities that had nondiscrimination laws ; Lancaster was one of them, and Lancaster interpretively, the city of Lancaster interprets as inclusive of gender identity as well. But it didn't say gender identity in the law. So once we passed it in Allentown, now we have fifty-six, fifty-eight communities that have nondiscrimination laws that includes sexual orientation and gender identity. But it's still only a third, really a third of the state. But the thing that somebody told me way back then, and I think this has always been true, and I've read this in a variety of circumstances, no matter what disenfranchised group you're talking about, you cannot compromise for basic civil rights. You shouldn't do that, because the bottom line is, so people were saying to me when I was leading that effort to pass that law in Allentown, we had to add sexual orientation and gender identity into an existing law, and what they said, people were saying, just do sexual orientation, because gender identity's too edgy. And my response to that is, look, you know, our enemies would deny us oxygen if they could. And there are people in the statehouse of the state of Pennsylvania that would do that. They would just deny us oxygen ; they'd deny us the right to live in the state. And so, if they would deny you oxygen, they're not going to be satisfied with a compromise. And you shouldn't be either. Don't compromise, because you know, this is just a question of basic civil rights, the right to housing, the right to employment, the right to healthcare, the right to economic distribution, the right to education, all of those things are just regular things. It's what every American, every person in America should be able to presume is their right to have, and it is ; it is. RA: Yeah, in college, sorry to cut you off, you just reminded me of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? And if you take care of our basic needs first, we can continue up the ladder to potentially self-actualize, or self-realize. The main issues are, imagine how much our communities could thrive if we had guaranteed housing, quality education, clean air, clean water, clothing. All of these issues that are basic human necessities, if they were guaranteed to all of us, how much further along when it comes to progress and development could we be in ten, fifteen, twenty, one hundred years down the road? But because folks, you know are apprehensive to change or they just don't care enough to create that change -- LB: They're incredibly short-sighted. It's short-sighted (inaudible) because if you have a living wage, a living minimum wage, it improves and makes a robust economy ; it just does. So if you're looking at it purely from the viewpoint of greed, which is often the other side's viewpoint, pretty much it's the entire viewpoint, it's incredibly short-sighted to say, well we're not going to spend the money to give this population, this worker population a living wage because it will come out of our pockets. But it really doesn't, because if you pay people living wage, frankly, that's the whole basis of capitalism. Now you have people, even one of the most dastardly capitalists in the world, Henry Ford, who started Ford cars and changed the whole circumstance, he said, I want to produce a car that my own employees could buy. And so, you know, it has to be a good, cheap thing, and I have to pay them enough so that we can continue this American project which is based in capitalism. Capitalism has become this enormous seesaw of the incredibly rich and the incredibly poor, and the poor are the workers. And one thing we've totally seen about COVID-19 is without people who are making minimum wage, everything grinds to a halt. We can't do anything you know? Now you have to spend millions of tax, billions of tax dollars to just make it so that this population is still going to be able to come back to work when things open. I mean, that's speaking from a totally greed basis, which is a terrible basis to look at anything. But it's ridiculously short-sighted to say, well we're not going to pay you, but we want you to buy our computers. Or we want you to buy food in the grocery store. But we're not going to give you any money to do it. Well, that's not going to work. You know, and we also know that corporations, or companies that are justice-based will actually do that and it doesn't hurt their profit margin at all. Like Costco, or Ben & ; Jerry's or something like that who just pay a living wage. They pay a living wage, and they pay their workers, and they pay for their worker's healthcare, so what comes out is a real sense of support. You know the workers themselves have a sense of loyalty to their employer, and they work hard, instead of thinking, well, they don't care anything about me. You know, it's just a bad circumstance ; it always comes from greed. RA: Exactly, and they're the same ones that want to bust unions, and intimidate workers from former unions. And unions have a long history of creating change. That's the reason why we have a 40-hour workweek, or why we don't have children working in factories anymore, and why we have benefits, or why we have vacation time and all of these other benefits. And then you have folks who don't realize how important unions are, and because it's so anti-capitalist and more people-oriented, bosses and the rich are intimidated by the people, by unions, because ultimately, or rather at the end of the day, you can have a million executives, but if you have not one worker, what's the point? LB: Right, it's really true. Well you're certainly right about that ; it's been a joy talking to you, as I'm so pleased to be able to do that. So the last part of this, you know, that we're hoping somebody people will be looking at these videos, 30 or 40 years, you'll still be around. RA: (laughs) I hope so. LB: Of these, well I'm sure you are. Look at how healthy you are. And I want to give you an opportunity, and I want to encourage you to give a message to those people that are looking at this video sometimes in the future and say, you know, something about now, and you know, something that's sort of positive for them to think of. What can you think of that you would say to something -- RA: Yeah, sure. So things might look a little stark ; we're in the middle of a global pandemic. We have constant rioting, we have violence. But in the midst of all that, there is good, there is love, there is support, support for black folks, for LGBTQ-plus folks, for folks in the Latinx community, for refugees, for folks that are disabled. We're all in this together, and it's July 20th, 2020, but I hope that when you see this video, things are much better, and I know that, you know, with the work that we're doing now, we can together collectively develop policy solutions for some of the major problems we're facing, not just today, but hopefully, by the time you see this, these problems will be long resolved. LB: I hope so. RA: But again, we're in this together, and we just have to stay persistent. We have to keep pushing, and we have to lean in. We have no other option. We can't sit idly by, and the time was yesterday, but at least there are people doing it, and we're doing it boldly, courageously, but we're not alone. Like I said, we're in this together. LB: Yeah. Well thank you very, very much for talking to me and taking an hour and a little bit more out of your day to do this. I really appreciate it very, very much and everybody who will see this will appreciate it as well. And I love everything you said, and you give me a great deal of hope, so thank you for doing that. And I appreciate it, so what you'll get a transcript of this, and as soon as they're finished transcribing it, we send them to another college and they fix that, and then they give it back to us, so thank you again, and have a great day, and have a great weekend. Keep up the good work. RA: Yes, great. Thank you so much for inviting me, and I hope we stay in touch, and I'm sure we'll cross paths again soon. LB: I hope so. Okay, bye-bye. RA: All right. END OF AUDIO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile=
Duration
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01:08:39
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Title
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Ricardo Almodovar, July 20, 2020
Description
An account of the resource
In this interview, Almodovar and Bradbury talk about how people's lives have been impacted under the pandemic, and how LGBTQ+ people fit in a pandemic. They talk about the problems in Allentown and Lancaster while even mentioning their own families. Ultimately, this interview generally talks about the effects of the pandemic in both the Allentown and Lancaster community.
Identifier
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PH40_27
Subject
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COVID-19
Date
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2020-07-20
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs.
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https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/cdc99d3b24ac646ed797b97a6ef82588.png
3d26eede949bfff0f4779133974844fa
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: COVID-19
Description
An account of the resource
In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19.
The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism.
The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Liz Bradbury
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Steve Ziminsky
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Viewer)
https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_28.xml
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5.4 July 20, 2020 Steve Ziminsky, July 20, 2020 PH40_28 01:03:13 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- COVID-19 (Disease) Steve Ziminsky Liz Bradbury video/mpeg ZiminskySteve_20200720_video.mp4 1.0:|27(4)|58(8)|85(9)|122(3)|159(3)|202(10)|237(12)|270(9)|311(5)|344(11)|375(6)|420(4)|453(6)|486(6)|520(2)|551(3)|588(5)|623(3)|658(6)|687(12)|722(2)|751(9)|780(10)|813(8)|848(7)|879(13)|910(5)|939(15)|972(2)|1003(2)|1038(2)|1079(5)|1110(19)|1135(12)|1170(11)|1207(10)|1240(8)|1271(7)|1302(15)|1335(9)|1360(19)|1387(7)|1422(17)|1449(13)|1494(4)|1525(13)|1550(13)|1577(14)|1610(10)|1639(11)|1666(8)|1695(3)|1722(14)|1759(13)|1784(3)|1809(15)|1842(2)|1871(9)|1914(2)|1949(5)|1982(13)|2011(3)|2038(9)|2049(5) 0 https://youtu.be/a2d1k9Md7qI YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction LIZ BRADBURY: And I’m also going to turn on my audio recording backup, when...
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 ; STEVE ZIMINSKY: (coughs) Getting louder on this end. Good.
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 ; LB: Oh, is it better? Can you hear me okay?
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 ; SZ: I see it says, “Recording.”
 ; 0 286 Working part-time at Grace Lutheran Church in Macungie during the pandemic LB: So talk about... So you’re not working now. So that’s a good thing, compared to other teachers, like.
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 ; SZ: I’m a retired music teacher, almost thirty-three years in music ed. But I’m also -- am working my part-time job. The church never closed. So we’re doing video services each week.
 ; 0 400 Grace Lutheran operations during the pandemic LB: So h--? So you’re working. And was that plan all -- that they would just continue, right away? Were they closed at all during that time, the church?
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 ; SZ: They really weren’t closed. There was one week, March 15th, where it was kind of optional for staff, if we wanted to come. And I just didn’t feel right that day. So I thought, “I’ll stay away.” But ever since March 15th... And we even did some Wednesday services. They’re all on YouTube. 0 433 Changed vacation plans due to pandemic SZ: And then I even got my vacation Sundays. And even though I’m not going anywhere... Anywhere I was going to go is all canceled or postponed to next year. But I at least got a chance to get some time off. And we had (inaudible) figure in advance. I did get some time off.
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 ; LB: Did you have a vacation plan?
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 ; SZ: The one week, no, and one week, yes. This coming Sunday, I probably would have been going... I was really thinking of going to New Orleans.
 ; 0 454 Postponed Black and White Men Together conference in New Orleans, Louisiana SZ: The one week, no, and one week, yes. This coming Sunday, I probably would have been going... I was really thinking of going to New Orleans.
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 ; LB: Ah!
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 ; SZ: There’s a convention that was going to be held there. And then we start seeing... New Orleans really had an outbreak there. And I didn’t even buy the airline ticket. That’s when, I think, you’re really committed, when you buy the airline ticket. I’m so... And so they’re talking next year. But they’re also talking a video element to the convention. So if you don’t want to risk things and do that -- you can watch the key parts right online, like this.
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 ; LB: And that’s a convention for people who are music...?
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 ; SZ: Well, actually it’s a gay-related convention --
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 ; LB: Oh!
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 ; SZ: -- Black and White Men Together.
 ; 0 502 Socializing through Zoom LB: So have you been communicating with a lot of people? Like have you done other Zoom things and...? Probably ha--
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 ; SZ: Oh, plenty of Zoom things. In fact, the most unusual one is I belong to several eating groups. We would get together like once a month. And so now what we do is go out to a restaurant or a place, bring something back, put it on our desk here, and eat and watch each other.
 ; 0 570 Communication with family LB: So are you communicating with other people? Like...? Do you have family around and that stuff?
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 ; SZ: Not really in this area. I do have living family. But the parents are dead. The grandparents are dead. The cousins are spread all over the country. I think the closest one is up in the Poconos area. And I haven’t really communicated there too much. And there’s some in Florida. And on the other side of the family, one of the things that really kind of hit was that one of my former roommates, as well as my aunt, who is now ninety-one... Sh-- I happened to visit her in early March. And then, all of a sudden, you know, no more visits anywhere, for either of those two. And then she was transferred to a different nursing home. And I’m not the power of attorney. But another one of my cousins is. And all of sudden, you found out, “Oh, by the way, she’s been moved.” So... She’s kind of death -- profoundly deaf and really is very quiet. So she never got to see the new nursing home. They just put her in a room. They bring the food to you. And it’s been this way for several months. And then the same thing with the former roommate that was here for ten years. And he’s over at ManorCare, in Bethlehem.
 ; 0 594 Inability to visit former roommate and aunt in their respective nursing homes SZ: And on the other side of the family, one of the things that really kind of hit was that one of my former roommates, as well as my aunt, who is now ninety-one... Sh-- I happened to visit her in early March. And then, all of a sudden, you know, no more visits anywhere, for either of those two. And then she was transferred to a different nursing home. And I’m not the power of attorney. But another one of my cousins is. And all of sudden, you found out, “Oh, by the way, she’s been moved.” So... She’s kind of death -- profoundly deaf and really is very quiet. So she never got to see the new nursing home. They just put her in a room. They bring the food to you. And it’s been this way for several months. And then the same thing with the former roommate that was here for ten years. And he’s over at ManorCare, in Bethlehem.
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 ; LB: Liam?
 ; 0 654 Video chatting with former roommate, Liam, living at ManorCare, Bethlehem SZ: At least ManorCare is having these weekly video chats -- (dog coughing) and they usually are pretty good about. [00:11:00] Thursday, the phone rings. And you get to see him, get to talk. And he did have COVID. I’m trying to think of some of those questions you had on your list there --
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 ; LB: Yeah.
 ; 0 680 Liam testing positive for/Living with Covid-19 LB: Okay. So Liam was sick?
 ; 
 ; SZ: Yes. And they gave him like... I think it was the third test he tested positive on. The first two, no. But he had always that, kind of... He’s very weak. And so then they said he had COVID. And then they kind of moved him to a different room. And it turned out the whole place... They were sending out emails like a lot. And they were up to over one hundred people --
 ; 0 696 Moving Liam and many other Covid-positive patients to different rooms/ManorCare location and layout
 ; SZ: And then they kind of moved him to a different room. And it turned out the whole place... They were sending out emails like a lot. And they were up to over one hundred people --
 ; 
 ; LB: Wow.
 ; 
 ; SZ: -- including patients and staff. And it’s only a four-story building. And... 0 724 Spread of Covid-19 to the ManorCare 2029 building SZ: But the 2029 for a while didn’t have it. And then, all of a sudden, it just hit. And it’s not from the visitors, because there are not visitors. And we went -- just couldn’t wait till each week. And they finally got a way to communicate. You could talk to them. And he’s hoping to get back to his room. But again, he’s moved to another room. The rooms are all the same -- the same floor. It’s just down the hallway a little bit more. So, fine, you know?
 ; 0 752 Why Liam and other patients were moved/ManorCare protocols LB: They moved him to a different room, because they thought the room was contaminated or something?
 ; 
 ; SZ: Well, he had it. And then his first roommate, who he’s had quite a while --
 ; 
 ; LB: Oh, I see 0 811 Liam's other illnesses/Vulnerability of older people to Covid-19 LB: Ah. Well, Liam has other illnesses, doesn’t he?
 ; 
 ; SZ: Yeah. He has quite a few things. And so he’s kind of confined to his bed. But he is talking. I mean, his mind is fine.
 ; 
 ; LB: Yeah. Is he about your age?
 ; 0 887 Video chatting with Liam via Duo LB: So you’ve been talking to him via like a Zoom thing or just on the phone or...?
 ; 
 ; SZ: It’s called Duo.
 ; 
 ; LB: Oh.
 ; 
 ; SZ: Yeah. That’s what they use. So I had to... 0 903 Possibly catching Covid-19/ Cancelling plans because of Covid-19 LB: What’s your biggest concern about this? Are you concerned about you getting it?
 ; 
 ; SZ: I can’t prove that I had it but I think I did.
 ; 
 ; LB: Oh, yeah?
 ; 0 978 Possible Covid-19 symptoms/No such diagnosis as Covid-19 at the time LB: Did you have a sense of smell?
 ; 
 ; SZ: I don’t remember that.
 ; 
 ; LB: They say...
 ; 
 ; SZ: But I do remember my appetite was down.
 ; 
 ; LB: Well, that’s a big thing. Yeah.
 ; 0 1046 Virtual doctor's visits LB: I guess that you could, at the hospital, have them check to see if you have antibodies in your blood.
 ; 
 ; SZ: Yeah, but... I have to wait for my next doctor visit. And at least it’ll be in person. My last doctor visit was over like something like this. 0 1083 Possible inaccurate diagnosis of bronchitis SZ: I mentioned it to the doctor and she thought that, “No, you had something else, bronchitis of some kind.” Well, it could be that too. Because a lot of bronchitis symptoms are similar too. And I was really pushing it.
 ; 
 ; LB: I don’t know. The things that you’re describing, though, they’re some... I’ve had bronchitis and I didn’t have diarrhea from it. 0 1142 Recovery process/Covid-19 affecting people differently SZ: And as it was, I went home and I took it real easy. And I could eat again. And everything kind of went back to being fine. But I never had it where... All your insides were rumbling there, while we were waiting for the bus. It was...
 ; 
 ; LB: Well...
 ; 
 ; SZ: I don’t want to chance this, so...
 ; 0 1196 Biggest concerns regarding the pandemic and the LGBT community/Protesting with Black Lives Matter, anti-Trump protests LB: So what’s your biggest concern during the pandemic, in terms of the LGBT community? What do you think about that?
 ; 
 ; SZ: Well, we’re all trying to survive. Yesterday I got to see part of the Reading pride festival online.
 ; 0 1299 Thoughts on Dr. Rachel Levine/Governor Tom Wolf LB: So how about being able to see Rachel Levine, on the videos tha-- Dr. Rachel Levine, who’s our Secretary of Health? That’s been a pretty positive thing for me. I don’t know about you. How do you feel about that?
 ; 
 ; SZ: Very positive. I don’t watch every single day. But sometimes you’re at your phone and, all of a sudden, “Oh, [00:22:00] the governor’s coming on.” And usually, Rachel’s on. And she’s very good. And it’s a very public spot. And usually the advice is right. I’m very enthusiastic about the governor too. Because he’s under a lot of pressure.
 ; 0 1345 Thoughts on school openings LB: Well, as a teacher or as a retired teacher... Because you were a teacher for a long, long, long time, in the Allentown School District, and from school to school. So you really traveled around from school to school. What do you think about opening schools?
 ; 
 ; SZ: They should stay online, no matter what it is. I know it’s not as good as in person. And I was sharing some things on Facebook about this. But if I think of my last schedule that I had, I had two schools. I was six days at one school and two days at another school. And in eight days, [00:23:00] eight school days, you saw every child once. Now imagine if, around day eight... You know, the first few days -- probably going to go really well. But then, all of a sudden, if one teacher even has it, you’ve now exposed the entire school --
 ; 0 1525 Teacher friend's thoughts on school openings/Teachers leaving school before the pandemic LB: What about...? Have you talked to...? Because you were talking about going with other retired teachers on a trip. So... Or... And this teacher that -- you were talking, before we got on Zoom today -- that you went for a walk with... Who’s a current teacher?
 ; 
 ; SZ: Yes.
 ; 0 1580 Lack of communication over school openings/ Health dangers with school openings SZ: But you hear about all the online meetings but nothing’s been said. And it would be nice for them to know. Are we going to stay online? It would save the school district a lot of money. They have to go out and buy this stuff and adapt the buildings. And then, “Oh, we’re not doing that this year.”
 ; 
 ; LB: I can’t imagine that... I mean, if the guidelines for the state are that you’re not supposed to be in a circumstance where there’s more than 250 people... Well, really, a school, even though you have classrooms, the kids are circulating around, though. So I don’t know if we have --
 ; 0 1814 Historic lack of air conditioning in schools LB: They’ve closed schools just for flu, in the past, or for measles outbreak or for something.
 ; 
 ; SZ: Or today, for heat.
 ; 
 ; LB: For what?
 ; 
 ; SZ: Heat. Some of our buildings aren’t air con--
 ; 
 ; LB: Oh, heat. I...
 ; 
 ; SZ: If you’re in Florida there, it gets brutal! 0 1953 Dealing with lack of air conditioning and social distancing LB: So what that would do is create situations, particularly in September, when it can still be very, very hot, where they would try to move kids -- or normally they would move kids to rooms that had air conditioning. So it’d be more kids in one space.
 ; 
 ; SZ: But then there you are, as a... You’re a kid in the air conditioned room. And now other kids are coming to join you. And then, are they going to kick you out?
 ; 
 ; LB: Yeah. Yeah.
 ; 0 1991 Students and teachers wanting to return to school/lack of student social development SZ: But I have one friend who is going to be seventy-four in December, and hasn’t had it or anything. But his wife is very -- she has lupus -- much younger than him. His son is nineteen, just finished L-Tri-C and going to Kutztown. And if one of those gets it and brings it home, that could really... But he’s had two heart attacks, got diabetes -- almost seventy-four. And, oh, yeah, he wants to go back. Like, well... So there are some teachers, they want to go back. But it’s like, why?
 ; 0 2074 Possibility of students infecting each other LB: --the problem is, though, that those kids will still infect each other. And --
 ; 
 ; SZ: They could. Yeah.
 ; 
 ; LB: -- it’s impossible to not h--
 ; 
 ; SZ: A huge room and a lot of computers.
 ; 
 ; LB: I don’t see how they could do that. I don’t see how you could have a group of twenty kids in one room and not have them carrying an illness, no matter what they did. I mean, you just can’t keep kids from... It’s like saying, “Well, you know, of course they’ll wash their hands every single time they go to the bathroom.”
 ; 0 2124 Use of queer dating or hookup apps LB: Oh, here’s a good question. Have you spent any time on queer dating or hookup apps?
 ; 
 ; SZ: Not really. Because it doesn’t matter if they’re in another country or in your state or just down the road. The chance of actually meeting somebody, it’s a bit of a risk.
 ; 
 ; LB: Yeah, that’s true. That’s true.
 ; 0 2179 Pandemic affecting restaurant music jobs LB: So in general, has it affected your life pretty significantly? What’s the biggest effect that it’s had on your life?
 ; 
 ; SZ: Well, biggest thing is you do have to stay in a lot more. And I had a piano-playing job in a restaurant.
 ; 
 ; LB: Oh, yeah.
 ; 0 2292 Discussion of limited capacity at venues SZ: But it’s like -- it’s really unsafe now. Now, that same place has an outdoor pavilion. But you’re talking September, October? You know. That’s kind of rough. And then we have a big job up in the Poconos, almost near New York State. And that’s in October. And, yeah, we have a date. It’s a beautiful facility. It’s a beautiful area. But again you’re talking probably several hundred people. Then they’re going to bring in German dancers. I just don’t think that’s going to happen this year. 0 2382 Grace Lutheran Church at limited capacity/ Popularity of events through streaming, Zoom SZ: And that’s why I’m happy that the church is doing something. And then, with this cutback, we were, again, making plans to reopen in August. And now it looks like, well, maybe September or later. And as the church musician, I’m looking ahead and thinking, “What are we doing to do for Christmas?” And [00:40:00] all the things that happen around the Christmas season... It’s like, well, I think we’re just going to, you know... And then, when you find out and you have to go through the denomination, you have to go through the state guidelines too -- but when you find out what you can actually do in a church service, live, according to the official rule, there’s not much at all. And so they’re getting more to watch the video than they are if you actually showed up.
 ; 0 2502 Health risks of having in-person events LB: Now, we have some people who have said that they don’t want to do it on Zoom. And Adrian has said, “Well, you know, some people won’t do it on Zoom. They only will do it in public. So if we can open for the public for some of our support groups, that would be a good thing.” But I don’t know. Because, [00:42:00] you know, if we make somebody sick, it’s going to look awful bad.
 ; 
 ; SZ: And if it stays in the air or got on something they touched and then somebody else touches it... Bathrooms... 0 2565 Walking at the Lehigh Parkway and Trexler Park/ Health concerns while walking LB: So you’ve been going to the park a lot, to go for walks?
 ; 
 ; SZ: Two to three times a week.
 ; 
 ; LB: That’s nice.
 ; 
 ; SZ: And sometimes the walking partner’s there. Sometimes, if that’s not available, I do it by myself. And sometimes what I’ve done als-- I live so close [00:43:00] to Trexler park. And sometimes I’ll go there.
 ; 0 2704 Postponement of American Theatre Organ Society convention to 2021 LB: So you were looking at the possibility of going to a convention, that was a queer convention, in New Orleans then, huh?
 ; 
 ; SZ: Well, actually, there was three conventions I could have gone to.
 ; 
 ; LB: Oh, that’s the...
 ; 
 ; SZ: And they all were moved into next year.
 ; 
 ; LB: Ah. What were they?
 ; 
 ; SZ: Well, the one is called the American Theatre Organ Society. And they were going to go back to Indianapolis. And I’d been there. Just about like five, six years ago, they had it there too. And not much has changed, really -- 0 2762 Not being able to give concerts during the pandemic--specifically discusses organ concerts SZ: It’s like now, well, you can’t give any concerts, you can’t do anything. And then another friend of mine, who plays theater organ as well as classical organ, he’s not doing anything. If your church isn’t doing... And we have churches in the area here that basically... They do it from home. It’s like video mashup of something. I have another friend who used to be a pastor, who is now a church musician himself. And he brought a keyboard from church to his home. So he doesn’t have an organ. He just plays this keyboard. And that gets put on their service somehow. And he hasn’t been at his church in six months. I had a substitute, recently, who confided in me that this person hasn’t played the pipe organ in six months -- but did very well. But it’s kind of like you get a rough time, when you can’t get on an instrument.
 ; 0 2820 Still being able to play organ at church because of special dispensation/service video streams SZ: I have an organ at home. But I haven’t really needed to use it. Because I get out to chur-- And that was a nice thing. Because when this started in March, there was a special thing that you were allowed to be on the road to get out to church to practice. If anybody would have stopped me, you know... Because you were supposed to now... But there was a dispensation that you could... Well, then, if you’re out at church, you could stop at a convenience store and get a little something to eat. And then that was... So you kind of could get out. But you had to -- yeah -- be careful of it that way. But then... So, luckily. But they’ve been clamping down, to say, “Look, the only people are there, the people that do these video. That’s... And the church secretary. That’s it.” It’s...
 ; 0 2873 Discussion of other people who have caught the virus LB: So you were talking about... Do you know anybody...? You did talk a little bit about people. And certainly you were talking about Liam, who’s had this. Have you [00:48:00] known anybody else who has had the virus? You talked pretty much about that already, I guess.
 ; 
 ; SZ: One that I really knew was Liam. Other people --
 ; 
 ; LB: No.
 ; 0 2916 Discussion of pandemic on mental health/ Life during the pandemic LB: So how do you think this is -- think it’s affecting your mental health? You feel different? I m-- do you feel despair or great hope or about the same? Or what do you think?
 ; 
 ; SZ: Overall, I keep so busy each day...
 ; 
 ; LB: That’s good. 0 2992 Discussing the possibility of playing electric keyboard at Brick Tavern Inn in Quakertown LB: What was the restaurant that you were doing a gig at?
 ; 
 ; SZ: Brick Tavern Inn, in Quakertown. And they have an outdoor [00:50:00] patio. And it’s very nice. And they’d always talked about, you know, “You bring your own keyboard.” And I’d be willing to do that. But now you’re twenty-five percent capacity. And you’re stuck on the weather. I mean, weather today is really hot. Other weekends, in the past, it’s been really, you know... It’s over a mountain. So the weather we have here, they may have the same thing or not. And sometimes it comes really fast, because they’re kind of close to the mountain. And, all of a sudden, there you are with your keyboard-- your electric keyboard and it starts to rain. Now what?
 ; 0 3069 Feeling sorry for musician friends who need a band to perform SZ: I feel sorry for my other friends that are in -- or play instruments like, say, drums. Well, you need a band. A drum solo is nice for two or three minutes at the most. And then you need something else. Or bassoon. Well, you need an orchestra. You need a small group. By yourself, that’s... But piano’s nice, because... Piano and organ, you can be your one-person band that way, and it’s nice. At least I’m playing. That’s the important thing. And that’s what I’m happy about.
 ; 0 3121 Thoughts for future generations regarding the pandemic LB: Yeah, I think we’ve hit everything on here. Let me ask you this. If you imagine that this video, which is going into the archives at Muhlenberg...? And I’ve been doing a lot of these. I told you before that I did a bunch of AIDS -- ones about AIDS. And I did ten of those. And those were pretty interesting. Oh, and you were... You’ve already talked about some of your protesting stuff. I’ve asked everybody what they were concerned about with regard to Black Lives Matter and with regard to political 0 3294 The impact of boycotting certain brands, companies, and restaurants for political reasons SZ: And certain brands, you’ve learned now, it’s li-- We’re never going to that restaurant, never going to buy that brand of jeans -- and other things that way. And it’s like, you know, you cons--
 ; 
 ; LB: Talk about the... I think this is an important thing. Because Trish was just saying that somebody said that, when you go into a store right now, the only beans on the shelf are Goya. Because no one is buying them.
 ; 0 3411 Huge pandemic stimulus mistakenly going to large corporations instead of small businesses SZ: What I’ll mention online too is that Ruth’s -- Chris -- Steakhouse --
 ; 
 ; LB: Yeah.
 ; 
 ; SZ: -- a very fine steakhouse... And they try... And then they got caught. So they gave the money back.
 ; 
 ; LB: Yeah.
 ; 0 3490 Conclusion LB: And so is there anything else you want to say or toss in or talk about here?
 ; 
 ; SZ: Not really. It’s been very nice talking with you.
 ; 
 ; LB: It’s been lovely talking with you! I don’t get to see you enough. And I’ve known you --
 ; 0 MovingImage Steven Ziminsky talks about how the current COVID-19 pandemic is affecting him as a retired teacher, a musician, and a church music director who is featured on Zoom church services. He also discusses exercise and civil rights and political activism. Steve Ziminsky2020-07-20 LIZ BRADBURY: And I'm also going to turn on my audio recording backup, when... STEVE ZIMINSKY: (coughs) Getting louder on this end. Good. LB: Oh, is it better? Can you hear me okay? SZ: I see it says, "Recording." LB: It does. And I actually have done a lot of these. This is my eighteenth interview. I've done eight for COVID-19 and ten for HIV/AIDS. And one of the AIDS I did, which was Rose Craig... I don't know if you know Rose Craig. She was involved in the AIDS Services Center. She was one of the people who directed it, in the eighties and nineties And I did her whole interview -- she's in Columbus, Ohio, actually, now -- and it turned out that there was a glitch at the beginning and it didn't record it. But luckily, I had an entire audio, separate recording of her. And the video wasn't very good, because her camera kept falling over. So (laughs) I figured, "Aeh," you know, "at least I have the audio." So that was good. So how are you doing, Steve? SZ: I can't complain. I'm one of the few successful ones, I think. LB: If... SZ: It's been three years since I retired. LB: Yeah. So it's a... SZ: So... LB: Let me set this up. And then you can tell me everything you've been doing. Because I'm dying to hear. So let me say this. With this project, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating local LGBT experiences, from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury. And I'm here with Steve Ziminsky, to talk about his experiences in the Lehigh Valley community during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive-- We're meeting on Zoom, on Monday, July 20th, in 2020. Oh, it's 20-2020. Thank you, so much, Steve, for being willing to speak with us today. For the first part, could you please state your name and spell it for me? SZ: Stephen, S-T-E-P-H-E-N -- and last name is Ziminsky, Z-I-M-I-N-S-K-Y. But people call me Steve. LB: (laughs) Will you please share your birthdate? SZ: August 29th, 1960. LB: Okay. And you're in Allentown? Is that correct? You're... SZ: West side of Allentown, technically not in the South Whitehall Township but I have an Allentown address. LB: Okay! Okay. So do you consent to this interview today? SZ: Yeah. LB: (laughs) Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable formats? SZ: Yeah. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT archive using your interview for educational purposes or in other formats, including films, articles, websites, presentations, or other future formats we can't even imagine? SZ: Yes. LB: (laughs) Do you understand that you'll have 30 days after the electronic delivery of this transcript to review your interview and identify any parts you'd like to delete...? And/or you can withdraw your entire interview from the project. SZ: Yes. LB: Okay. So I have to do a couple of identity things. So what's your ZIP Code where you are? SZ: 18104. LB: And what is your age? You were just telling me about that. SZ: Oh, I'm fifty-nine right now. LB: Okay. And how do you identify with the LGBT community, gay, trans, lesbian, bi, ace? SZ: Gay. LB: Okay. And cisgender? SZ: Yes. LB: Okay. And so this is some stuff that we're going to talk about. So, in general, let's start with this. You... Let me just ask this first question, that I ask everybody. So are you in your house by yourself or do you have other people there? SZ: Just my pet -- LB: Oh... SZ: -- which is Atlas the pug, and me. LB: (laughs) Atlas the pug. Great. And so talk about your work. You were saying, before we started this, that you were retired. So there's your pug. Oh, that's -- SZ: He's sitting with me, close. LB: -- cute. (laughs) Good thing he's not outside. It wouldn't be good weather for him. SZ: Oh, they don't do well outside. LB: No. It's really hot outside. So talk about... So you're not working now. So that's a good thing, compared to other teachers, like. SZ: I'm a retired music teacher, almost thirty-three years in music ed. But I'm also -- am working my part-time job. The church never closed. So we're doing video services each week. LB: Oh. SZ: So we usually do them on Saturdays. I go out. And I get to play the piano, the organ. There's no choir involved. But there usually is special music involved. And so that keeps my playing, at least. Because all those other side jobs aren't. LB: So you go to the church to do that, then. SZ: Yes. LB: And then they video you. SZ: Yeah. LB: What church is that? SZ: Grace Lutheran, in Macungie. LB: Okay. Okay. Yeah. SZ: And I'll be starting my tenth year there in September. LB: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so are there other people there, when you're doing that? Probably just the people with the... SZ: Pastor. And now we have a person who's running the video part, and if there's special music. LB: Uh-huh. Oh, you mean other people playing music?SZ:Other people. Yesterday we had a violinist. And we're going to be having a flutist, coming up, and all sorts of different other people, and a number of vocalists. Nobody wants to do it, then I do something. LB: Like a vocal? SZ: Like a piano solo. LB: Oh, a piano s-- Oh, I see. Nice. So that's nice. So... Well, if the church is big and you can social-distance there, if you need to, and stuff like that... So that's good. It's a big space, isn't it? SZ: Pretty big. It probably seats about one hundred and fifty. But it's excellent acoustics -- LB: Well, tha-- SZ: -- built about 1912, with a pipe organ and a nice piano. So. People enjoy hearing the organ. And we had just had it tuned and fixed up. So everything's working. And they're enjoying it. LB: Yeah. Well, that's great! So h--? So you're working. And was that plan all -- that they would just continue, right away? Were they closed at all during that time, the church? SZ: They really weren't closed. There was one week, March 15th, where it was kind of optional for staff, if we wanted to come. And I just didn't feel right that day. So I thought, "I'll stay away." But ever since March 15th... And we even did some Wednesday services. They're all on YouTube. LB: Ah! SZ: So every week, we've been doing something. And then I even got my vacation Sundays. And even though I'm not going anywhere... Anywhere I was going to go is all canceled or postponed to next year. But I at least got a chance to get some time off. And we had (inaudible) figure in advance. I did get some time off. LB: Did you have a vacation plan? SZ: The one week, no, and one week, yes. This coming Sunday, I probably would have been going... I was really thinking of going to New Orleans. LB: Ah! SZ: There's a convention that was going to be held there. And then we start seeing... New Orleans really had an outbreak there. And I didn't even buy the airline ticket. That's when, I think, you're really committed, when you buy the airline ticket. I'm so... And so they're talking next year. But they're also talking a video element to the convention. So if you don't want to risk things and do that -- you can watch the key parts right online, like this. LB: And that's a convention for people who are music...? SZ: Well, actually it's a gay-related convention -- LB: Oh! SZ: -- Black and White Men Together. LB: Oh, oh! Okay. I... Good. So that's the -- Okay. Good. So... Okay. So have you been communicating with a lot of people? Like have you done other Zoom things and...? Probably ha-- SZ: Oh, plenty of Zoom things. In fact, the most unusual one is I belong to several eating groups. We would get together like once a month. And so now what we do is go out to a restaurant or a place, bring something back, put it on our desk here, and eat and watch each other. LB: (laughs) SZ: There's one through the church -- has done that now too. And then there's different groups. Sometimes you sit there and talk. And sometimes you sit there and talk and eat. LB: Yeah. SZ: And they haven't done the drinking ones yet. LB: (laughs) SZ: But that would be interesting. LB: What restaurant? What restaurant? SZ: Well, you get to pick. The one time it was to get a burger. LB: Oh! SZ: And I m-- one this past Friday but that one was to go to an Indian restaurant and have Indian food -- but not together. We'll just come back and watch it. But -- LB: Did you do that? SZ: -- I didn't go to that one. But each month, there's usually something different. LB: That's so interesting. So where did you get your burger? SZ: Oh, Red Robin. I live right around the corner. LB: Oh. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty close to Red Robin. So are you communicating with other people? Like...? Do you have family around and that stuff? SZ: Not really in this area. I do have living family. But the parents are dead. The grandparents are dead. The cousins are spread all over the country. I think the closest one is up in the Poconos area. And I haven't really communicated there too much. And there's some in Florida. And on the other side of the family, one of the things that really kind of hit was that one of my former roommates, as well as my aunt, who is now ninety-one... Sh-- I happened to visit her in early March. And then, all of a sudden, you know, no more visits anywhere, for either of those two. And then she was transferred to a different nursing home. And I'm not the power of attorney. But another one of my cousins is. And all of sudden, you found out, "Oh, by the way, she's been moved." So... She's kind of death -- profoundly deaf and really is very quiet. So she never got to see the new nursing home. They just put her in a room. They bring the food to you. And it's been this way for several months. And then the same thing with the former roommate that was here for ten years. And he's over at ManorCare, in Bethlehem. LB: Liam? SZ: And -- Liam -- he's been there for over seven years now. LB: And... SZ: At least ManorCare is having these weekly video chats -- (dog coughing) and they usually are pretty good about. Thursday, the phone rings. And you get to see him, get to talk. And he did have COVID. I'm trying to think of some of those questions you had on your list there -- LB: Yeah. SZ: -- so I can answer -- LB: Well, I have some questions. SZ: -- half of them. LB: I'll get to this, in terms of... That was your dog's coughing I hear there. SZ: Yeah. LB: He's close to the microphone. SZ: He has the... But he's happy now. LB: Okay. So Liam was sick? SZ: Yes. And they gave him like... I think it was the third test he tested positive on. The first two, no. But he had always that, kind of... He's very weak. And so then they said he had COVID. And then they kind of moved him to a different room. And it turned out the whole place... They were sending out emails like a lot. And they were up to over one hundred people -- LB: Wow. SZ: -- including patients and staff. And it's only a four-story building. And... LB: Where is ManorCare? Is that in Allentown? SZ: Bethlehem. ManorCare in Bethlehem, the 2029 building. LB: Oh, golly. SZ: There's two buildings, right next to each other. We're not even talking about the other building, which is just as big. But the 2029 for a while didn't have it. And then, all of a sudden, it just hit. And it's not from the visitors, because there are not visitors. And we went -- just couldn't wait till each week. And they finally got a way to communicate. You could talk to them. And he's hoping to get back to his room. But again, he's moved to another room. The rooms are all the same -- the same floor. It's just down the hallway a little bit more. So, fine, you know? LB: They moved him to a different room, because they thought the room was contaminated or something? SZ: Well, he had it. And then his first roommate, who he's had quite a while -- LB: Oh, I see. SZ: -- had to go to the hospital for something. And then they moved him to a different room. And then... They even had some kind of barriers in the hallway. And I think that was... So you had to get through the barrier to get into the room, so it wouldn't spread so much. And you should see what the nurses look like. I mean, they're wearing their full PPE, whatever that is. And it was quite a scare there. But now they've said the entire floor where he i-- the fourth floor, is COVID-free. However, that means they still have some in the building. And even if they had none in the building, we're still not allowed to visit. So this has been over six months, and not visi-- And the aunt, I know which nursing home it is but, to get in there and do things, I don't know -- in the Reading area, that one. LB: Ah. Well, Liam has other illnesses, doesn't he? SZ: Yeah. He has quite a few things. And so he's kind of confined to his bed. But he is talking. I mean, his mind is fine. LB: Yeah. Is he about your age? SZ: Oh, no. He just had his birthday. He's sixty-seven now. LB: Sixty-seven. SZ: He just made his next birthday there. So... LB: Close to my age. (laughs) SZ: Oh! LB: I'm not... I'm sixty-three. But... But, yeah, people in their sixties, they're certainly at risk. But he had other health issues. That's why he was in there. Is that true? SZ: Oh, yeah. That's where he'll be. The main thing is congestive heart failure. LB: Oh, I see. Is that in...? SZ: And so his heart gets weaker and weaker. So he can do less and less. And things begin to atrophy. And every time I would go in to visit, you'd always have to grab an arm and move his arm, move his legs. And the nurses would do that too. But he needed a lot of that. And he couldn't move anything. The only thing he'd do is -- just enough of the fingers to move the remote on the TV -- but couldn't use his cell phone, couldn't type on a computer, nothing. LB: Wow. That's tough. So you've been talking to him via like a Zoom thing or just on the phone or...? SZ: It's called Duo. LB: Oh. SZ: Yeah. That's what they use. So I had to... LB: Oh, y-- SZ: It works, you know. LB: What's your biggest concern about this? Are you concerned about you getting it? SZ: I can't prove that I had it but I think I did. LB: Oh, yeah? SZ: And it hit as a big diarrhea episode, on the same day that I was just ready to leave on a bus trip to go to Philly -- LB: Oh, gosh. SZ: -- with the retired teachers. And I thought I could get a nice breakfast in and we were going to leave around 11:30. And after breakfast, I had to get home for something, was li-- "I think I have to go." And it was like little bit unusual. And then, as I... And you hate to cancel. Because it was an expensive trip. It was going to be a day trip, a special restaurant opening just for us, the day, and see this show at the -- I think it was at the Kimmel Center -- and back. And I felt so bad. And so I kind of cancel. And I'm so glad I did, if that wa-- LB: Yeah. SZ: My family doctor can't prove I did. And I guess I can't prove I did. But when I looked at other people's symptoms... Which lasted most of January. But when you live alone, you can stay at home and basically you're isolating anyway. LB: So were you sick for most of January, then? SZ: Yes. LB: Did you have a sense of smell? SZ: I don't remember that. LB: They say... SZ: But I do remember my appetite was down. LB: Well, that's a big thing. Yeah. SZ: You would barely eat like half a sandwich and it was like you could barely get through that. And then you'd have to wait a while and eat the other ha-- And normally, that's nothing. So that was one of the things. I did go to see the doctor twice. And my regular doctor was out for over a month. So I saw another doctor in the practice. And at first, she put me on strong antibiotics. And it seemed to help but, at the end of the antibiotics, it was kind of back to where it was. And I went back in the second. "Oh, we can't do that again. So we'll try prednisone." LB: Oh, yeah. SZ: And that seemed to help a little. But I think, by that time, I was getting out of it. And knew it was some kind of viral thing and it was going around. But they didn't have any name for it or anything. Just kind of stay, you know, quiet that way. And then that's what I did. LB: Wow! SZ: It got better by itself-- The biggest thing was the coughing. And there was one night of chills. I remember that. LB: Well, it sounds like those are the symptoms. I guess that you could, at the hospital, have them check to see if you have antibodies in your blood. SZ: Yeah, but... I have to wait for my next doctor visit. And at least it'll be in person. My last doctor visit was over like something like this. LB: Yeah. Yeah. SZ: And there are some nice things there too. You take a big blood test. So they know all the good stuff. But you don't have to get weighed. You don't have to, you know... LB: (laughs) SZ: They can't check your blood pressure or anything, which usually is good anyway. So it... I have to wait a little bit that way but... LB: Yeah. SZ: I mentioned it to the doctor and she thought that, "No, you had something else, bronchitis of some kind." Well, it could be that too. Because a lot of bronchitis symptoms are similar too. And I was really pushing it. LB: I don't know. The things that you're describing, though, they're some... I've had bronchitis and I didn't have diarrhea from it. SZ: But then there's some articles that have been published that say some people start there. Other people, no symptoms. Other people, it starts as a respiratory. LB: That's true. Yeah, all sorts of ramifications of it. Well... SZ: Well, luckily, I don't think I have any lasting ones. LB: Well, if you had had it, you'd gotten on the bus with all of those people -- SZ: Yeah! LB: -- you could have really spread that around. That would have been... Even with bronchitis... You can get that from other people too, of course-- SZ: Oh, I make a decision. I waited till the bus came. But then I told them, "I'm not going." They said, "Well, we have a seat right next to the bathroom, in the back of the bus." I said, "No." LB: Really? (laughs) Oh, n-- SZ: And as it was, I went home and I took it real easy. And I could eat again. And everything kind of went back to being fine. But I never had it where... All your insides were rumbling there, while we were waiting for the bus. It was... LB: Well... SZ: I don't want to chance this, so... LB: Well, it sounds like, if you did have it, it wasn't too devastating. It went on for a long time but... I know a few people who've had it who've said it was absolutely soul-crushing for them. And they said to me, "Do not get this." It was... You know, people who said, "If I had been by myself, I would have died. Because I couldn't even get to the bathroom. I couldn't even crawl to the bathroom, I was so weak." So. But then I know other people who've had it who have had no symptoms at all. And they were positive. So, you know, it's the thing. So what's your biggest concern during the pandemic, in terms of the LGBT community? What do you think about that? SZ: Well, we're all trying to survive. Yesterday I got to see part of the Reading pride festival online. LB: Ah. Uh-huh. SZ: And I didn't get to see the whole thing, because it turned out... I just found out at the time that there was a Black Lives Matter meeting in Emmaus. LB: I... SZ: I've been helping with those. I've been doing a lot of protesting lately, the past few months. And that's keeping me busy. And we always wear masks and do things. It started with that Tuesdays for Toomey -- LB: Yeah. SZ: -- now kind of branched int-- Because officially, that group had stopped. But then there's a core bunch of the group that still meets at the same place and still... Now it's kind of turned into an anti-Trump group. And then... They meet at different places, not always at Toomey's office. There's some other places too. And then there was the Black Lives Matter. I was in that rally just last week, walking through the city. We started at Seventh and Hamilton, ended up down at the jail. LB: Saw part of that. Yeah. SZ: Yeah. And so that was interesting. And I shared some pictures of that with Steve Libby. LB: I saw that. Yeah, I saw some of those pictures. I really wanted to be at that march. But Trish is so at risk that I can't really take that risk. But I'm very proud of all of the people that spoke out about that. I've talked to a lot of them. And it was a well organized thing, I think, and effective. It was relatively effective, which I think is good. So how about being able to see Rachel Levine, on the videos tha-- Dr. Rachel Levine, who's our Secretary of Health? That's been a pretty positive thing for me. I don't know about you. How do you feel about that? SZ: Very positive. I don't watch every single day. But sometimes you're at your phone and, all of a sudden, "Oh, the governor's coming on." And usually, Rachel's on. And she's very good. And it's a very public spot. And usually the advice is right. I'm very enthusiastic about the governor too. Because he's under a lot of pressure. LB: What...? SZ: But everybody has kind of agreed, that I've talked to, that you got to get the virus under control first, before you can really start opening things back up. LB: Well, as a teacher or as a retired teacher... Because you were a teacher for a long, long, long time, in the Allentown School District, and from school to school. So you really traveled around from school to school. What do you think about opening schools? SZ: They should stay online, no matter what it is. I know it's not as good as in person. And I was sharing some things on Facebook about this. But if I think of my last schedule that I had, I had two schools. I was six days at one school and two days at another school. And in eight days, eight school days, you saw every child once. Now imagine if, around day eight... You know, the first few days -- probably going to go really well. But then, all of a sudden, if one teacher even has it, you've now exposed the entire school -- LB: Yeah. SZ: -- entire schools. LB: Yeah. SZ: And it's like, well, it wouldn't be everybody, because there's going to be some kids that are going to stay online, every day, anyway. But now, all of a sudden... And then all the other teachers were exposed. And the thing is a classroom teacher usually stays in the classroom. So they're being, you know, self-contained. But the way we work, where the art teacher, music teacher, phys ed, and library -- and they would go to the rooms. Well, a separate gym. They would go to -- the phys ed tea-- in the gym. But everybody else came to the room. And if somehow something got on your stuff... Then as a music teacher you're thinking, "Well, the most important thing is getting them to sing," in elementary school. Well, you're not going to be singing too much with a mask. You're not supposed to be. You can't really do choral speaking. And then like, "All my rhythm instruments!" Well, maybe, if you bring two to each class and this class only uses these two and this class uses these two and they disinfect them every day. LB: Oh, gosh. SZ: But instead of a whole bunch of instruments... I used to have a whole bag of stuff. Well, now it's like, and you could maybe do that. Now you're down to "Well, we could show videos" -- LB: (laughs) SZ: -- "We could clap, I guess -- that's still okay -- and do things that way." You could talk about music. But you want to actually have them have a chance to perform, have a chance to try to sing. Because after elementary school, some of them aren't going to try anymore. That's their big thing. And then you think about in art, you kn-- "Oh, you want scissors. Oh, you want this. You want stuff that they're all going to touch?" You know. And then you go right to next class. There's no time. That forty-five minutes goes by pretty fast. And you got to get your materials back. You pack up. You roll. And it might be on the other side of the school. It might be next door. And most times, it's in between. And it gets quite rough. So my hope is that they would stay at home. I know it's not as great and I know the parents have to worry about babysitting and everything. But it's still... Least we're going to get them to survive. We're in survival mode right now. LB: Yeah. What about...? Have you talked to...? Because you were talking about going with other retired teachers on a trip. So... Or... And this teacher that -- you were talking, before we got on Zoom today -- that you went for a walk with... Who's a current teacher? SZ: Yes. LB: Is that true? And does that person sort of feel the same way about this stuff? Is that somebody you worked with? SZ: Yes. We were on a team together. And they go through so many teachers fa-- it's amazing -- that... You know, I'm -- only been out for three years and yet we're down to like maybe thirty percent of the teachers at my main school are still there. LB: Yeah. SZ: And others have transferred to other schools. Some have retired. And some just left teaching, it got to be so bad, and so much pressure that way. But that is one of the few teachers that's still there. And we've known each other for many years. And so... But you hear about all the online meetings but nothing's been said. And it would be nice for them to know. Are we going to stay online? It would save the school district a lot of money. They have to go out and buy this stuff and adapt the buildings. And then, "Oh, we're not doing that this year." LB: I can't imagine that... I mean, if the guidelines for the state are that you're not supposed to be in a circumstance where there's more than 250 people... Well, really, a school, even though you have classrooms, the kids are circulating around, though. So I don't know if we have -- SZ: The... LB: -- any schools that, you know... I mean, plus it's kids! For heaven's sake! What teacher isn't, you know, exposed to illness all...? That's one of the reasons the teachers stopped teaching, because they're sick all the time. They have to develop that... You must have had a really major immune system, from being around kids singing in your face for the last thir-- the thirty-three years. SZ: That too. I wasn't always in the classroom. I also did strings for twenty-five of those years too. Sometimes it was strings and a classroom. And sometimes it was... The last six years or so, it was just classroom -- LB: Yeah. SZ: -- bringing along instruments. Imagine bringing bell sets now. That's not going to g-- Rhythm instruments. No. So you can't really do any instruments that you could pass to them. I guess you could bring instruments that, you say, "Well, this is a tambourine. And this..." Yeah, but we don't play it. And you really can't do that. LB: But [the?] thing is that, if there's a teacher that's seeing every student, that teacher is potentially infecting every student. SZ: Yes! LB: So, I mean -- SZ: I've been hearing articles ab-- LB: -- how do you keep that from happening, even if they're wearing a mask or something, even if everybody's wearing a mask? The virt-- You know, when you talk about kid-- You can't keep kids from yelling. Y-- SZ: Or playing with their ma-- Or they forgot one today. Or they lost it somewhere. Or somebody stole somebody else's there. It begins... It sounds funny at first but it's like, "Yeah, this is..." And it's not just at elementary, can be all levels. LB: Yeah. I don't see how they can do it. SZ: I don't either. LB: And with the numbers going up the way they are, it's impossible, I think, to... I mean, it's going to kill kids. And it's going to kill their families. And, you know, I know a young person who had it, who is a college student, actually, who didn't have any symptoms, came home from college. She was sent home from college. She was there with her family. And then she spiked a big fever and infected every one of her family members. Everybody in the house got it, including her grandmother, who is over 90. They all got through it. But it was incredibly hard. And someone said to me, "Is she all right now?" And I said, "She's all right now." I mean, she's physically all right. She feels weak -- the kid. But she's not going to be all right, if she just killed her grandmother -- SZ: No. And -- LB: -- never going to be alright. SZ: -- they were mentioning what could happen, you know. Within the first two weeks or so, all of a sudden, you know, grandparents died at home, teacher died at school, and a lot of kids got sick. LB: Yeah. SZ: And, you know, everybody wants to go back. And I've talked to some teachers that want to go back. Yeah, but right now I'd rather keep the kids safe than anything else. LB: Is there any teacher that would think that they wouldn't be exposed? I mean, I can't believe that there are teachers who wou-- I mean, they see how easily it is to get sick in school, you know. They've closed schools just for flu, in the past, or for measles outbreak or for something. SZ: Or today, for heat. LB: For what? SZ: Heat. Some of our buildings aren't air con-- LB: Oh, heat. I... SZ: If you're in Florida there, it gets brutal! LB: Yeah. Yeah. SZ: And then some schools used to have it that, if a room was air conditioned, you could bring the kids down from the highest-temperature areas. Well, you got nothing done. After a while, it was like... When you're talking heat index over one hundred today... It was like, "No, that's not so..." Because we have several buildings in the district there's no air conditioning. Or it breaks. And then it's like -- or, "Oh, downtown says it's seventy in there." It's like, no, it's eighty-five and there's nothing happening. LB: (laughs) Yeah. SZ: But the computer said... And appare-- Even the janitors can't move some of those things. Or you have to call downtown. And downtown will adjust the computer in your building. LB: Gosh. SZ: That's how it was when I was there. See -- right on danger... LB: When I was in junior high, at a very affluent community in Connecticut, there was no air conditioning in our junior high. And kids would pass out, just be sitting at the chair and, all of a sudden, they'd get really red and fall on the ground -- especially if they were sitting near the windows. Because it was those 1950s buildings, with the big windows, that the... I think Union Terrace sort of liked like that. They were probably built -- SZ: That's the fifties. Yeah. LB: -- yeah, built in the fifties. And just this glaring heat. It's like one hundred and two degrees. And somebody... SZ: If you're on that sun side, you're just going to die. LB: Yeah. Yeah. SZ: And then what are you going to do, as a teacher? You know, are you going to present new material? Are you going to review what you did? At the beginning of the year, you can't really review anything. Everything is new material. And you can't really do much. When afternoon comes, you're just stuck. Union Terrace was one of the schools that used to have it where -- there was a new addition put on -- some of the rooms had air conditioning but most didn't. And it never got rectified, that way. We had other buildings where they had a chance to put air conditioning. But there was always the excuse, that usually came out to money. So they would put in air handlers. But that's not an air conditioner. That's just a fan. LB: Yeah. So what that would do is create situations, particularly in September, when it can still be very, very hot, where they would try to move kids -- or normally they would move kids to rooms that had air conditioning. So it'd be more kids in one space. SZ: But then there you are, as a... You're a kid in the air conditioned room. And now other kids are coming to join you. And then, are they going to kick you out? LB: Yeah. Yeah. SZ: Or are they going to have two or three classes doing it? Or you could have a video. And you got three classes in the air conditioned room. Again, it's that social distancing stuff. LB: Impossible. SZ: It's not going to work. So... But I have one friend who is going to be seventy-four in December, and hasn't had it or anything. But his wife is very -- she has lupus -- much younger than him. His son is nineteen, just finished L-Tri-C and going to Kutztown. And if one of those gets it and brings it home, that could really... But he's had two heart attacks, got diabetes -- almost seventy-four. And, oh, yeah, he wants to go back. Like, well... So there are some teachers, they want to go back. But it's like, why? LB: Yeah. Really. It's unrealistic, I think. Anyway. I mean, I can understand why people want to resume school. Some kids are just devastated. They really want to be around their... They're missing parts of their life. Where's the...? SZ: The social development part. LB: Yeah! And there's no question. And their parents have to go to work. And they can't go to work, because their kids are at home -- and their little kids -- you know? -- their seven-year-old kid at home. So... SZ: And have like a daycare center, that would have a number of computers, that you could like have a big room and just like cubicles for the kids. And, "Okay... Oh, you're going to Harrison-Morton. Well, you watch this one. And you're going..." The kid could sign in, and be at whatever school. They could be... LB: Yeah, but the problem is that the -- SZ: And they're daycare-ready too. LB: -- yeah -- the problem is, though, that those kids will still infect each other. And -- SZ: They could. Yeah. LB: -- it's impossible to not h-- SZ: A huge room and a lot of computers. LB: I don't see how they could do that. I don't see how you could have a group of twenty kids in one room and not have them carrying an illness, no matter what they did. I mean, you just can't keep kids from... It's like saying, "Well, you know, of course they'll wash their hands every single time they go to the bathroom." SZ: And who knows what's going on at home? LB: Exactly. Yeah. SZ: Something could come in from home. Or something could go from school to home and now, all of a sudden, at home they're sick. And... LB: So the... So let's see. So we talked about where it's... Oh, here's a good question. Have you spent any time on queer dating or hookup apps? SZ: Not really. Because it doesn't matter if they're in another country or in your state or just down the road. The chance of actually meeting somebody, it's a bit of a risk. LB: Yeah, that's true. That's true. SZ: So... LB: Yeah. I think that's affecting people. SZ: Although I like what they did in England. They mentioned that, if you could get somebody that you knew and you could work out a roommate arrangement -- LB: Yeah. SZ: -- that way you had the companionship, and you never... And as long as you were there for two weeks or more and you both k-- Well, that was an idea -- from England! LB: Huh! What's...? SZ: But I didn't see anybody actually do that. LB: You seem that you are having enough contact with people. But, you know, you do usually hang out with people. So... SZ: And online I have a lot of people that I hang out with. LB: Oh, that's good. That's good. That's a good thing. So in general, has it affected your life pretty significantly? What's the biggest effect that it's had on your life? SZ: Well, biggest thing is you do have to stay in a lot more. And I had a piano-playing job in a restaurant. LB: Oh, yeah. SZ: That... The restaurant has kind of tried to open now. But the latest thing is they're down to twenty-five percent. And it really wouldn't pay them t-- In fact, it was on the latest thing, "No live music." And then several places in the area, about two weeks ago, they did have live music, when a number of bars opened and a number of restaurants opened. Now it's -- no. So, and then I was think-- Last year... I also play trombone. And I'm hoping to play with some of the local bands as a substitute. I did that last summer. Well, that's not happening either. And do have friends, retired teachers, who used to do a lot of playing. They're doing nothing. LB: So you mean that they were playing the trombone with like the Palmerton, you know, band or the...? SZ: Well, it could be. But we have four city bands in Allentown -- LB: Yeah. Right. SZ: -- plus the Macungie band. There's a Catasauqua band. There's a number of o-- I play with a polka band. They're supposed to do something up in Coplay in September and October. And it's li-- I don't think that's going to be happening. But until it's canceled... Because if you think about how it is, it's a very tight, enclosed room, you know. And the people are all the at-risk ones. You're talking seventy on up. And, oh, yeah, it's nice. They all dance. And that's great. They're wonderful people. And they know all their dances. It's kind of neat to play pieces and say, "These people actually know what the dances are." LB: (laughs) SZ: And they know this stuff. And that's very nice. And that's why we kind of keep the traditions alive. But it's like -- it's really unsafe now. Now, that same place has an outdoor pavilion. But you're talking September, October? You know. That's kind of rough. And then we have a big job up in the Poconos, almost near New York State. And that's in October. And, yeah, we have a date. It's a beautiful facility. It's a beautiful area. But again you're talking probably several hundred people. Then they're going to bring in German dancers. I just don't think that's going to happen this year. LB: Well, several hundred people. I mean, they've already said that, in Pennsylvania, it's going to be green for the rest of the year. And that's a maximum of two hundred and fifty people. So unless they think that it'd be less than two hundred and fifty, you really can't do it. SZ: Or you'd have to limit how many people come. And that's a private party, that one that's up there. LB: No, like if you're saying... Two hundred people -- or two hundred and fifty people is dangerous but two hundred and forty-nine is not? SZ: You have to cut it somewhere. LB: Pretty unrealistic, to say... You know, what's the danger? Well, people could give it to each other, if there's two hundred and fifty people. Well, they're going to give it to each other if there's two hundred and forty-nine people too. They're going to give it to each other. Frankly, in a dance like that, which sounds wonderful, actually... But people are breathing hard and singing and coming close to each other, moving in the same space over... It's just the worst possible thing you could do, I think. SZ: Mm-hmm. So that's why I'm hoping it's going to not happen. And that's why I'm happy that the church is doing something. And then, with this cutback, we were, again, making plans to reopen in August. And now it looks like, well, maybe September or later. And as the church musician, I'm looking ahead and thinking, "What are we doing to do for Christmas?" And all the things that happen around the Christmas season... It's like, well, I think we're just going to, you know... And then, when you find out and you have to go through the denomination, you have to go through the state guidelines too -- but when you find out what you can actually do in a church service, live, according to the official rule, there's not much at all. And so they're getting more to watch the video than they are if you actually showed up. LB: Yeah. That's true. I've talked to a couple of people who have said that they've really enjoyed the video. In fact, at our community center we have a book group. And I think the most people we ever had come to the book group was eleven, maybe twelve. But we just had one that had fifteen people there. And the... And I said to Trish that I saw somebody in the book group that I haven't seen for four years -- I said. And I think this person is just a little shy. But this was really comfortable for them to come. In some ways, it's not a bad idea to occasionally run these things that way too now. SZ: You mean like a Zoom meeting or...? LB: Yeah. It was a Zoom meeting. And everybody's on the screen. It's like The Brady Bunch, you know. And you would -- people our age understand tha-- You know, and everybody's talking. And people take turns talking about what they... But it also is, if you're a person who doesn't want to talk, you just say, "Well, (laughs) I didn't read the book. I'm just going to listen." And everybody just lets them. I mean, there's no pressure, because you're not there, you know. So people feel more comfortable, I think. Now, we have some people who have said that they don't want to do it on Zoom. And Adrian has said, "Well, you know, some people won't do it on Zoom. They only will do it in public. So if we can open for the public for some of our support groups, that would be a good thing." But I don't know. Because, you know, if we make somebody sick, it's going to look awful bad. SZ: And if it stays in the air or got on something they touched and then somebody else touches it... Bathrooms... LB: Yeah. The bathrooms are one of the most serious places, too. Because if you have somebody use a restroom and then... Especially, multiple-stall restrooms are really bad. We don't have those at the center. But that's a particularly bad thing. Because you're in that little cubicle. And then, you know, there's lots of people... Like a restroom on the highway is particularly bad. So... SZ: Also at the park, at Lehigh Parkway. There's at least two that are open. But there's a whole lot more that are either boarded up or somehow closed. LB: Huh. SZ: And... LB: Huh. So you've been going to the park a lot, to go for walks? SZ: Two to three times a week. LB: That's nice. SZ: And sometimes the walking partner's there. Sometimes, if that's not available, I do it by myself. And sometimes what I've done als-- I live so close to Trexler park. And sometimes I'll go there. LB: Yeah. Do you feel safe, when you're walking around? Do you see people without masks or...? SZ: Almost everybody now is not wearing a mask, at both parks. And what used to bother me was the joggers (breathes heavily) -- LB: Yeah. SZ: -- breathing at you, you know. But there haven't been too many joggers. And a day like this, it's like no. But today, there was a lot of bicycles going around. But again, a lot of them, they're not really huffing and puffing. They just put in tenth gear or something. And they go flying past you there. And that was it. And we do get off the road to let somebody go by. You feel like a leper, unclean or something. You see people get off the road there when you walk by, and all that. But it's worked out well. I've done this now for like almost six months. And I haven't gotten anything from that. And you make sure... If you don't feel good, well, we're not going wa-- You really wouldn't want to go walking. Even one of our regular walks, of two miles, it's... If you're not feeling well, you're not going to -- you have a hard time make that. LB: Right. Right. That's two laps around Trexler park. SZ: Yeah, it would be there. LB: Well... SZ: So I take it easy, when I'm by myself there. And I was going the wrong way for a while, there. You have to go clockwise. LB: Yeah. SZ: And I remember the old days, when I had my bike and you could go counterclockwise. And I kind of liked that way too. Because at the very end, you come to the bathroom. LB: (laughs) SZ: The other way, you start at the bathroom. It's like, "No, I don't need that." Then you have to go around more than once, to get back to the bathroom -- which is open, at Trexler park, which is nice. There is only one. And you get to see the general. And you get to see the nice view. LB: Uh-huh. And Jack O'Diamond. SZ: Oh, yeah! Yeah -- LB: That's Trexler's horse -- SZ: -- the horse. LB: -- he's sitting on. So what other qu--? So you were looking at the possibility of going to a convention, that was a queer convention, in New Orleans then, huh? SZ: Well, actually, there was three conventions I could have gone to. LB: Oh, that's the... SZ: And they all were moved into next year. LB: Ah. What were they? SZ: Well, the one is called the American Theatre Organ Society. And they were going to go back to Indianapolis. And I'd been there. Just about like five, six years ago, they had it there too. And not much has changed, really -- LB: (laughs) SZ: -- in Indianapolis in the past five or six years. But... And you have a small group. But there again, there was one up-and-coming person and he's from... Where...? It's not Ireland. Scotland. And I heard recently that, well, he's not doing concerts, he's no-- I hope he's keeping in shape. But he plays piano very well. Bu-- he took theater organ on the side, and was wonderful! That was one of the big promising things. It's like now, well, you can't give any concerts, you can't do anything. And then another friend of mine, who plays theater organ as well as classical organ, he's not doing anything. If your church isn't doing... And we have churches in the area here that basically... They do it from home. It's like video mashup of something. I have another friend who used to be a pastor, who is now a church musician himself. And he brought a keyboard from church to his home. So he doesn't have an organ. He just plays this keyboard. And that gets put on their service somehow. And he hasn't been at his church in six months. I had a substitute, recently, who confided in me that this person hasn't played the pipe organ in six months -- but did very well. But it's kind of like you get a rough time, when you can't get on an instrument. LB: There's really nothing else like the pipe organ or the organ. SZ: Yeah. It kind of hel-- I have an organ at home. But I haven't really needed to use it. Because I get out to chur-- And that was a nice thing. Because when this started in March, there was a special thing that you were allowed to be on the road to get out to church to practice. If anybody would have stopped me, you know... Because you were supposed to now... But there was a dispensation that you could... Well, then, if you're out at church, you could stop at a convenience store and get a little something to eat. And then that was... So you kind of could get out. But you had to -- yeah -- be careful of it that way. But then... So, luckily. But they've been clamping down, to say, "Look, the only people are there, the people that do these video. That's... And the church secretary. That's it." It's... LB: Well, don't put people at risk. That's definitely the thing. So you were talking about... Do you know anybody...? You did talk a little bit about people. And certainly you were talking about Liam, who's had this. Have you known anybody else who has had the virus? You talked pretty much about that already, I guess. SZ: One that I really knew was Liam. Other people -- LB: No. SZ: -- really didn't actually get it. That's good. I mean, you don't want to know anybody that did. But you just... I thought that I might have had it. And the symptoms, I thought, sounded that way. But there's always different things. And until we have testing, nobody even knows. You're right. An antibody test might say yes or no. LB: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. SZ: But then, that was many months ago. LB: So how do you think this is -- think it's affecting your mental health? You feel different? I m-- do you feel despair or great hope or about the same? Or what do you think? SZ: Overall, I keep so busy each day... LB: That's good. SZ: I'm kind of thinking that I'm kind of actually settling into retirement, the way it really could have been, you know. The ideas... I'm still busy with teaching. I'm still a teacher advocate and trying to help the kids, at least from this angle, and doing more protesting than I ever did before. And you're still playing. That's the important thing. You're still playing. Yeah. And that's ni-- I miss some of the other stuff I did before, [that all goes?]... And I'm home a lot more. And that was something I worried about in the past too, that, with school and with all the playing stuff and the church stuff, you're never home. And how it's like, you know, I actually sit on my recliner and watch the TV -- LB: (laughs) SZ: -- something I rarely did. And that's why I got rid of Netflix. Because I'm never home and I'm spending this money for this thing and... And now you could. But it's li-- I have enough, you know, going on that way. So. I keep busy, that way. LB: What was the restaurant that you were doing a gig at? SZ: Brick Tavern Inn, in Quakertown. And they have an outdoor patio. And it's very nice. And they'd always talked about, you know, "You bring your own keyboard." And I'd be willing to do that. But now you're twenty-five percent capacity. And you're stuck on the weather. I mean, weather today is really hot. Other weekends, in the past, it's been really, you know... It's over a mountain. So the weather we have here, they may have the same thing or not. And sometimes it comes really fast, because they're kind of close to the mountain. And, all of a sudden, there you are with your keyboard-- your electric keyboard and it starts to rain. Now what? LB: Have they pretty much, then, not been open? Or are they...? SZ: They were open for takeout. And then lately they tried to do something indoors and on the patio. And now it's the twenty-five percent thing. So I don't know. But I keep in touch there. And they know what I'm... I sent pictures along. Or I say, "Hi. How ya doin'?" But... They had five musicians. So it's like I don't think that's coming back anytime soon. LB: Oh. SZ: And so... I feel sorry for my other friends that are in -- or play instruments like, say, drums. Well, you need a band. A drum solo is nice for two or three minutes at the most. And then you need something else. Or bassoon. Well, you need an orchestra. You need a small group. By yourself, that's... But piano's nice, because... Piano and organ, you can be your one-person band that way, and it's nice. At least I'm playing. That's the important thing. And that's what I'm happy about. LB: Yeah, there's not a lot of bassoon-solo music to play, to entertain people. SZ: A group, there is but not by yourself. But... LB: No. Don't think that would work. And drums too. Can't have dining entertainment with just drums. So that would be an issue. So let's see. What do you think...? Oh... Yeah, I think we've hit everything on here. Let me ask you this. If you imagine that this video, which is going into the archives at Muhlenberg...? And I've been doing a lot of these. I told you before that I did a bunch of AIDS -- ones about AIDS. And I did ten of those. And those were pretty interesting. Oh, and you were... You've already talked about some of your protesting stuff. I've asked everybody what they were concerned about with regard to Black Lives Matter and with regard to political -- SZ: The election. LB: -- and the election. And you've talked about that. So someday, in the future, thirty years from now, somebody's going to look at this, maybe, or forty or fifty years, to see what it was like for individuals during the COVID-19 epidemic. What do you want to say to that person, to tell them what it was like and what it's like for your experience, at this point? And, you know, we're in the middle of the ep-- not even in the middle. We're at the beginning of the epidemic. We don't even know what's going to happen. SZ: Well, in the first wave. LB: Yeah. SZ: The only thing I would have... And this might not be the closest answer to thi-- Bu-- when I heard that this happened back in 1918, it kind of gave me a little bit of hope that, "Oh, we have been through this before." And some sources I looked at kind of said that it's almost like every hundred years, that there was something big in the 1800s, 1700s, 1600s, that there was some kind of plague or some kind of viral or -- infection that went and killed a lot of people -- but if you can actually go back quite a ways. So people have gotten through this. LB: Yeah. Yeah. SZ: It makes you wonder. It's like I... What...? We never heard, much, of a pandemic, you know? You heard about the Titanic but you didn't hear much about the pandemic. And so it's l-- we will get through this. There's been a number of -- I guess they're called memes -- LB: Yeah. SZ: -- that have been on there. And one was saying that, "Well, gee. It's like there's three things at once." We got the pandemic, we've got a depression starting, and we've got racial unrest, at the same time. Whereas before was one at a ti-- now you got all three. And so it's made it a very trying time for everybody. Because it's not just... And this has been like a tornado, the way it hit. Some people hardly get hit at all -- and I would say I'm one of those -- and, I'm sure, some that got hit not at all and others that lost everything. And in the next little time, they're going to find out that there's no money for rent. And eventually they put this off. But it's going to be there. Is there another stimulus check coming or not? And what are the terms of that going to be? And you look at what other countries have done. You look what little has been done here. For the very rich, they've got billions of -- and that way. And certain brands, you've learned now, it's li-- We're never going to that restaurant, never going to buy that brand of jeans -- and other things that way. And it's like, you know, you cons-- LB: Talk about the... I think this is an important thing. Because Trish was just saying that somebody said that, when you go into a store right now, the only beans on the shelf are Goya. Because no one is buying them. SZ: Good. LB: And that's because, for people in the future watching this, the CEO of Goya made some very, very pro-Trump statements. And Goya is a brand... Twice, and unapologetically, and gave lots of money to his campaign. And then one of the things is that Goya products is mostly purchased by Latinos, in the United States. And Trump has been particularly negative toward Latinos -- who are the people who buy these beans, or, you know, the other Goya products. So there is an actual significant effect -- it's happening already -- that... Sometimes, you know, people will talk about a boycott and nothing really ha-- you know, it's not that much. Because there's so much going on. Boycott Amazon. But then everybody has to use Amazon, to be able to... SZ: Or Facebook was another one. LB: Boycott Facebook, yeah. But everybody's using Facebook. But the circumstance with Goya is that the actual demographic of people who use Goya... Also, there are absolutely substitutes for that that are not bad. So it'll be interesting to see, you person in the future, if the Goya company is affected by this or if they get rid of the CEO. I don't know what his position is. But... But it's an interesting thing that you brought up the beans. Don't buy those bean anymore! SZ: Yeah. What I'll mention online too is that Ruth's -- Chris -- Steakhouse -- LB: Yeah. SZ: -- a very fine steakhouse... And they try... And then they got caught. So they gave the money back. LB: Yeah. SZ: That the conditions weren't all the... Oh, they knew. And there are plenty of other ones. But that was one that was really publicized. It's l-- S-- I know there's one in Philadelphia and there's several others. It's like, there's other steakhouses. LB: Right. Right. And other people who've made that money. That's true. And it's bad. It's... What we're talking about is the huge stimulus to corporations that went to individual corporations. It was supposed to go to small businesses that were really struggling. And it was millions and millions and millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars, that ended up going to some big, enormous corporations, that really didn't need the money. And then they acted as though -- "Oh, well, we didn't know that this..." And some -- and you have to hand it to them -- some of them gave the money back. Others have... SZ: Got shamed into it. Yeah. LB: And so at least they did those things. They were a little bit more hip. But... Yeah. It's the interesting thing, about the beans, or about the restaurants or whomever is doing stuff. But I think, you know, we have to... It's an economic circumstance. Yeah. So that's a great thing to talk about for the future. And so is there anything else you want to say or toss in or talk about here? SZ: Not really. It's been very nice talking with you. LB: It's been lovely talking with you! I don't get to see you enough. And I've known you -- SZ: They too-- LB: -- for the twenty-five years, more probably than that. So it's wonderful to talk to you. And you look chipper and... SZ: You like the color? Huh, huh, huh? LB: Yeah! Yeah, I got the same shirt on, I think, as you, but just a different color. So there you go. And it's great to see your little doggie, who's happy. And I'm glad you have your dog, to be able to pet and hug while you're... SZ: Oh, that helps. This is my sixth consecutive pug -- LB: (laughs) SZ: -- since 1975. LB: It's a pug-a-thon! SZ: And this was a stray also too. And he was thin. And I want through the Pug Group. And ten people wanted this one. LB: Huh. SZ: And I just keep after the person, and, it turned out, the person who was in charge of doing this. And somehow... He was in the police department for a while. Nobody came to pick him up. And, all of a sudden, one day -- it was a Sunday afternoon -- I get this call -- was, "Well, I've decided to pick you." "Okay. And I'll come over to Easton." "Oh, no. We're coming over to you." LB: Oh... SZ:They wanted to check out the backyard, make sure you are who you say. And they had one of the K-9 police cars. And her husband came. Big car, big Ford LTD, and all the special stuff you'd have for the police car and this little pug in the back. LB:(laughs) SZ: And she brought him over. And so I had to give him a name. I had to think ab-- I didn't want to do Pugsley again. Every now and then, you'd think of the dog. You think Pugsley. And I've had two Pugsleys in a row. I didn't want to go for three Pugsleys in a row. So I had to pick a new name. I picked Atlas. Because he seemed much stronger. He seemed a little bigger than the other pugs. And... He was well-adjusted. So there wasn't much to train or anything. LB: Oh, that's good. SZ: And he... They're very stubborn. They're set in their ways. And so you learn to adapt to him. It's usually easier to do it that way. LB: Well, he's lucky to be in a... I would presume you have air conditioning, complete... SZ: Oh, yeah. Got a new system, two years ago. And I'm so happy. LB: Yeah. That was smart. I wish we had it. We have units. They're not -- or not in the house. I'm in the third floor and I don't think I can really cool it up here. I can make it not devastating. But I can't make it actually cool enough to just go, "That's cool." The second floor, we can do that. But we can't do it on the third floor. It's too hot. But anyway. So it's great... SZ: When the electric bill comes... LB: Pardon me? SZ: When the electric bill comes. LB: Yeah. This is the first day that we've used our air condition-- except in my office, in here, because it's so hot here. But, yeah. We can usually stand it pretty hot. But it was too much, last night, was over one hundred. And it was just too much. We did run the air conditioner, to sleep by. It was so hot, though. Trish got up at five o'clock to water the garden -- SZ: Ah! LB: -- because it was so hot outside. It was in the nineties in the night. So. It got down into the eighties. But... But it's supposed to cool off a little. SZ: I'm hoping. LB: Anyway, it's been lovely talking to you. I've really enjoyed it. It's been great to see you. You look great. And keep up the good work, Steve. You know, you've been such a loyal activist, for many, many years. I always think of you as kind of a Mr. Rogers voice, with the intensity of Mr. Rogers, as well, in terms of always being there to really make change. And I was just talking -- I just want to tell you that I've been interviewed for the archives, the oral history archives. I'm talking about all the stuff that we did for the ordinance and passing the ordinance and everything. And I was talking about how we would go to the on-site things, where Frank McVeigh was, and that time that I called you and you and Tom [Enby?] came over really fast. We were at the Ag Hall. You were there like in minutes. And it was so terrific. And that we also went to the churches, to try to... Because they were getting... SZ: Just thinking of tha-- LB: And how that guy was there with a video camera, because he thought, if he videoed us and we were representing the gay side, that we would be embarrassed. And you and I both turned to the camera and waved. (laughs) And you've always been -- as a public school teacher, I've always pointed to you as someone who is so willing to be out and an inspiration to students. And terrific that you've done that. I mean, you know, you had letters to the editor, identifying yourself as a public school teacher, when we didn't even have the rights. So you were really out there. Good for you. I really appreciate all that work that you did. Well, thanks! SZ: Thank you. LB: Well, you're welcome. So we'll see you around campus. And I'm going to turn the record off now. And thank you, again. END OF VIDEO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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01:03:12
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Steve Ziminsky, July 20, 2020
Description
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Steven Ziminsky talks about how the current COVID-19 pandemic is affecting him as a retired teacher, a musician, and a church music director who is featured on Zoom church services. He also discusses exercise and civil rights and political activism.
Identifier
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PH40_28
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COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-
Date
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2020-07-20
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/b7f661043f76d6df8a84d27278ac8734.png
efdf32d959853f802e80e7bff954aa72
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40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: COVID-19
Description
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In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19.
The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism.
The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Liz Bradbury
Interviewee
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Ian Wagner
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_29.xml
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5.4 July 7, 2020 Ian Wagner, July 9, 2020 PH40_29 00:56:26 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- COVID-19 (Disease) Ian Wagner Liz Bradbury video/mpeg WagnerIan_20200709_video.mp4 1.0:|1385(5) 0 https://youtu.be/gj2WoluJDTE YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction LIZ BRADBURY: -- record on this computer. I’m also going to do an audio recording because I did one last week for the HIV/AIDS ones that we’re doing for people who were around during the AIDS epidemic, and I did ten people, and one of the people I was doing didn’t record it right. She had stopped it, I had to stop it because we lost a connection for her. And I pressed resume but on Zoom resume does not mean resume. It means you resume to the opportunity to record again. (laughs) So, then you have to press record again. So, luckily I had an audio recording of her. And her camera, her video recording camera was really bad anyways, so I felt ever more exonerated because I didn’t mess it up. Can you hear me okay?
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 ; IAN WAGNER: Yes, I can, how about me? 
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 ; LB: You sound great. We are recording and I’m going to read you the stuff here. And it says -- let’s see, turn off phone. I think my phone is already off. Yes, it is. And I’m recording, I’ve got the audio, I’ve got the video, okay. I have to pin you. Wait a minute. I have to do the pin thing. Whoops, no, I want to pin video on you. That’s not right.
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 ; IW: Don’t you love when you have technical difficulties? 0 297 Finishing up clinical counseling degree online/Counseling people through Zoom LB: Let me ask you first, in the place -- well, so, you’re working now? You’re working online? We’ll just talk about that. 
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 ; IW: Yes, I am. I actually just obtained my master’s degree in clinical counseling. So, I was in my internship when all of this started back in March. I actually finished school during COVID. And I did my internship and practicum with Pinebrook Family Answers where I still am today. I’m actually in the middle of transferring from there to Holcomb, I just obtained a position as a counselor with them. 
 ; 0 444 Experience living with roommates during the pandemic LB: You’re working in this house in New Tripoli. And who else is in the house with you? You’re not all by yourself? 
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 ; IW: No, I’m with my roommate Rachel Zane and her daughter Sarah Zane. 
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 ; LB: It’s lucky that you have other people there because when you’re with other people it’s easier. Do you think it’s easier? 0 528 Securing a job in the middle of the pandemic/House protocols for going back to in-person work LB: When you graduated right in the middle of this, were you afraid it would be hard to get a job? 
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 ; IW: Not really. Just because I already had an offer from Pinebrook so, at least I was okay there. And I do still work full-time as a support coordinator for service, access, and management, so thankfully as far as work that wasn’t a concern. And I realize I’m incredibly blessed because what I do with the social work and the counseling it’s able to go virtual and I can still work full-time. Like I didn’t get affected as far as employment. Which I know a lot of people were, so I consider myself lucky on that stance. 0 731 Communicating digitally during the pandemic LB: So, there’s questions here about if you’re doing communicating by phone or online for work, but what about socially? Are you doing that for socially? You have friends that you’re talking to that way too, or what do you think? 
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 ; IW: Yeah. I have used Facetime more than I probably ever have, and Zoom, and Skype. Something me and a couple of friends are doing is we enjoy Broadway, and of course, that’s been closed down. So, there’s this app, which I’m forgetting right now, but it’s Broadway World, I don’t know, I forget it. But we’re using that to watch Broadway shows that have been previously recorded. 0 841 Concerns about the pandemic LB: What’s your biggest concern? In terms of the whole world and what’s happening, what’s the stuff that’s really concerning you most with regard to this virus? 
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 ; IW: In regards to COVID-19? 
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 ; LB: Yeah.
 ; 0 909 Knowing of someone who has died from Covid-19 LB: Do you know anybody who’s had it? 
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 ; IW: Not really. There was a classmate of mine from high school who I’ve lost touch with since high school, but unfortunately he did pass away due to COVID-19. Which was really a hit to home for me because this guy was my age, perfect health, was an athlete back in high school, and he got sick and unfortunately passed away. So, it was that thing where I knew it didn’t really matter my age, but that was a yeah, it doesn’t matter, this is someone you know, and -- 
 ; 0 972 Thoughts on Dr. Rachel Levine LB: So, we really would love to know, one of the things that I think we’re all concerned about, or at least people you and I know, are very concerned about the lack of federal leadership, let’s put it that way. (laughs)
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 ; IW: Okay, let’s put it that way.
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 ; LB: But one of the things that we have in common is that we have some pretty great leadership in the state. And Dr. Rachel Levine has been really for me a mainstay, I’ve felt a lot of comfort. How do you feel about when you see her? Have you seen her when she’s talking about stuff? (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible)
 ; 0 1044 Fears and frustrations regarding pandemic/Counseled patients' experience with the pandemic LB: There are fears in terms of -- that you have about that kind of stuff too. Because -- what do you think would happen if you got it? 
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 ; IW: I have thought about that. I don’t know. I mean, just hope and pray that the treatment they give me in a hospital would work and I would pull through. For my loved ones, I would hope I would find out as soon as possible so I can either be isolated or put into a hospital where I can’t affect my loved ones. Honestly that’s probably my biggest fear is not so much me getting it. Like, I obviously don’t want it, but getting it and affecting those around me. 
 ; 0 1189 Use of queer dating sites or hookup apps during the pandemic/Pandemic affecting dating life LB: We have some things on this list of questions and one of them is, are you using any queer dating sites or hookup apps? 
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 ; IW: You know what? No, right now no. I don’t understand why anyone would be because then you would want to go meet that person, again, you don’t know who they’ve been around. So I see it -- I don’t understand. 
 ; 0 1255 Difficulty for counseled patients coming out during pandemic LB: You’re in a situation where you never have to worry about being out because you’re as out as can be and you live with people who are totally comfortable with you being out, they’ve always known that you are gay. But are you coming in contact with people, particularly young people since you are working with young people who are really at risk because they can’t be out to anyone because they’re at home, have you had anybody like that? 
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 ; IW: I’ve had a client like that who couldn’t come out specifically as transgender. So, that was difficult for him. And it’s a matter of, at least for me, assisting them to make sure they’re safe both physically and emotionally. And trying to give them as many tools as I can. 
 ; 0 1360 Participating in Bradbury-Sullivan programs online/Skepticism over Covid protocols switching to code green LB: Can you get to do any kind of queer activities besides just hanging out with your pals? 
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 ; IW: Just on the -- at the Center online we do some things. You recently gave (inaudible) talk, so I really enjoyed that. So, some things. I mean, other activities, no. I really am trying to stay inside as much as possible. Even now that we’re in green, I just don’t want to take any chances. 0 1440 Experience with neighbors in New Tripoli during the pandemic LB: New Tripoli is north of Allentown up in north of Lehigh or sort of on the northern end of Lehigh Valley, and it’s a little bit more rural. Are you finding that people are being more neighborly and more careful or less -- or more sort of independent or about the same as you would imagine? 
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 ; IW: I would say about the same. Like we’re so far from each other as far as like neighborly that we’re on a hi, bye, kind of status, but we don’t see each other unless you’re driving by, which a lot of us aren’t because we’re not going anywhere. 0 1523 Not feeling safe at the grocery store LB: Do you think that the stores, I mean, when you go to -- I haven’t really been to stores. We have a young person in our life who was sick, and she was in college, and she got the virus, and she was quite sick, but now she’s all better and she actually has a high level of antibodies. So, we don’t even feel guilty about making her go to the store for us because not putting herself at risk and she’s not carrying it to other people either. Which is a unique situation because we really don’t, I mean, most people that we know well haven’t gotten it because they’ve been so careful and they’ve been in and stuff. But when you go to the store, do you feel confident in the store? Do you feel like the store --
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 ; IW: Honestly, no. Just because I go to the store and I see some people where they take their mask off as soon as they get in the store, or they have it like half on with their noses out, or even like completely down so the mask is covering their chin. 0 1686 Going out besides grocery shopping during the pandemic/Counseling in person LB: Have there been any instances where you’ve had to go someplace, other places besides just getting essential food or something? 
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 ; IW: I did, actually I did just go to my office for the first time yesterday. Because, like I said, I’m switching jobs from Pinebrook Family Answers to Holcomb Behavioral Health, so there are some clients who I feel it’s my ethical duty to see them in person during this termination time because it’s difficult for some people. 0 1803 Spending less money during the pandemic LB: Do you think that you’re spending more money because you’re stuck away? Or you’re spending less?
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 ; IW: Incredibly less. 
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 ; LB: Yeah?
 ; 0 1870 More on socializing/communicating LB: Are there people that you think that you’re actually in more contact with than you have been when you were working and you had to run around and stuff?
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 ; IW: Honestly, no. I still kind of keep my little close circle, so those are the people I’m still like well now I’m Skyping and Facetiming with, whereas before I would actually be with them in person. 0 1906 Taking walks/Exercise routine changing LB: You don’t realize how much time you take commuting. And I live really close to the Center, but I walk to the Center each day which is a good forty minutes a day, which I totally save. And yet, it’s harder to get exercise. Are you finding that’s true for you? Can you go outside?
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 ; IW: I can go outside because thankfully our neighbors aren’t really close, so walking around is definitely doable. I take my little dog for a walk. But even that it’s not too far. So, yeah, exercise is definitely proving a challenge. Hopefully, maybe I’ll get back to a gym someday, who knows. 0 2114 Worries about the future LB: How worried are you about the future? What do you think about the future? 
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 ; IW: Honestly, personally I’m worried that tele-health is going to become like the new norm. Because I’m not a fan. I want to go back to the office and see my clients in person 0 2207 Sources of hope during the pandemic LB: What gives you hope now? What gives you hope now? 
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 ; IW: Good question. What gives me hope now is I tend to be an optimist. Kind of a glass half full guy instead of half empty. Yes, I try to be realistic and look at the world and see what’s going on, but my hope is looking at my friends and my family, and other people who are doing, in my opinion, the right thing as far as like remaining social distance and washing your hands and mask and everything. It shows me like okay, look, there are people out there who are doing the right thing and maybe we are putting a curb on this infection, on this disease. That gives me hope is people. And we tend to be resilient, which I really love. Especially in the LGBT+ community, for us this is not our first pandemic 0 2448 Attending Kutztown University during the pandemic/Using and learning digital collaborative platforms LB: Where did you get your graduate degree? 
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 ; IW: Kutztown University. 
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 ; LB: Did you have to go to Kutztown for that? Did you have to take classes online at the end? 
 ; 0 2706 Best aspect of pandemic life LB: What’s the best thing out of this that you’ve done? 
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 ; IW: Again I think learning new things. I led a very busy lifestyle before, again, with school, and I basically had two jobs between my internship and my full-time job. So, now, I was able to learn new things like I’m one of those people who probably in other interviews have said this, I’ve learned how to bake. 0 2764 Thoughts on Black Lives Matter LB: So, a lot of things have been happening and at the same time, certainly a lot of political things that we’re all very concerned about, and the tangential things to those or the products of those that have to do with instances of discrimination, and rights, and for our community, and for all communities. And also, certainly, some very serious things with regard to Black Lives Matter, and the circumstance of racism, and the awareness of racism in the United States. Do you want to talk about that? How has that affected you? 
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 ; IW: Honestly it affected me very personally. I’m a black male and I have had to look deep within myself on how I feel about the situation. Personally growing up I never really had to deal with racism. 0 3132 Thoughts for the future LB: So, we’re coming to the end I think. So, I just want to ask you if there is anything else that you think someday somebody in the future is going to look at this and I think, I hope, that will be the case. And it might be in the near future, it might be many, many years, it might be decades, we might be all gone by them. 0 3329 Conclusion LB: Thank you so much for this. I really am very, very grateful for this opportunity to talk to you. It’s fun to talk to you. I love the room that you’re in. 
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 ; IW: Yeah, my new office while all this is happening.
 ; 0 MovingImage Ian Wagner talks about the current COVID-19 is affecting him, his friends and family, and the people he lives with, his work as a therapist and not being able to see clients face to face and his new job, how it is affecting LGBTQ people, Black Lives Matter issues, community leadership, learning to bake, and what gives him hope. Ian Wagner 2020-07-09 LIZ BRADBURY: -- record on this computer. I'm also going to do an audio recording because I did one last week for the HIV/AIDS ones that we're doing for people who were around during the AIDS epidemic, and I did ten people, and one of the people I was doing didn't record it right. She had stopped it, I had to stop it because we lost a connection for her. And I pressed resume but on Zoom resume does not mean resume. It means you resume to the opportunity to record again. (laughs) So, then you have to press record again. So, luckily I had an audio recording of her. And her camera, her video recording camera was really bad anyways, so I felt ever more exonerated because I didn't mess it up. Can you hear me okay? IAN WAGNER: Yes, I can, how about me? LB: You sound great. We are recording and I'm going to read you the stuff here. And it says -- let's see, turn off phone. I think my phone is already off. Yes, it is. And I'm recording, I've got the audio, I've got the video, okay. I have to pin you. Wait a minute. I have to do the pin thing. Whoops, no, I want to pin video on you. That's not right. IW: Don't you love when you have technical difficulties? LB: I think I may have messed up the whole thing before. Who am I seeing now? I want to pin it on you. Unpinned. No, you're pinned. Okay, you're good. Wait, unpin video. Pin you, pin video on you. Yes, good, okay, that's right. So, now, you're pinned. Okay, I've got it. Now I've got to read you this stuff. With this project Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center at the Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury and I'm here with Ian Wagner to talk about his experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us. Oh, I was supposed to give the date of this interview. The date is Thursday July 9th, 2020. Thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me? IW: Ian Wagner, Ian, I-A-N as in Nancy, Wagner, W-A-G-N-E-R. LB: Great. And can you please share your birth date? IW: June 29th, 1988. LB: Great. And what town are you in? IW: New Tripoli. LB: Okay, because we have to put that. Now this is the consent part, so, do you consent to this video for us to -- no, do you consent to this interview today? IW: I do. LB: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made available publically online in digital formats? IW: Yes, I do. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for education purposes in other formats including films, articles, websites, presentations, and other formats? IW: Yes, I do. LB: Do you understand that you will have 30 days after the electronic delivery of this transcript to review your interview and identify any parts you would like to delete and/or withdraw from the -- or you could actually withdraw the entire interview, if you choose, from the project? IW: I do. LB: Good. Okay, so we're going to start out by just a couple of things. What is your zip code where you live? IW: 18066. LB: And what is your age? IW: Thirty-two. LB: How do you identify within the LGBT community? Sexual orientation, gender, identity, anything you want to say with regard to that. IW: I am a gay cis male. LB: Here are some things -- so, this is about the different things. And, you know, there's a lot of different questions on here, I hope you had a chance to look at those. But we don't have to hit every one of those things, so it's just general stuff. Let me ask you first, in the place -- well, so, you're working now? You're working online? We'll just talk about that. IW: Yes, I am. I actually just obtained my master's degree in clinical counseling. So, I was in my internship when all of this started back in March. I actually finished school during COVID. And I did my internship and practicum with Pinebrook Family Answers where I still am today. I'm actually in the middle of transferring from there to Holcomb, I just obtained a position as a counselor with them. LB: Great. And you're doing that from home now? IW: Yes. LB: That is counseling people and it's sort of on Zoom stuff. IW: Yeah, we use a special Microsoft Teams because it's HIPAA compliant. LB: I see. Normally, if you were not, if it wasn't the COVID-19 circumstance, would you be seeing these people in person? IW: Yes, I would be going to the Pinebrook office and have the sessions there. LB: And how's it working out to have these sessions on Zoom? What do you think about that? IW: They work for some people and they don't work for, my caseload, most people. Yeah, just because one, I have a couple of kids, so, it's hard to keep them focused when they're not in a room with you and getting to actually participate with them. They have toys around them in their home, they have other distractions, so it's hard to get them to really participate in the counseling session. Some adults have issues with anxiety, so no matter how much I explain that Microsoft Teams is HIPAA compliant, they just don't feel comfortable discussing personal things over the phone or even over the app. So, I find in person counseling to be best. And I hope to get back there one day. LB: Yeah. Have you had anybody that liked it better? IW: I do. I have one person and that's because they live in Wind Gap, so it avoids the travel for them. So, this has actually been beneficial for that client. LB: Yeah, Wind Gap is really far. IW: Yeah. LB: You're working in this house in New Tripoli. And who else is in the house with you? You're not all by yourself? IW: No, I'm with my roommate Rachel Zane and her daughter Sarah Zane. LB: It's lucky that you have other people there because when you're with other people it's easier. Do you think it's easier? IW: I do actually. The house is a decent size so we are able to not be on top of each other throughout this entire thing. We basically each kind of have our own floors because Sarah's bedroom is on the first floor, Rachel's is on the third, and I'm actually in the basement with my own entrance and everything. So, it works out pretty good. LB: Yeah, that does work out good. Would you think that it would be -- what do you think it would be like if you were all by yourself? Or would you like it better? IW: No, I think I have the best of it right now. Because I think if I was alone I would eventually get lonely and then it's like ugh, who do I invite over because who have they been around, do I want to go outside. So, at least with them here I know where they've been and again, we don't really step on each other. So, if I want my alone time I just go to my room and that's fine. LB: When you graduated right in the middle of this, were you afraid it would be hard to get a job? IW: Not really. Just because I already had an offer from Pinebrook so, at least I was okay there. And I do still work full-time as a support coordinator for service, access, and management, so thankfully as far as work that wasn't a concern. And I realize I'm incredibly blessed because what I do with the social work and the counseling it's able to go virtual and I can still work full-time. Like I didn't get affected as far as employment. Which I know a lot of people were, so I consider myself lucky on that stance. LB: Are the other people in the house, in your house sort of in that same situation? I kind of know the answer to this but, people who are watching this may not. And remember people may be watching this that are thirty years from now. So, it will be really an interesting time capsule to explain to people because some people might not understand the circumstances of what's really happening now. IW: Yeah, for all I know, maybe tele-health will be the norm and they'll be like, he went to the office, why? LB: (laughs) Really? Rachel's a teacher and of course it's the summer. IW: Yeah, so that worked out perfectly. Again, I mean obviously COVID-19 is horrible, but as far as when it occurred for us it happened in March, so she only had a couple of more months. So, she did teach online for a little bit, but now here we are in the summer so she would have been off anyway. LB: Right. IW: And Sarah is still in school. She goes to Northampton Community College. So, she's just taking classes online. Which she doesn't like. She's a more -- just like me, I did not like online classes, I avoided them like the plague, I like to go to the class. So, it's a little difficult for her. LB: Yeah. I mean, I don't even know if this is on the list but I'm fascinated because I'm sure you're all in the house considering this, that if Rachel has to go -- what do you think is going to happen? Some states are requiring teachers to go back to work even though it's incredibly dangerous, particularly in Florida, for example. IW: Yes. We've talked about that. Especially since I believe for my clients, some of them need to do the in person counseling. So, we've had that discussion like if they lift it and I'm able to go to the office, for some clients I would want to go to the office. So, basically all we can do, considering that we both work in basically a humanistic profession, her being a teacher, me being a counselor, that we would just have to do the best we can as far as obviously remembering to wash our hands, we have our own masks, I keep extra masks in the car just in case I walk out of the house and forget mine, and in case I come across someone who needs one I can give them one. And when I get home, if I -- because we have to go to the store and stuff like that, so, on the rare occasions that happens, we come home, we immediately throw our clothes in the washer, and we take a shower. So, we try to be as careful as we can. LB: So, there's questions here about if you're doing communicating by phone or online for work, but what about socially? Are you doing that for socially? You have friends that you're talking to that way too, or what do you think? IW: Yeah. I have used Facetime more than I probably ever have, and Zoom, and Skype. Something me and a couple of friends are doing is we enjoy Broadway, and of course, that's been closed down. So, there's this app, which I'm forgetting right now, but it's Broadway World, I don't know, I forget it. But we're using that to watch Broadway shows that have been previously recorded. LB: Oh cool. IW: What we do is we set up our laptops, phones, whatever we're using, and we press play at the same time so we're watching the show at the same time together just in different houses. Yeah, it's been really nice. We still get to socialize and talk about it and still remain safe as far as social distancing. LB: And then you're like on the phone talking about it while you're watching it. IW: Yeah. So, like I set up my iPad so it will be facing me and I'm watching the TV, so I can look down and at them, and be like oh my god, did you see that. LB: That's great. That's a great idea. That's really smart. Trish and I have been watching opera at the Metropolitan Opera on a really big screen, we have a really big screen here. IW: Yeah, I need to get a bigger screen. LB: Well, it's the screen -- we don't have TV, but it's the screen I use at the community center and then I project it with my projector through my computer. So, it's an enormous thing that was really interesting. What's your biggest concern? In terms of the whole world and what's happening, what's the stuff that's really concerning you most with regard to this virus? IW: In regards to COVID-19? LB: Yeah. IW: I am concerned that we're going to be in green too soon, we're already in green. And people being home for so long are going to let their guards down and go to places like the beach, the park, and wearing a mask is uncomfortable. At least I find it uncomfortable. So, they may like put it down so their nose is out or something. And I just -- without a vaccination or proper treatment yet, I think it's really dangerous for people to still come together in large groups. LB: Do you know people who are doing that? IW: Not personally, but I see it online and stuff like that. LB: It's funny that I really don't know anybody that's doing it, but I do see it online. And I'm glad that I don't have to yell at my own friends. IW: Exactly. LB: Do you know anybody who's had it? IW: Not really. There was a classmate of mine from high school who I've lost touch with since high school, but unfortunately he did pass away due to COVID-19. Which was really a hit to home for me because this guy was my age, perfect health, was an athlete back in high school, and he got sick and unfortunately passed away. So, it was that thing where I knew it didn't really matter my age, but that was a yeah, it doesn't matter, this is someone you know, and -- LB: Was he in the area? IW: Yeah. LB: Wow. Was he doing something like in an essential services situation? Was he a healthcare worker? Because a lot of healthcare workers -- IW: No, not to my knowledge. Again, we lost track. LB: Yeah. So, we really would love to know, one of the things that I think we're all concerned about, or at least people you and I know, are very concerned about the lack of federal leadership, let's put it that way. (laughs) IW: Okay, let's put it that way. LB: But one of the things that we have in common is that we have some pretty great leadership in the state. And Dr. Rachel Levine has been really for me a mainstay, I've felt a lot of comfort. How do you feel about when you see her? Have you seen her when she's talking about stuff? (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) IW: Sorry? LB: The Secretary of Health, for peoples' edification. IW: Yeah. Fortunately I was able to meet her at one point, so that was really nice. And I am always watching her when she's on TV or I search for the article if I miss something on TV. I think she's a real leader in so many ways, and I'm incredibly thankful that we have her. She's taking this pandemic seriously and is trying to protect us all and help us all as much as she can. LB: There are fears in terms of -- that you have about that kind of stuff too. Because -- what do you think would happen if you got it? IW: I have thought about that. I don't know. I mean, just hope and pray that the treatment they give me in a hospital would work and I would pull through. For my loved ones, I would hope I would find out as soon as possible so I can either be isolated or put into a hospital where I can't affect my loved ones. Honestly that's probably my biggest fear is not so much me getting it. Like, I obviously don't want it, but getting it and affecting those around me. LB: Yeah. No kidding. I mean, I think that we all have people who are at risk around us and it's very frightening, I think. I mean, to think that you could hurt someone else. IW: Especially someone you care for. LB: Yeah. It's hard to not be angry at people. It's hard to not feel anger. Anger. Have you been having a feeling -- I have a lot of feeling like that. IW: More frustration and confusion on how these people are not taking it seriously and how some people believe that it's a hoax, that it's not really happening. And quoting things like oh, more people die from the flu every year, but it's like that doesn't mitigate what's happening here right now. LB: When you're working with the people that you're seeing online, they probably, I would guess that some of them are very scared. Does that happen? IW: Yeah, some of the kids don't understand so, it's a matter of helping them to understand and seeing where they are. And some of the adults are just downright frustrated. They want to go out, some are not used to not being able to do what they want to do because they're older adults, so they haven't had to answer to anyone in a really long time. And now it's like it's almost like you're punished, like go in your room and don't come out, like you can't come out of your house. LB: It is like that. We have some things on this list of questions and one of them is, are you using any queer dating sites or hookup apps? IW: You know what? No, right now no. I don't understand why anyone would be because then you would want to go meet that person, again, you don't know who they've been around. So I see it -- I don't understand. LB: (inaudible) online dates. IW: Yeah, people are doing like Zoom dates and stuff like that. I haven't thought about it. And honestly, I haven't dated so long because of school it's not really different for me. What I do find funny was I was telling myself before all this like you graduate this coming year, after you graduate you're going to get back out there. And then COVID and it's like nope, you're staying right here, no dating for you. So, I was like okay. LB: That's true. The whole universe is stacked up against you. IW: Ian's going to be alone. LB: You're in a situation where you never have to worry about being out because you're as out as can be and you live with people who are totally comfortable with you being out, they've always known that you are gay. But are you coming in contact with people, particularly young people since you are working with young people who are really at risk because they can't be out to anyone because they're at home, have you had anybody like that? IW: I've had a client like that who couldn't come out specifically as transgender. So, that was difficult for him. And it's a matter of, at least for me, assisting them to make sure they're safe both physically and emotionally. And trying to give them as many tools as I can. LB: It's tricky. This must be new in some ways for you as a therapist or a psychotherapist that somebody's got this set of problems and by the way, I also -- IW: Exactly. LB: -- have all of this stuff. It's a new set of tools that you have to have to do something. IW: Exactly. It's like you know you're in a home where you love your loved ones, but you can't be yourself around them. So, now you have to stay there 24/7. It's very difficult, I would imagine. Like you said, thankfully I'm not in that situation where I have to hide myself. I do feel for my client. And again, I try to help them as much as possible. I've told them about the Center, about the things we're offering online, trying to let them know that they're not alone. LB: Can you get to do any kind of queer activities besides just hanging out with your pals? IW: Just on the -- at the Center online we do some things. You recently gave (inaudible) talk, so I really enjoyed that. So, some things. I mean, other activities, no. I really am trying to stay inside as much as possible. Even now that we're in green, I just don't want to take any chances. LB: It's still a huge risk. Just because we're in green. And in some ways people seem to be wearing masks way less. They certainly are in the city way less. And Trish says that the choice of green was a stupid thing to call it because it seems as though everybody is saying, just go, now you're fine, green. It's not red, it's not yellow, it's green, just go ahead. IW: It definitely has that connotation. It's like go, you're free. And that's exactly how some people are acting like they were locked up and now they're free and they're running about. And it's like yes, we're allowed to be outside more, but it doesn't mean we're safe. LB: New Tripoli is north of Allentown up in north of Lehigh or sort of on the northern end of Lehigh Valley, and it's a little bit more rural. Are you finding that people are being more neighborly and more careful or less -- or more sort of independent or about the same as you would imagine? IW: I would say about the same. Like we're so far from each other as far as like neighborly that we're on a hi, bye, kind of status, but we don't see each other unless you're driving by, which a lot of us aren't because we're not going anywhere. I personally downloaded, and I know a couple people in the neighborhood have downloaded this app called Neighbor or Neighborhood, and it's basically around your area and you can post if you do need help or something like that. So, if a person who is living alone and maybe not quite as healthy, especially physically, they can post like hey, I need some groceries. And if I feel up to it and I think, you know what, this is worth taking the risk, I can do their grocery shopping for them. It's a way for us to be exactly that, neighborly, without leaving our homes and helping out as best we can. LB: Do you think that the stores, I mean, when you go to -- I haven't really been to stores. We have a young person in our life who was sick, and she was in college, and she got the virus, and she was quite sick, but now she's all better and she actually has a high level of antibodies. So, we don't even feel guilty about making her go to the store for us because not putting herself at risk and she's not carrying it to other people either. Which is a unique situation because we really don't, I mean, most people that we know well haven't gotten it because they've been so careful and they've been in and stuff. But when you go to the store, do you feel confident in the store? Do you feel like the store --IW: Honestly, no. Just because I go to the store and I see some people where they take their mask off as soon as they get in the store, or they have it like half on with their noses out, or even like completely down so the mask is covering their chin. And I know, at least I feel, like the employees are working as hard as they can. But realistically I just don't think -- you can't wipe down everything that everyone is touching. To me it's not possible. So, if I'm touching things I'm taking a risk. So, what I personally do and I look silly doing it, but it's worked so far, I put a glove on one hand, and that's my store glove. Like I use that to touch everything. And then my other hand I don't like accidentally reach for something, it's in my pocket. And then when I get to the register, I use my clean hand to touch my wallet and all that, do my card, and the glove hand, punch in the numbers, and when I get outside I de-glove, put it in the garbage, go back to my car, I have some hand sanitizer in there. I also have this thing called CavIWipes, which we used to use at the hospital when I was a nursing assistant. So, it's really strong. I wipe down my steering wheel and my doorknob and everything like that. So, taking as many precautions as I can think of, at least. LB: Do you know anybody that -- I mean, anybody in the neighborhood or any -- you've already mentioned somebody that you know that died from it, very serious. But do you know anybody in the neighborhood that has gotten it, or people in the store? Of course, they're probably not telling. Because they're not going to tell you at the store that oh yeah, six people got it in the last time they were in here. IW: Exactly. Talk about bad for business. LB: Really. Have there been any instances where you've had to go someplace, other places besides just getting essential food or something? IW: I did, actually I did just go to my office for the first time yesterday. Because, like I said, I'm switching jobs from Pinebrook Family Answers to Holcomb Behavioral Health, so there are some clients who I feel it's my ethical duty to see them in person during this termination time because it's difficult for some people. So, I went there, but I talked to them about it beforehand, we took temperatures, they were wearing a mask, we met in my conference room so we were at a big table far apart from one another, had them wash their hands when they came in, I did the same. Again, took as many precautions as I could think of. I wiped down the table before they got there, I wiped it down after they left. Yeah, that's the only place I've been since that or this. And to my maiLBox. LB: Yeah, it's interesting that you recognize that you don't have to go many places. We've had to go to the doctor a few times and suddenly we realized that we had to register the car. So, we went in order to do that, to get the mileage on the car, it's in the garage next to the Community Center, so we drove over there in our other car. And I went to get in to turn it on and it was dead. So, I went to look at the mileage, but because it was dead, the mileage wasn't -- I couldn't see the mileage. So, I said, eh, I'll just leave it here. IW: Just leave it. Or guess. LB: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. Do you think that you're spending more money because you're stuck away? Or you're spending less? IW: Incredibly less. LB: Yeah? IW: Yeah, because living in New Tripoli the office is in Easton. And my other job as a social worker, I was going to peoples' homes. So, I was constantly driving. I'm not spending money on gas, I'm not eating out because I'm not out. And when I do grocery shopping I'm actually using the food. I will say unfortunately sometimes when I do grocery shopping before, I was out so much that some food would get spoiled, so it was a waste of food and money. Definitely not happening anymore. I'm cooking. It's definitely less money. LB: Are people taking turns cooking in the house or are you always cooking? IW: No, we kind of just cook when we want. And thankfully so far it's kind of balanced out. LB: That's good. IW: And we cook so -- and we have leftovers, so it's really like you don't even need to cook every day. It's working out. LB: Are there people that you think that you're actually in more contact with than you have been when you were working and you had to run around and stuff? IW: Honestly, no. I still kind of keep my little close circle, so those are the people I'm still like well now I'm Skyping and Facetiming with, whereas before I would actually be with them in person. Well, actually, there is one cousin that I talk to more now. Being home more often gives me the chance of like, you know what, I haven't checked in with this person, let me do that. LB: You don't realize how much time you take commuting. And I live really close to the Center, but I walk to the Center each day which is a good forty minutes a day, which I totally save. And yet, it's harder to get exercise. Are you finding that's true for you? Can you go outside? IW: I can go outside because thankfully our neighbors aren't really close, so walking around is definitely doable. I take my little dog for a walk. But even that it's not too far. So, yeah, exercise is definitely proving a challenge. Hopefully, maybe I'll get back to a gym someday, who knows. LB: Would you normally have gone to a gym? IW: Honestly no. (laughs) My exercise is going to my clients' houses and walking to and from and all that. And a lot of standing. I would stand when I was at the office, we had those desks that rise. So, I tried to do little things like that, but I'm not a gym person to be honest. LB: I have a bicycle desk. IW: Nice, I've heard of those. LB: It's cool actually. So that like when you were watching the Broadway shows with your friends, if you were watching on a laptop, for example, you could do that and then you could ride the bicycle desk. IW: That's not a bad idea. I actually helped a client get -- it wasn't attached to a desk, but the same thing, it was on the floor and it was a bicycle. I didn't even think about that. That is the perfect idea. LB: They're actually very quiet and they're not, they don't run by power, you power them. IW: Exactly. LB: They're easy to move around and they fold up too if you don't want it in the way. But I have to say that I've had bicycle desks for about six years. And I use them all the time. It's actually a very successful thing because you are sitting around anyway. And if you have to read a lot of documents or you have to be in a really long boring meeting. IW: Yes. LB: You know what I'm saying? I do it even if it's not boring, you can pay attention. So, with our staff meetings I always do it during our staff meetings because I can perfectly pay attention and stuff like that. But people see me going like this the whole time. IW: They're like, what is she doing. LB: Yeah. IW: That's something that I'm able to do now with the counseling and when I'm calling my clients on the social work aspect, is if I'm talking to them on the phone and not be a Zoom or anything, I can actually walk around. Whereas of course in a counseling office I'm sitting there with them. But now it gives me the opportunity like I grab my cup of coffee, I have my headset on, and I'm walking around on the deck or walk around the garden. LB: Well, there you go, you've got that going for you. IW: Because sometimes you just want to get out and stop looking at the four walls. LB: I think it's not a bad thing. It's almost like you're going for a walk with the person too, which is not necessarily a bad thing either. IW: Exactly. LB: That's an opportunity for you to do stuff that's a little bit different. That's something different that you do. Let's see, so we've been asking people about that. How worried are you about the future? What do you think about the future? IW: Honestly, personally I'm worried that tele-health is going to become like the new norm. Because I'm not a fan. I want to go back to the office and see my clients in person. So, selfishly, that's the first thing that comes to mind for me is like oh, I hope this doesn't become the new norm. As far as the world? I don't know. I am nervous that all of this is going to affect our upcoming election, which makes me really nervous. Because obviously, or at least to me, our leadership is very important. So, I'm nervous about the elections. I'm nervous about will we get proper treatment, will we discover anything about this really that will help it get us back to some semblance of normal. Kind of I guess the unknown is what I'm worried about. LB: Yeah, I guess maybe the people who are watching this thirty years from now know the answer. IW: Exactly. LB: I always talk about the difference between watching a movie about WWII that was made after WWII or made during WWII. And when it was made during WWII the people who made it really didn't know if we were going to win. And it was more propaganda but also really scary in a way. You could feel how it was scary, people are just trying to make people have hope. What gives you hope now? What gives you hope now? IW: Good question. What gives me hope now is I tend to be an optimist. Kind of a glass half full guy instead of half empty. Yes, I try to be realistic and look at the world and see what's going on, but my hope is looking at my friends and my family, and other people who are doing, in my opinion, the right thing as far as like remaining social distance and washing your hands and mask and everything. It shows me like okay, look, there are people out there who are doing the right thing and maybe we are putting a curb on this infection, on this disease. That gives me hope is people. And we tend to be resilient, which I really love. Especially in the LGBT+ community, for us this is not our first pandemic. So, we've bounced back and I feel like if -- I feel like we're not better prepared, but I feel like we are ahead of the game. LB: Well, explain that to the people in the future a little bit. Because I think that's true too. Explain that a little bit. IW: Back in the eighties we had when HIV was in a huge rise, even before they knew it was HIV, I believe they called it Gay-Related Infectious Disease, GRID. So, we've been battling HIV/AIDS crisis for decades at this point. And we've gotten through, we've gotten better treatments, people are smarter on how to avoid the infection, avoid the disease. And in my opinion at that time when it was brand new, that was a pandemic. You didn't know how was it spreading, do we have any treatment for it. Again they called it GRID because they didn't even know that heterosexuals could get it, they thought it was just LGBT, specifically gay men, I believe. And that's what I mean when I say we've been through that before, like we've already had our pandemic. And we're lucky, at least my generation, because I was born '88, so, I feel like I'm lucky that not only the generation before me are still around to teach us and guide us, but they are willing to do so. Take yourself, for example, you're leading the teaching at the Center, you do all the trainings. And I think that's amazing for you to give your knowledge. LB: Yeah, it's something that we can definitely do online. I've done a lot of trainings online already. I had a lot of trainings booked that ended up not being able to be given because everything was shut down. And at the time I said to people, you know, I can do these virtually for you and they said, no, no, that's okay. Now they're all getting back to me and saying, okay, let's do it online. IW: I think because I don't know if it was foolishly or hopeful, but I know myself included, I told some clients okay, we don't have to meet until we get back into the office, thinking this wouldn't be long. And now here we are months later and I'm like, I know you don't like online, but we're going to have a couple of sessions. We have to embrace the norm that we're in right now. LB: Yeah, we have to roll with it. It's what is happening and we can't pretend it's not. IW: Yeah, we can no longer pause our lives. Because I feel like that's what we all did for a little bit. And now we're realizing all right, this isn't going away any time soon, so we have to press play and just be safe about it. LB: Yeah, there's definitely that. Where did you get your graduate degree? IW: Kutztown University. LB: Did you have to go to Kutztown for that? Did you have to take classes online at the end? IW: Online at the end, yes. Like we were in the middle of the semester when everything got -- when we got sent home and put on social distancing and everything. So, we just started doing things online. I actually, the week it happened was the week I had to do a presentation that was originally going to be in class. So, I had to redo it and get it ready to present online. That was interesting because I had no one to go off, I was the first one, so everyone was going to like follow my lead. LB: No kidding. Yeah. IW: That was fun. LB: Yeah, all of these interviews that I've been doing, we got this grant to do twenty COVID interviews and ten HIV/AIDS interviews with people who had gone through that epidemic in the eighties and nineties. And because I'm the old fogey, I know those people, so it wasn't too hard, I've already done those ten interviews. But I pointed out that we're also doing archived interviews of long-time LGBT activists that through Lehigh University, and that team of people have done about ten of those interviews and it took them about a year to do them. A little bit more than a year. And then Adrian came to me and he said, well, here's this grant to do this. And I look at the grant and I said, this is thirty interviews in two months. And these other people, it took them a year and a half to do ten people. And I had never used the Zoom, so it took me a couple of weeks to get used to doing that. Luckily, it's not too hard, but still, you've got to know how to do it and get used to it. IW: Exactly. LB: Was that hard to get used to doing? IW: Other than like getting on there and being able to talk, like I can connect with someone but there's other stuff that Zoom and other platforms like Skype and Microsoft Teams offer. So, it's like you need to learn those things, like how to share your screen, for example. If I'm having -- if I'm in a staff meeting, sometimes I have to share my screen and it was like uh, how do I do that. So, I mean, again glass half full type of person, I think that's a good thing that came out of this is we're all learning new things. So, I don't know, do you feel like you would have learned about Zoom had it not been for COVID? LB: And I actually like it. Because -- IW: See? LB: Because videotaping people is hard. If you have a camera and to go to their place and with a camera and everything. But if you're doing it with Zoom it's really quite easy to do. You just press a button on it and it's done. IW: Exactly. LB: I don't have to go far away to meetings in Harrisburg and stuff like that. IW: Again, we're saving on that travel, no more gas. LB: No kidding, it really matters because that would take me the whole day for like a two-hour meeting. And now since they say we don't have to break for lunch so we'll just make it an hour and a half meeting, I'm like I hated the lunch anyway. (laughs) IW: It's like no, yeah, let's work it in, let's just get out early. LB: It's harder to network. So, it's harder to talk to people individually. IW: Yeah, and I'm a face person, so there are some people who don't really like using video, and I'm like but I don't want to talk on the phone, can we at least Facetime so I can see your face. And things get lost in translation via text, so I'm like -- LB: Text is terribly hard, I think. Text is just to say yes or no. Yes, I can talk to you at ten. But it's dangerous to try to do business on text, that's definitely the case. IW: I definitely prefer video conference. LB: What's the best thing out of this that you've done? IW: Again I think learning new things. I led a very busy lifestyle before, again, with school, and I basically had two jobs between my internship and my full-time job. So, now, I was able to learn new things like I'm one of those people who probably in other interviews have said this, I've learned how to bake. I was one of those people baking bread those first couple of weeks. And like cake, and I would have never thought, I cannot cook, it does not work well for me. So, who would have thought I'd be able to bake, because I've heard like that's a lot harder, like it's more of a science. But baking I can do, cooking I cannot. That's my sister's job. But you need a cake, I'm not it. LB: All right. Well, that's good to know. (laughs) IW: And I find it fun. LB: Yeah. So, a lot of things have been happening and at the same time, certainly a lot of political things that we're all very concerned about, and the tangential things to those or the products of those that have to do with instances of discrimination, and rights, and for our community, and for all communities. And also, certainly, some very serious things with regard to Black Lives Matter, and the circumstance of racism, and the awareness of racism in the United States. Do you want to talk about that? How has that affected you? IW: Honestly it affected me very personally. I'm a black male and I have had to look deep within myself on how I feel about the situation. Personally growing up I never really had to deal with racism. Because although part of my family is Caucasian, they're my family like I was always accepted. And we're a very mixed family, like I'm not the only mixed child. Like basically my entire generation is mixed. So, I was always accepted there, everywhere we lived was usually [majorily?] in a Black or Hispanic area. Now, as an adult, with everything going on and looking, seeing these things happen online, it made me realize how lucky I was because not everyone had that. And I really had to sit back and reflect on it. And it's hard also being a counselor at this time, being a black counselor, in my opinion, just because what we're taught is as far as a counselor my job is not to push my morals onto my client. And I'm supposed to be a safe space for them. I do have some clients that disclosed to me like listen, I don't think black lives matter, I think this whole thing is foolish, and I've had one client tell me that they hate Black people because of this because they're causing these riots, and it's just for attention because they're looting and beating up on their own people, they don't really care. And as much as it kind of hurts me, and part of me wants to defend and discuss it, I know in that time and place it's not my place. Like I'm there as their counselor, their confidant, I'm not there to challenge them really. So, it's a really weird spot to be in. LB: Yeah, that is weird. That must be very stressful. IW: Yeah, because I have to definitely make sure I'm centered and remember my purpose in that moment. And I try to educate, but you can never just come out and be like, well, I think you're wrong. Or even really challenge them completely. If it was my normal personal life, I would definitely get into it. But as a counselor that's not really my place. LB: Yeah. On the info-line, people call the info-line and they ask questions. I had a guy recently ask me, he was very, very agitated and there's something really wrong with this person, and he started to say he wanted to talk to PFLAG, and I said, well this isn't PFLAG. And he finally got the whole thing out and he was really, really angry. And finally it turned out that another LGBT organization in the greater Lehigh Valley had determined that this person was a racist, they said, "Because of things you've done, we see this as racism, and we don't want you to be associated with this organization." And he said, "This is ridiculous." And I said, "Well, what did you do?" (laughs) IW: Yeah, before -- LB: He said, so, I did this thing. He didn't want to tell me. And then he finally said it and I said, "Well, I can see why they thought this was racist." And he said, "But it's not." And I said, "Well that's not really the issue. The issue is what they perceived and they did perceive that. IW: Honestly that is a big thing that I've been discussing with people actually in counseling and outside of counseling is perception. Like right now they, you know, people are debating about this monument, about Abraham Lincoln, where he's standing and there is a black male there with the chains like this, but they're broken. If you know your history you know that Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, that statue is to show that -- that he helped free the black people. But honestly, if you look at it from afar, it does look like a white man standing and a black man on his knees like he's less than the man. So, it's about perception. LB: That's a good point, yeah. Yeah, I think that a lot of people are not comfortable in trying to take a different point of view other than one is narrow and sort of justifying how they were feeling in the past. And they still want to say, I don't want to change. And I think really this whole time that we're doing stuff is really about change. You have to change. IW: And I think honestly that's a beautiful thing right now is that people are noticing there's a need for a change. And people are making things happen for that change. Like people are taking the steps. And yes, there are boulders in the way and the path is not exactly smooth but marching along anyway. LB: Yeah, that's a tricky thing. It's hard. So, we're coming to the end I think. So, I just want to ask you if there is anything else that you think someday somebody in the future is going to look at this and I think, I hope, that will be the case. And it might be in the near future, it might be many, many years, it might be decades, we might be all gone by them. We had another pandemic about one hundred and two years ago that was very, very serious, and if you came to any of my art history classes I happened to talk about it all the time because it's always in my (inaudible) if you talk to Rachel because she was in almost all my classes, I'm always talking about the flu epidemic of 1918. And one of the reasons was it had such a profound impact on a lot of the areas of art that I've spoken about. And it had an impact on my family because my grandmother died in that flu epidemic. But I think that we don't have any oral histories from that time, we don't have anybody talking about that. And in fact you weren't allowed to talk about that time because it was considered an act of sedition because it was during WWI, and the government had said you can't say anything negative about the country, including that we're all dying of this disease, or you'll go to prison. And so, that's one of the reasons why we don't have a lot of information. Now we do. And we all have the opportunity. They didn't even have recorders then, now we do. So, we have the opportunity to do that. And here's the chance for you to say something to somebody way in the future about what it was like right now, just in general. So, here you go, go ahead. IW: Well, it's challenging, and I think it's important to have hope. And to not be afraid to be a leader. Like there are going to be some people around that say oh, that's foolish, I don't believe in that. And it's important for a person to believe in their own beliefs and have the courage to stand up for them. And hopefully decades from now, hopefully even sooner, things are a lot more equal for us, and I hope that's the case. And if it isn't, I hope the individuals in the future keep on fighting until we do reach equality because we all matter. LB: Yeah, that's for sure. IW: And I think that's something as far as Black Lives Matter that a lot of people are not getting is they think by saying Black Lives Matter is black people are better. No, it's just that there's a realization that we're not being treated equally. So, it's kind of like a black lives matters too, so we all just want to be on the same playing field, the same level. Like LGBT, different people of color, men, women, like we all just want to be equal. And I think that's important. So, if there is a group of people in the future that are not being treated as equal, fight for them. Even if it's not your person. LB: That's good. That's a good thing to tell the future. That's a great thing. IW: Thank you. LB: Thank you so much for this. I really am very, very grateful for this opportunity to talk to you. It's fun to talk to you. I love the room that you're in. IW: Yeah, my new office while all this is happening. LB: Now are those blue and red squares painted on the wall? IW: Yeah. This isn't my room. LB: I love it, I absolutely love it. And I have a master's degree in art, so feel free to have the person who's room that is, tell them I think it's fabulous. It is fabulous. IW: Rachel's daughter, Emily, she did this, this was her room. LB: It's beautiful. IW: I like specifically the chalk, the black squares are chalk, so I get to write on them. LB: Yeah, that's a special kind of paint that you can write on with chalk. I think that's a very good idea. Good for you. I'm going to turn off the recording now. END OF AUDIO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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00:56:26
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Ian Wagner, July 9, 2020
Description
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Ian Wagner talks about the current COVID-19 is affecting him, his friends and family, and the people he lives with, his work as a therapist and not being able to see clients face to face and his new job, how it is affecting LGBTQ people, Black Lives Matter issues, community leadership, learning to bake, and what gives him hope.
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PH40_29
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COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-
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2020-07-09
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg Special Collections and College Archives
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https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/5f85dcc744254cf4fe144d78965f26c5.png
2997915d1fdc6b32b0635e884138d92a
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40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: COVID-19
Description
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In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19.
The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism.
The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
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Liz Bradbury
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Sarah Trimmer
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https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_30.xml
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5.4 July 27, 2020 Sarah Trimmer, July 27, 2020 PH40_30 01:15:27 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- COVID-19 (Disease) Sarah Trimmer Liz Bradbury video/mpeg TrimmerSarah_20200727_video.mp4 1.0:|25(11)|48(2)|81(7)|112(16)|139(11)|166(12)|187(13)|212(9)|237(13)|262(3)|283(7)|310(9)|335(7)|356(12)|377(9)|402(8)|425(16)|452(5)|475(4)|500(9)|523(6)|546(3)|565(9)|586(3)|603(8)|624(14)|649(4)|672(15)|695(18)|722(3)|745(13)|772(9)|795(5)|822(5)|853(2)|882(6)|907(3)|924(13)|945(12)|966(4)|989(7)|1010(2)|1029(8)|1048(8)|1075(5)|1098(4)|1119(7)|1142(4)|1169(6)|1192(2)|1215(18)|1240(7)|1265(10)|1290(8)|1313(16)|1338(10)|1363(2)|1386(3)|1409(7)|1428(10)|1453(2)|1476(16)|1505(5)|1530(9)|1553(4)|1576(3)|1601(4)|1628(11)|1653(11)|1676(8)|1699(10)|1730(4)|1753(3)|1774(15)|1807(11)|1822(5) 0 https://youtu.be/Ti8AKoS5pYQ YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction LIZ BRADBURY: -- and because actually it’s not even six thirty but let’s go for it. I also have an audio recorder because I’m paranoid and anyway with this. So all right, actually with good reason because I did a whole interview and there were some problems with the person’s camera and stuff, and it turned out that it didn’t work at all. I mean the whole ninety minutes, but luckily, I did the audio tape of it and since their camera wasn’t working well anyway, their projector. So I still had because I couldn’t imagine asking this person to do the whole thing again. Okay, so I’m going to read you this information, I want to turn my phone off first I’m going to do that.
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 ; SARAH TRIMMER: I think I already did.
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 ; LB: Yes, I did all that stuff so we’re recording. Okay, so with this project Bradbury Sullivan LGBT community center of Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury and I am here with Sarah Trimmer to talk about her experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT community archive. So we’re meeting on Zoom on Monday July 27th and thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today, so can you please first of all state your full name and spell it?
 ; 0 238 Being able to live with family during the pandemic LB: So where you have been in your house and I know that you’ve been working but who is in the home with you?
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 ; ST: My wife, who is also named Sarah, we’ve been married for six years, together for about eight. And my cousin is also here with us, he’s about the same age as us. Then we’ve got three dogs and a cat.
 ; 0 269 Managing a bed and breakfast during the pandemic/Local colleges' Covid-19 protocols LB: So you’ve been working so tell us a little bit about what you do and what your employer is and stuff like that.
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 ; ST: So I manage a bed and breakfast and I just landed this job at the end of last year with big huge plans to take it to the next level and then boom global pandemic. So when we were told that we had to shut down we were considered an essential business for lodging, but you know the majority of B& ; B guests are recreational, so they don’t -- a lot of cancellations came through. 0 644 Communicating with friends and work colleagues through Zoom LB: So it sounds like you’ve been communicating a lot with phones and people that way, have you done video chats with people or have you been doing that with your family or what do you think about that?
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 ; ST: My friends I saw other people were getting together with their friends on Zoom calls and I was like I don’t know if I’m going to like that, it’s weird, like I’m so used to being around my friends face to face, so we tried it one night and we had a freaking blast. 0 751 The severity of the flu epidemic of 1918 and its effect on the Lehigh Valley ST: I think about the you know a hundred year ago flu they didn’t have all this what did they do.
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 ; LB: No, I’m glad you’ve got that out because I love to talk about the flu epidemic of 1918, because I think it’s really an interesting comparison. It was far more terribly dangerous. Young people died, fifty million people died, my grandmother died in that flu epidemic and she was thirty-two years old, my father was four and his sister was seven. 0 964 Thoughts on Dr. Rachel Levine LB: So we’re lucky in our LGBT community because we get to watch Dr. Rachel Levine who is part of our community. What do you think about seeing Dr. Levine on -- have you seen her talking about the--?
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 ; ST: Yes a lot of times when I was, when I had to be at work a lot of down time when there’s only one or two guests so I watched the briefing, I watched Cuomo’s and I would watch Wolf’s almost every day, I was really hot and heavy on it in the beginning. And I guess I never paid attention to who our secretary of health was, I didn’t know, I’m just watching this amazing -- and I really like her. 0 1153 Biggest concern during pandemic and its effect on the LGBT community LB: What's your biggest concern during the pandemic and what’s your biggest concern for that matter for the LGBT community?
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 ; ST: Personally, I am very concerned about getting it. I have survived breast cancer twice and as a result of the radiation treatment I endured the second time I’ve developed a bunch of nodules around my lungs, they’ve sort of diagnosed it as sarcoidosis, but they don’t really know. 0 1295 Not personally knowing anyone who has caught Covid-19/Reaching out to isolated friends and family LB: Do you know anybody that’s had it or that’s been affected by it?
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 ; ST: Relatives of friends, so no-one that I’ve actually known personally, thank goodness. And someone that I know lost his mom to it so that was pretty devastated, but I’ve also known some younger people that bounce back and they have full recoveries, but no-one really close to my inner circle.
 ; 0 1456 Social distancing-Covid protocols at bed and breakfast LB: For you yourself I know you have to work, and you have to be around people, and you have to tell people that they have to be careful. Have you had any problems with people that have stayed there that didn’t want to wear a mask?
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 ; ST: No, the guests have been great. I did have an issue with a staff member, so we just went separate ways, it is what it is. I have people in my family that are definitely in support of the current administration and think that masks are not useful, so that’s hard to move past. 0 1555 Socializing during the pandemic LB: For you I mean besides going to work and having to deal with folks that are potentially like that when you have downtime and I don’t know if you have any free time, but if you have free time are you going out? We know a lot of people who are going out and we think for me I’m thinking what the heck are you doing.
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 ; ST: Yeah, so Sarah and I we love our community, downtown Easton, we were there a lot, she worked as a bartender and a server for many years down there, now she sells cars but so many of our friends are down there, that was like what we did, we really enjoyed being social. 0 1668 Watching movies about lesbians to pass the time ST: The other thing that we did to pass the time so Sarah found this list online I want to say maybe it was on like Autostraddle or something and it was a list of one hundred and twenty lesbian movies and so she’s like we’re going to power through this, we have all this downtown. 0 2243 Frustration with government messaging/frustration over President Donald Trump in general LB: So what’s the biggest frustration you’re having right now?
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 ; ST: I think the lack of consistent messaging from the government being I don’t even like saying who is up there behind a podium touching the microphone and not wearing a mask and the next person, like you lead best by example. 0 2391 Feeling safe being openly bisexual in the Lehigh Valley, despite living under the Trump presidency ST: I try really hard just to focus on our own bubbles, you know the Lehigh Valley has a lot of great things, Bradbury Sullivan Center being one of them, we’re progressive, I feel safe walking on the street holding hands with my wife in our community and the other areas of the Lehigh Valley, I’m very grateful for that. 0 2426 Discussing Black Lives Matter/being anti-racist at a young age/thoughts on policing and police reform ST: [...] I mean the civil unrest that we have happening right now, the Black Lives Matter movement, it’s hard to just--
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 ; LB: I’ve asked everybody to talk about Black Lives Matter if they want to, so do you want to talk about that for a little while go ahead and say some stuff.
 ; 0 2681 Finding positives during the pandemic/having more free time LB: So you’ve already talked about being worried about getting the virus and taking a lot of precautions to avoid that. What’s the best thing that you’ve really experienced so far, what’s giving you hope now, and I think you were talking a little bit about young people marching, that’s one of the things that gives me hope.
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 ; ST: Yes, I think I’m realizing that there’s more channels to communicate with each other. Seeing the global pollution go down has been something I’ve been -- you know a positive aspect I’ve been trying to focus on. I do try to kind of be the glass half full, it’s hard for me. 0 2915 Exercise during the pandemic LB: Have you had an opportunity to sort of like work into a regime of some kind of exercise, I just talked to somebody who said I don’t go out of the house at all, and it was a young person and they said there’s a -- they ended up being stuck in a place where they couldn’t go home so they had to stay at somebody’s family’s house from college and then the family left so they’re by themselves and I said if you’ve been like -- and they’re in the woods and I said have you been going outside and he said, “No there’s a bear, I’m not going out, what are you crazy, I’m not going out.” So I thought that was really funny.
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 ; ST: I am not built for this hot hot weather we’ve been having lately. I'm not a hot weather person, so I don’t I try not to go outside either. We bought this house last year and there’s an above ground pool, so we hang out in there a lot, that’s about the extent of the exercise I’m getting. But I’m not swimming, I'm floating. 0 3026 Mental health and self care during the pandemic LB: So it sounds like you’re doing pretty well with your mental health, this actually says how would you describe your mental health right now. What do you think about that?
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 ; ST: I think I was way more sporadic than normal, I feel like I’m pretty even keel most of the time, like middle of the road, I don’t let bad things like really ruin my day unless it’s like a catastrophe 0 3108 Wearing masks during pandemic/grocery shopping during the pandemic ST: I was actually -- I had a big box of masks that I still had from when I was going through chemo because when your cell counts are low you know you have to mask up to go in public. So I wore masks before it was cool, no but I was probably one of the first people going to the grocery store with a mask on and got a lot of weird looks from people and it was funny like as the weeks ticked by then it was like you’d see more and more people and I’d shoot them like a -- no I didn’t, it was interesting to see the progression because of course at first they said well we think people should have them, but it’s because they learned more about the virus so they learned that yes this is a good thing so that was interesting. I was a little high strung at first, I was doing the whole sanitizing all of the groceries because they said it was like living on surfaces we didn’t know.
 ; 0 3491 Masks/Vaccines/England's and China's lockdown protocols in contrast to America's LB: We just went out ; we haven’t been out in probably two weeks and we’ve really only been out together to go to doctor’s appointments. So we went to a doctor’s appointment today, we’re coming back and every single person that we saw we made a comment on whether or not they were wearing a mask and it drives you nuts. 0 3683 School and college social distancing protocols ST: Are you in your Covid interviews? Do you have any educators or teachers that you’re interviewing?
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 ; LB: No, I talked to somebody who was a retired teacher who has a lot of teacher friends and he was very strong about saying it’s just ridiculous and he gave me so many interesting little insights into it 0 4026 Unexpected effects of the pandemic on nature ST: But the unexpected ripple effects of this you know the more people that you talk to and it sounds like you -- you know you get to talk to all these people with these interviews and things are sprouting up that you wouldn’t even think. One of my friends works in the parks system so when this first happened the shutdown everybody’s like let’s get back to nature and it was March, April, it was great weather so like the first or second weekend there were like seven forest fires not like raging forest fires but there were seven fires in our parks system that had to go be extinguished because it’s like people that never go out into nature are suddenly out there [...] 0 4092 Wealth redistribution for children's education/Universal healthcare LB: It will be a thing to see if indeed people like for example well we can’t afford to pay kids you know we can’t afford to pay for kids to have education and suddenly we have a trillion dollars to line everybody’s pockets, a trillion dollars is so much money that that would mean every single person in the entire Lehigh Valley could have two million dollars for children, you know.
 ; 0 4148 Conclusion/HBO series "Gentleman Jack"/Anne Lister LB: So, yeah, well this has been a wonderful conversation, I’m so glad to get to talk to you, what a good time. We’d love to stop by on Zoom at your bar.
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 ; ST: We’ve got to hash out the happy hour specials I’ll let you know.
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 ; LB: Tell people what happy hour special it is so that they could bring it to their Zoom. Their own concoction as a mocktail or something. But it would be really interesting to hear what it ends up to be that is your perfect lesbian movie.
 ; 0 MovingImage Sarah Trimmer talks about how the current COVID-19 pandemic is affecting her, her essential worker job managing a bed and breakfast in South City Bethlehem, and her concern about the virus because she is at high risk as a breast cancer survivor. She also discusses how she and her wife have replaced new entertainment interests for things they regularly did before the virus. Sarah Trimmer 2020-07-27 LIZ BRADBURY: -- and because actually it's not even six thirty but let's go for it. I also have an audio recorder because I'm paranoid and anyway with this. So all right, actually with good reason because I did a whole interview and there were some problems with the person's camera and stuff, and it turned out that it didn't work at all. I mean the whole ninety minutes, but luckily, I did the audio tape of it and since their camera wasn't working well anyway, their projector. So I still had because I couldn't imagine asking this person to do the whole thing again. Okay, so I'm going to read you this information, I want to turn my phone off first I'm going to do that. SARAH TRIMMER:I think I already did. LB: Yes, I did all that stuff so we're recording. Okay, so with this project Bradbury Sullivan LGBT community center of Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community, collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury and I am here with Sarah Trimmer to talk about her experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT community archive. So we're meeting on Zoom on Monday July 27th and thank you so much for your willingness to speak with us today, so can you please first of all state your full name and spell it? ST: Sarah Trimmer, S-A-R-A-H T-R-I-M-M-E-R LB: Great. Can you please share your birth date? ST: May 22nd, 1981. LB: Are you in Bethlehem, is that what town you're in? ST: Palmer Township. LB: Oh you're in Palmer Township okay, now is the consent portion. So the first part says do you consent to this interview today? ST: Yes. LB: Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable format? ST: Yes. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including films, articles, websites, presentations, and even other formats we may not even imagine? ST: Yes. LB: And that could be, do you understand that you will have thirty days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview and identify any parts you'd like to delete and/or withdraw, or withdraw or withdraw the entire interview from the project? ST: Yes, LB: Okey-doke, so this is the identity part of it. So what is your zip code for where you are? ST: 18045. LB: What is your age? ST: Thirty-nine. LB: How do you identify within the LGBT community trans, gay, lesbian, bi, pan, queer, QTPAC, nonbinary, etc? ST: Do I have to pick one? (Laughs) I would say bisexual. LB: Okay. Here are some things and cisgender would we say? ST: Yes. LB: Here are some things to think about, oh I already told you that. Okay so these are general things and you can answer anything you want with regard to how this goes. But we're just going to hit this right up front. So where you have been in your house and I know that you've been working but who is in the home with you? ST: My wife, who is also named Sarah, we've been married for six years, together for about eight. And my cousin is also here with us, he's about the same age as us. Then we've got three dogs and a cat. LB: So you've got a whole family there that's great, I've talked to a few people who have been totally by themselves and it's been very hard for them, I think. So you've been working so tell us a little bit about what you do and what your employer is and stuff like that. ST: So I manage a bed and breakfast and I just landed this job at the end of last year with big huge plans to take it to the next level and then boom global pandemic. So when we were told that we had to shut down we were considered an essential business for lodging, but you know the majority of B& ; B guests are recreational, so they don't -- a lot of cancellations came through. I had to lay off my entire staff and on the off chance that we did get one or two reservations I would, most of the time I just had the phone at home and I was taking all the calls at home, but if we had one or two reservations I was going in, getting the property ready for the arrival, cooking the breakfast in the morning, cleaning the rooms, doing the laundry, all of that. So I was like a one person show for many weeks and even when I was home the phones were just off the hook so many cancellations came through and inquiries of well are you open and what's going on. So it was a rough couple of weeks for sure, then my company was able to secure one of the loans, I called some staff back but then the loan money ran out and I did another round of layoffs because we still aren't seeing the business to support my entire staff. It's a little better, it's starting to pick up and we're obviously very very careful, so yeah definitely not what I was expecting for my first time managing a B& ; B. LB: What a surprise. I've been talking to a lot of people, this is actually my twenty-third interview and I have to do twenty COVID-19s and I have already done -- so this will be the thirteenth of those or the fourteenth one of those and then I also did ten HIV/AIDS ones for people who had lived through the AIDS epidemic in the 1990s which was very interesting and very different from the Covid although people talked about Covid because they were talking now about how it related to the actual epidemic. But a lot of people I've spoken to are involved with the colleges because we have a lot of colleges in Lehigh Valley so are you seeing this as -- you're pretty close to Lehigh Valley University and they're talking about opening, but do you think that's influencing your reservations and stuff? ST: Yes, so we have a very close relationship with Lehigh Valley all the alumni come to us, all the parents, the kids when they're visiting the college before they're enrolling. So they had tasked us with sourcing some rooms because they thought, you know, they were building new dorms and they had to stop construction. So they thought they weren't going to have enough housing for these incoming students so I had worked the area hotels trying to scramble to find housing for these students and it turns out they didn't need them, but should they need to quarantine international students they've approached us to ask if we would. Because if it's a student that's from like Chicago that is exposed or tests positive than can, you know, hopefully travel home, or stay but an international student doesn't have that luxury of just going home to quarantine. So they've approached us if we would accept some students that had to be quarantined. And other area hotels are already doing that, it seems really scary, we even at one point were talking to area hospitals that if the medical professionals didn't want to go home and expose their families would we house them. And that was a hard pill to swallow. I'm like well then, I'm kind of being exposed or my staff is being exposed to those front lines. But I, you know, we really looked at it through a lot of different lenses and talked to a lot of different agencies and we were ready to take that on if we had to. Ultimately, we didn't have to, we didn't have that -- we were preparing for that peak in the Lehigh Valley, but we didn't quite see where the hospitals were overrun, and the medical people didn't want to go home to their families. Yeah, I'm waiting for Lehigh Valley to make the announcement that they would, like Lafeyette did, if they're going to go virtual, but I don't know I think Lehigh's going to trudge ahead and see what they can do, hopefully safely. I know they've been meeting about it a lot ; I know they will be safe. LB: Just saying because even colleges that are not planning on opening are taking in groups of students that can't go home and I was just speaking with somebody who cannot go home and this is a Kutztown student so they've arranged for housing and they have international students too, so there is definitely -- and it's not even that the folks are needing to be quarantined they just can't go home, they don't have any place to go. So even if the colleges close like Kutztown apparently will be running all of its classes -- we have a family friend who goes to Colgate and they also it's totally they're going to be in their rooms but they're going to be there but they're going to be doing online classes. So it's an interesting thing and apparently the students really want to do that because they want to at least feel like they're on campus. I don't know about that I don't know, I don't because I guess they would have to pay then, so I think there must be some kind of privilege involved in that to be able to afford to do that at a lot of the schools. So it sounds like you've been communicating a lot with phones and people that way, have you done video chats with people or have you been doing that with your family or what do you think about that? ST: My friends I saw other people were getting together with their friends on Zoom calls and I was like I don't know if I'm going to like that, it's weird, like I'm so used to being around my friends face to face, so we tried it one night and we had a freaking blast. And so it's opened up this whole new way to communicate with each other which was cool and I did not expect it to give me that sense of like oh I got to see my friends today, I got to hang out with my friends today, but it left me with that and I was really surprised by that. On the contrary you know it's like work gets ahold of like, "We can Zoom call now." And it was like that could have been an email so like I was so excited to have that extra way to communicate with my friends but on the flip side like you know the very first Zoom call for work it's like you know full hair and makeup, make sure you've got pants. And then by like the middle I was like oh whatever, hair is in a bun I just rolled out of bed. And then like now I don't even put my video on for Zoom calls I'm like come on just like -- what I love about it is how many companies are going to continue to do this and not make people drive into the office. And we're seeing the pollution go down in so many areas and if there's any sort of bright spot or positives to all of this hell we're going through I really found some happiness in that. Like maybe people will scale back how much they're traveling into the offices or whatever. And it's another way to communicate so they've been just for it. I think about the you know a hundred year ago flu they didn't have all this what did they do. LB: No, I'm glad you've got that out because I love to talk about the flu epidemic of 1918, because I think it's really an interesting comparison. It was far more terribly dangerous. Young people died, fifty million people died, my grandmother died in that flu epidemic and she was thirty-two years old, my father was four and his sister was seven. And after she died his father left these two kids with his wife's parents and he just went to South America and never came back ; he was an engineer and he was building roads and stuff. So the effect that that had a hundred years ago on me is a residual effect because my father grew up without a mother, I didn't have a second grandfather because of that, and it's surely absolutely influenced his life very significantly. So when you have a circumstance like that and people say well you know it was a long time ago, really you know who knows even that was incredibly significant. And a lot of people had to deal with the government because it was during World War I they told people they couldn't talk about it, it was sedition to talk about it, because they didn't want America to seem like it was weak. So all of these because it was, we were at war. And so all these people were just, I mean Easton for example five hundred people died in Easton, thousands of people died in Allentown, Bethlehem was pretty good at quarantining and they had about a hundred deaths. If you compare that to even Easton which was a tiny city in comparison Easton was really small then, it was terribly serious -- one out of every three people in the whole world had that flu. And yeah, they couldn't talk to each other, they barely had phones and most people didn't have phones and they certainly didn't have the ability to see each other. And people would be desperate to see each other and they would wear masks and they would like go and there's a story about these four women that wanted to play Mahjong and they gasped but they wore all these masks and everything, and they played Mahjong and by the end of the day three of them were dead. It was that kind of flu ; people would die in one day from that flu. It was amazingly terrible and it was involved with the war too, it really -- so it's a lot of people, but it had to do with young people, it influenced young people. And some people that it came from a flu that had affected little children twenty years before and so that's why those, like if they had had it twenty years before then they would die quickly from it if they had it when they were twenty to forty years old. ST: I never read that, that's really interesting. LB: There is a theory and since we don't know anything about flus who knows, you know, if it stays there for twenty years. Yeah, I'm actually fascinated by that flu because it affected my family but also affected every single thing that happened in the United States for the entire century and people forgot about it pretty quickly but it was true. So we're lucky in our LGBT community because we get to watch Dr. Rachel Levine who is part of our community. What do you think about seeing Dr. Levine on -- have you seen her talking about the--? ST: Yes a lot of times when I was, when I had to be at work a lot of down time when there's only one or two guests so I watched the briefing, I watched Cuomo's and I would watch Wolf's almost every day, I was really hot and heavy on it in the beginning. And I guess I never paid attention to who our secretary of health was, I didn't know, I'm just watching this amazing -- and I really like her. I thought she was so direct in her delivery. What was interesting to me is like Cuomo ran his conferences but really when you look at Pennsylvania's conferences it wasn't Wolf running them it was her, and I was just like man she's awesome. And then all the ugliness came out and I was like oh I honestly didn't even realize though it's so -- then I was extra proud you know I'm like man like it was so great that she's running these conferences and she's brilliant and she's always like you could see how frustrated she'd get when day after day people would ask the same damn questions. And I always loved at the end when she'd flip and she's like now for our daily reminders. And I swear by the end I could almost like recite them with her wash your hands for twenty seconds in soap and water. And it's like she had to, she had to pound it into these people heads because they just weren't getting it. And it was just so obviously representation is important so to see that is great and it's just so absolutely disheartening that she's being attacked still today, today in what was it Morris County there was a menu did you see that story? Come on it's just disgusting that this woman's there, she's trying to navigate us through a serious health crisis and people choose to focus on something like I don't know, well we're all faced with that all the time. But I was so proud of her and then it was just like oh my gosh even better. LB: And you know I've had a number of people say that young transgender people have expressed so much shock that somebody would be attacked this way that they have said to some of the leaders and some of the people that work in our program at our center you know, "Is this going to happen to me?" And I was talking to her in place and one of the things the messages that we have to say is, "Look, heroes are attacked, if it was easy to do this you wouldn't be a hero." People admire, we admire them for standing up to adversity and that's what she does with the incredible grace and science and every kind of calmness that makes people listen to her and it's very positive. We're lucky that we get to have her. ST: Absolutely. LB: What's your biggest concern during the pandemic and what's your biggest concern for that matter for the LGBT community? ST: Personally, I am very concerned about getting it. I have survived breast cancer twice and as a result of the radiation treatment I endured the second time I've developed a bunch of nodules around my lungs, they've sort of diagnosed it as sarcoidosis, but they don't really know. So I've tried to research as much as I can about how would Covid interacts with sarcoidosis, or how would Covid interact with someone who has got lung nodules. Like it's very concerning for me, there's no information out there of course because we don't know enough about either affliction. So I don't know that I would survive it, I don't want to get a cold let alone get this, you know, virus that we don't know very much about. So that's been my personal biggest concern, and I will say having gone through two bouts of breast cancer in the Lehigh Valley with our hospital network we're very very lucky here. I remember at the beginning worrying that they wouldn't let my wife in appointments with me or something, we never encountered that, everyone was incredible that I had to deal with with my care team. So, I think for the community I would be concerned about we already have a lack of healthcare, we already have you know we're statistically not as equipped as other communities, so it is concerning. But I will say that in the Lehigh Valley it's not as concerning for me, and I'm incredibly grateful for that, I feel incredibly privileged that I can say that, that I don't' have a concern about what kind of healthcare would I receive. LB: I was reading about people talking about moving to other countries and then somebody started saying oh you know you could move to Bolivia or Belize and they said of course they don't have any hospitals there. So like well okay if that's what you want to do. Do you know anybody that's had it or that's been affected by it? ST: Relatives of friends, so no-one that I've actually known personally, thank goodness. And someone that I know lost his mom to it so that was pretty devastated, but I've also known some younger people that bounce back and they have full recoveries, but no-one really close to my inner circle. LB: So there's a question here that says are you spending any time on queer dating hookup sites I don't know if that really applies. But how about extended -- you know being able to talk to LGBT friends who might have similar kind of sensitivities that you do with that gives you an opportunity to talk to people like that, do you have friends that fit that bill? ST: Yes, I think, you know, both my gay and straight friends we, Sarah and I, my wife and I really focus on reaching out to our friends that already struggled with isolation. Those were probably those people we most concerned about. You know even my father in law he's super high risk, he had a double lung transplant about six years ago which was crazy, but he lives alone and every Sunday we'd go to breakfast with him and hang out with him and we can't he's high risk, you know, we were arranging his groceries to be delivered and the one time that we did have to go over there it was like dropping stuff off at the door and running away. I hate not seeing my grandmother who is 82 and we've since, you know, very safely have visited with those high-risk people but I guess we were at our peak really like the first part of April. I remember doing a lot more like it was almost like on my to do list every day, like make sure you reach out to these people, because I am very fortunate that I'm in a house surrounded by family and animals, but for my friends that weren't and have to further isolate I can't imagine, it has to be really hard. LB: For you yourself I know you have to work, and you have to be around people, and you have to tell people that they have to be careful. Have you had any problems with people that have stayed there that didn't want to wear a mask? ST: No, the guests have been great. I did have an issue with a staff member, so we just went separate ways, it is what it is. I have people in my family that are definitely in support of the current administration and think that masks are not useful, so that's hard to move past. That's really hard to forgive, like I don't want to sit at a dinner table with them anymore, so I'll maintain social distance from them forever, it's very difficult. We talked through it actually as a staff before we kind of brought everyone back to work, we had meetings and we talked through, all right what's it going to look like if we have someone here that shows up at the door, because we have the big signs on the front door, guests must wear masks inside, shows up not wearing one or refuses to wear one, what's that going to look like. So we talked through procedure for that and we're ready for that. I mean we're not happy about it, but you never know I think it's quite possible that we'll encounter something like that. LB: For you I mean besides going to work and having to deal with folks that are potentially like that when you have downtime and I don't know if you have any free time, but if you have free time are you going out? We know a lot of people who are going out and we think for me I'm thinking what the heck are you doing. ST: Yeah, so Sarah and I we love our community, downtown Easton, we were there a lot, she worked as a bartender and a server for many years down there, now she sells cars but so many of our friends are down there, that was like what we did, we really enjoyed being social. And we said the other night, we like we think this whole thing has finally broke our habit, because you would think that two people that love it so much as soon as it reopened like we'd be down there, we went once and we were like this is not for us, I don't want to be around people just aren't taking the masking seriously enough for me. And like I said I'm very concerned about getting it, I'm very concerned about even social distance visit with my father-in-law like giving him something, so it's just not worth it. We built a bar in our garage, we're calling it the gay-raj, and we've been hanging out in there like it's just as great as going downtown. Because now we don't have to Uber home, we're saving a lot of money, we're not eating out, like why didn't do this years ago. And the other thing that we did the past time -- LB: Do you have people over for that? ST: Sometimes, but again it's like we don't want a ton of people over, so our friends will come by and they sit at the other end of the bar and we're all consuming alcohol so that kills germs right. The other thing that we did to pass the time so Sarah found this list online I want to say maybe it was on like Autostraddle or something and it was a list of one hundred and twenty lesbian movies and so she's like we're going to power through this, we have all this downtown. So she prints this list out and she cuts them into strips, folds them up puts them in this like gift bag and every day she'd like shake it and I'd pull one out and all that would be on the strip was they ranked number 1-120, so it would be the ranking, the title and then like year that it came out. So what a bunch of terrible movies let me tell you. Oh my god I think we made it through twenty-three of them and we just, I mean-- LB: Any good ones? ST: A couple, there were a couple of good ones, one of our favorites is Carol so that was in there. I mean what was great it was from all, from like the sixties up and from all over the world, there were French movies in there, so we still have the bag. I'm sure that we'll watch it from time to time, but she just, it was great to see so much representation we don't always get that in every movie we watch, but man some of them were a struggle to get through. And there were some days where she'd like walk over shaking the bag and I'm like not today I just can't not today, like unless you pick one in the top ten, I'm not doing it. LB: Did you see anything in the top ten that you thought -- like one of my favorites is Desert Hearts, I thought Desert Hearts was a great movie even though it was a long time ago, it was in the eighties. ST: Who was in that one? I think we did watch that one, that sounds very familiar. LB: It's about an older woman and it's about these two women, one of them is getting a divorce in Reno, it's the 1950s and Kay is this young woman who lives, and she makes ceramics and they-- ST: That sounds familiar, see they're all just starting to run together at this point because we've watched so many. Sarah had a rating system and everything so she was into it. LB: It is true that some of them like they're so bad and people will say, "Oh you know entre nous you know" and I remember one time somebody said all these people were sitting in the audience one of them just shouted out, "This is like a bad date." ST: That's great, but you can absolutely identify that someone who was never like in a same sex relationship wrote these movies, someone who was never even, they have no idea about like lesbian sex, nothing and you're watching this on the screen like what in the hell is this. So we also realized that we could probably write a better someday and we should, a screenplay I don't know. LB: When you get to a time where you want to watch something don't forget that you can watch some of my art history videos on our website. I think I have three on our website and one on the Parkland Community Library website and they're funny too. So it's worthwhile to see it and if you go to our Facebook page Bradbury-Sullivan Facebook page and look at all the different videos that are there they're longer one's forty-six minutes, one's twenty-two, you know that kind of stuff, it's good dinner fare and kind of interesting. And you go huh that's, you know, and it's interesting one of them was about Greek myths and what the LGBT Greek myths, and I just did that one for Parkland. So those are fun to watch, I want to encourage you to do that because I went to a lot of -- people like them who saw them, more than a thousand people saw them so it was pretty great to do it that way. So I was going to ask you what sort of queer activities have you been doing and you just describe it this perfect thing, it's actually a perfect thing, I think it's wonderful. How about Liana, did you see the movie Liana, it's black and white, John Sales did it, he also did other famous movies including that baseball movie about-- ST: I'm writing it down because-- LB: Liana, it's L-I-A-N-A and even though it was made by a man, John Sales is the guy who made Field of Dreams and sort of an independent movie maker, but I saw that movie a long time ago and I mean I was in college or maybe I was in graduate school and I thought this is pretty good, this person does seem to get the whole thing about the deal. Desert Hearts was made by a woman though and it's right, you look at that and you go yeah that would really happen. ST: Well speaking of Field of Dreams what was the movie that was just made about the two women that were on the team, a documentary about their lives that was a-- LB: It's called Secret Love. I actually hated that, I hated it. ST: You hated it? LB: Because the person that made that was actually Terry's nephew or great nephew and it's really not about them it's about the family being able to deal with them. This whole thing it's so fucking depressing, I mean for heaven sakes and they don't know anything about these women's lives, they've been together for a million years, obviously they were very uncomfortable to come out to the family and you could see why for heaven's sake. ST: Sarah didn't like it, I think I was comfortable watching something very depressing at that current time, I was like this is just what I needed. She felt the same way she's like yeah, they did a shitty job. LB: They did a shitty job because nobody said for example, they made it seem like when they were getting married that it was such a cute thing, they didn't point out that when they get married that the other woman whose name I can't remember, Terry and Pat, that Pat was protecting herself, because had Terri died before they were married the family could have come in and just made off with half of everything. ST: Just like the book club -- the Under This Beautiful Dome. LB: Yes, exactly. ST: That always stuck with me just how-- LB: Yeah and so they didn't say, you know, how important and even when they were having dinner with those older guys who were their gay male friends and they don't say you know if we don't do this we're going to end up having to pay 15% tax on everything the person who is -- you know they didn't talk about the practical stuff of it because the people who made the movie didn't understand what this really meant. And then they're looking at oh look they had a whole life with all these other gay friends, of course they did why do you think they lived in Chicago not near you. I actually incorporated that into a training that I did and I use it in my training for older adults where I say in the nursing home where the person says like are they going to be accepted, the niece says that and the nursing home administrator says well didn't they say hi to you when you came in as thought that would be it, that's the response instead of yes we have a non-discrimination policy which includes sexual orientation and gender identity, we'll show you the different kinds of resources we have. They don't say that they said didn't they say hi to you when you came in like that would be enough, you should be-- ST: Oh yeah, you're right, yeah. LB: Well tell Sarah that she's absolutely right. You can watch that it's got some wonderful stuff about their baseball teams and stuff and their incredible relationship that they had which was driven. That's not what the movie's about, you know, if the movie was about that we would all be cheering for them for heaven's sake. ST: What was the other one, was it Freeheld where the police chief got cancer, obviously that really resonated with us, we were solving that, I thought that was pretty well done. And then of course as soon as you're watching you go and you're on Google looking up the true story and you want to see the real people behind the characters on the movie and what a story. LB: Steven Goldstein was the main guy, he's the Jewish lawyer, he's one of our Facebook friends. I mean you probably are Facebook friends with him, because he's just local. He's in the southern part of New Jersey and he actually worked with what's the name of that movie star, the guy who played that who was in the office, I can't remember his name. But Steven Goldstein actually met with him and said you're doing the gay part ; you're doing the Jewish part okay but you're not doing the gay part okay. Let me explain how you do this, and it was you know so they really, when they made that movie, they really paid attention to what it needed to be. So that was pretty good, plus the actors were so good, you know. So good for you for doing that, I love that aspect, so you haven't had any problems being out to your family because you're with your family and they're cool. So what's the biggest frustration you're having right now? ST:I think the lack of consistent messaging from the government being I don't even like saying who is up there behind a podium touching the microphone and not wearing a mask and the next person, like you lead best by example. I mean that's like leadership 101, that's what you learn like if you're even on a team as a child you learn, like you lead by example and do as I, you know, anyway. I mean I find sometimes when I'm scrolling through Facebook like if my sound is on and someone shares a clip of him speaking that just his voice strikes a tinge, like this response in me and that's so not healthy. I'm 50% hopeful-- LB: I just want to stop and say that you know if people are watching this thirty years from now that we're talking about Trump. ST: Yes, I just don't like saying his name, it also strikes that tinge in me. I'm fifty percent hopeful and I'm fifty percent riddled with anxiety about this election which is in 99 days but who's counting because we never thought he was going to win the first time, and that night watching the polls we were crying and I don't care if that makes people call us snowflakes or whatever, I've been called worse. We knew, we knew this was not -- we have, we know people who have family that like golf with that man and it was literally like a dare it was a joke he wouldn't be the president, so you have this person who doesn't even care about this country. He doesn't and we knew it, we knew it was bad news for the LGBT community, we knew it was bad news for just us as a country and it's sad to see especially coming off the heels of Obama's administration. So I'm frustrated beyond belief with what I see at the top there. I try really hard just to focus on our own bubbles, you know the Lehigh Valley has a lot of great things, Bradbury Sullivan Center being one of them, we're progressive, I feel safe walking on the street holding hands with my wife in our community and the other areas of the Lehigh Valley, I'm very grateful for that. But, I'm incredibly heartbroken and frustrated for things that I see happening in the rest of the country and nothing like a pandemic to just amp it up even worse, I mean the civil unrest that we have happening right now, the Black Lives Matter movement, it's hard to just-- LB: I've asked everybody to talk about Black Lives Matter if they want to, so do you want to talk about that for a little while go ahead and say some stuff. ST: Yes, so I grew up in Warren County, New Jersey, which is just over the border from the valley. I moved to the valley about fourteen years ago, but that county houses an incredibly racist town that was just a couple of minutes north of where I grew up. So I was in high school with those kids and I graduated in '99, I was 1998 or 1999 there was an incident of a man being drug behind a pickup truck with a noose in Texas. And there was a group of kids in my class who called themselves proudly The Rednecks, and then walking through the hall one day I spotted a noose hanging out of the one kid's locker and I questioned them about it, I said what is this about. And inside of his locker he had the article of that lynching in Texas and said that the man that did was his hero. And I don't consider myself a violent person now but when I was seventeen, I was a little crazy and I kicked his locker shut on his hand and hurt his hand really bad. But when we went to go to the office to talk about what had happened I didn't get suspended or anything, I maybe got like a day of in school suspension but I've always been anti-racist, I don't want to say that I'm not racist, I am anti-racist and you know I've always had my eye on the police and what they're doing. I attended a free [Malia?] march when I was seventeen-years-old it's just something that's very important to me, I am disgusted by people that think any less of someone who has a different skin color. So in terms of what's going on right now I'm here for it, I love seeing young people on the street and fighting for this and I hope to see significant change in my lifetime. I hope to see radical overhauls of our police department so that we have more thoughtful response to things and we're allocating sources to better respond to -- you know we should be taking some of the burden on, I would never sign up to be a police officer. I have great respect for the people that do but they are overwhelmed and they need more training. So I think that we're in for the long haul here, it didn't change overnight in the 60s when everyone was protesting it's not going to change overnight this time. Enough is enough, it's again incredibly frustrating to see how Trump handles it and what the things that come out of his mouth are just unbelievable. But hopefully that will change in 99 days and some real positive and progressive changes will come about. I'm maintaining hope for that, I really am. And someone asked me the other day well what if he gets elected again and I don't even know, I can't even stomach a response to that yet, I just don't know. LB: Well I'm certain of that and I said you know we just have to go on that's the thing, we can't just give up and you know -- but we have to work, we have to make sure that that doesn't happen. ST: Agreed. LB: So you've already talked about being worried about getting the virus and taking a lot of precautions to avoid that. What's the best thing that you've really experienced so far, what's giving you hope now, and I think you were talking a little bit about young people marching, that's one of the things that gives me hope. ST: Yes, I think I'm realizing that there's more channels to communicate with each other. Seeing the global pollution go down has been something I've been -- you know a positive aspect I've been trying to focus on. I do try to kind of be the glass half full, it's hard for me. I think inherently I'm a pessimist and skeptic and maybe even a little negative, so I try to reprogram myself every day and really focus on the positive aspects of everything that's happening. So one of the best things that happened was in the beginning when I was home more, I've worked every day since I was like fourteen so even through cancer treatment I was working, I didn't take any time off for that, looking back what the hell I had the opportunity. But I just have always worked really hard and at the beginning of the lockdown when I was mostly just answering the phones at home I got to stay home more, and I wish I could say that like oh I drafted a book or I wrote a business plan and I got in shape but I've gained so much weight. We made, I lost count of how many like trays of rice crispy treats we made and just like we were doing so well like in February we bought an elliptical and we were on it every day and we were doing the app where you count your calories and all that and we were like losing weight and just like boom, like ripped out from under us. And it was just like I wish I could say I was that person that took this opportunity to like I don't know do something great but it's hard, there's so much uncertainty and it's so scary and I'm just glad that I'm alive I don't care if I weigh a little bit more than I did, whatever I'm alive and I think, uh, it was great at first to spend some more time at home. I got like some cleaning and organizing, and craft projects done that I never had the time for, but I certainly didn't like probably utilize it all to my best ability. But whatever. LB: [Linda Khan?], who they had a PFLAG for many years and she's a good friend of ours and she said you know I just wanted to have, I was always hoping that sometime I would just have time at home so I could give this series of projects done and I found out that if I had time at home I wouldn't do the projects anyway. I didn't do them, so I'm not that into it she said. It was not true, you know, so yeah, I don't know we've been doing a lot of gardening. I think that's been a positive thing. But you've been working the whole time, almost the whole time. ST: Yes, I was so I should be a little easy on myself. I did have like this massive checklist and I'm a checklist person I have checklists every day. There was one in the kitchen that was like quarantine projects. You know so that it can loom over me every time I go get more rice crispy treats and put added pressure to me that I don't freaking need. But it was there we got some things done and the other things you know whatever they'll get done sometime. LB: Well I think that's a really good and refreshing attitude to have, I think that it's brilliant so good for you for doing that. Have you had an opportunity to sort of like work into a regime of some kind of exercise, I just talked to somebody who said I don't go out of the house at all, and it was a young person and they said there's a -- they ended up being stuck in a place where they couldn't go home so they had to stay at somebody's family's house from college and then the family left so they're by themselves and I said if you've been like -- and they're in the woods and I said have you been going outside and he said, "No there's a bear, I'm not going out, what are you crazy, I'm not going out." So I thought that was really funny. ST: I am not built for this hot hot weather we've been having lately. I'm not a hot weather person, so I don't I try not to go outside either. We bought this house last year and there's an above ground pool, so we hang out in there a lot, that's about the extent of the exercise I'm getting. But I'm not swimming, I'm floating. LB: Water just it absorbs stuff so that would work. Well it's tricky. I have a bicycle desk and I've been using my bicycle pretty much when I'm on Zoom meetings that are boring. But if I have to be, I'm not on it now because all the interviews have been fascinating for me. I've got to tell you they've been fascinating, but sometimes there will be a Zoom meeting, a lot of the work meetings that we had to do and I'd be like on my desk, talking to somebody who is on one of those big bouncy ball things. ST: Yeah, you can see them kind of bobbing the whole time. LB: I thought that was great actually I thought like you know what the heck, so they were getting out of it and I thought that was a terrific thing. So it sounds like you're doing pretty well with your mental health, this actually says how would you describe your mental health right now. What do you think about that? ST: I think I was way more sporadic than normal, I feel like I'm pretty even keel most of the time, like middle of the road, I don't let bad things like really ruin my day unless it's like a catastrophe. But I would find like I never knew how I was going to wake up. There were days I would jump out of bed and you know knock out four of those quarantine projects on the checklist before 9 a.m. and it was great and then like the very next day I'd be like today we'll just stay in bed and watch these damn lesbian movies all day because I don't want to get out of bed and that was weird for me, I was aware of it though, which I think is important. I was very aware of like okay I don't feel like conquering the world today and that's okay, I'm going to let myself have this day of rest. Because I'll usually beat myself up if I'm not like gung ho. But it was just god you couldn't escape it either, I mean I guess you could, but it was like Facebook and there's so much that they didn't know. I was actually -- I had a big box of masks that I still had from when I was going through chemo because when your cell counts are low you know you have to mask up to go in public. So I wore masks before it was cool, no but I was probably one of the first people going to the grocery store with a mask on and got a lot of weird looks from people and it was funny like as the weeks ticked by then it was like you'd see more and more people and I'd shoot them like a -- no I didn't, it was interesting to see the progression because of course at first they said well we think people should have them, but it's because they learned more about the virus so they learned that yes this is a good thing so that was interesting. I was a little high strung at first, I was doing the whole sanitizing all of the groceries because they said it was like living on surfaces we didn't know. LB: So we're pretty much not doing that as much anymore is that true because I think we're still doing a little bit. ST: I definitely do a little bit, we -- my wife used to absolutely love food shopping, and I never really liked it and now we just we've used Instacart a lot, we're lucky to be able to do that but it's just I don't it's going there gives us so much anxiety. At the peak in April I took like half of my paycheck, we planned out meals for 14 days and we're like we're going to make a big batch of like -- we're vegetarian, we're going to make a big batch of veggie lasagna then we'll use it and we figured out like all right we're going to spend this much money and we're going to do two weeks of food shopping. So I went and my cart was overflowing like I looked like that crazy person in the grocery store. But it wasn't overflowing with like toilet paper I wasn't like hoarding stuff, and the cashier gave me the dirtiest look she was like oh, and I'm like this is what people should be doing so that you only have to check us out one time in two weeks and I'm saving you like but anyway, got home with all that stuff and had to wipe it all down and it was like a three and a half hour ordeal I was exhausted. I was like I hate this and of course you know you say like I want things to go back to normal and this is unfair but it's okay to have temper tantrums some days I certainly have. LB: Trish is a wonderful cook and one of her -- you know we are so lucky anybody that has a job, anybody that has a house, anybody that doesn't have to work in a place where they're constantly being really really at risk for nothing like waitresses that I know people that are servers that have to be at risk to the point where they're and they're not paid enough to make this worthwhile. And then threatened you know well yeah ; we're not wearing these masks but if you have a problem with it you can just resign and then you won't get unemployment. But Trish, a frustration that she has realized and she always kind of knew this but she's very very frugal, we live very frugally and yet she makes wonderful food, and that was all predicated on her ability to buy bargains and go to the places where she just said if I could go to the farmer's market now I would be getting those big flats of strawberries and then I could can the strawberry jelly and I can't believe I can't do that, I could get a whole flat for ten dollars. I would be putting the blueberries away so we'd have blueberry crumble in the winter, and I can't get out. She's realizing that that is actually our biggest expense is that she cannot buy food that is economical, we can't go to the farmer's market when the sales are on because they're just not careful there at all and she's a very high risk too she has lupus actually. So has had it all the time that we've been together all the 30 years that we've been together and she has to be very very careful. We have not been out, we haven't taken any -- well we were driving back from an appointment, we were at the doctor's appointment and we were driving back and we went by Produce Mart and I said go in there because we have our masks and we could go in there. And she said I can't go in there ; I can't count on it to be the way we need it to be and it will just be frustrating. And we have a young person who has actually had the virus and then was tested by Lehigh Valley Health network and has very high antibodies. So she shops for us. We don't even have to feel negative about it, but she still can't do the bargains, can't look at the stuff and go well this would be good and then if I buy this and this, I can make this. It is killing Trish that this is happening. ST: I think that's with Sarah like too she would go and maybe be inspired by something that she would see and make this whole meal around it and now it's like and you know they never get the bananas right, it's like no matter what it's -- one time we had a mishap last week she ordered like five bananas but they registered it as five bunches and she's trying to like you can message the person while they're shopping she's like no, no, no please don't bring us 11 pounds of bananas and she was able to get it corrected. But I said to her yesterday or the day before we Instacarted again I said when are we going to go back to the grocery store. Like we'll run in for quick things, you know, one or two items, but partially it's kind of being spoiled now, you know, I like having them deliver to the front door if I could just get them to come in and put them away that'd be awesome. But it's just also it's I realized even driving to the grocery store you start to realize like your shoulders are up around your ears and you're like wow this is really causing me a lot of distress, why you know I'll pay the delivery fee to have this luxury. LB: We just went out ; we haven't been out in probably two weeks and we've really only been out together to go to doctor's appointments. So we went to a doctor's appointment today, we're coming back and every single person that we saw we made a comment on whether or not they were wearing a mask and it drives you nuts. You know you're like oh those people are wearing a mask, that guys wearing a mask, the whole way and you know one of the things we did see was rush hour and it was -- when we were coming back and we were coming back from Whitehall so it was right on 145 and that's a major route and I said boy this is half the traffic you would normally see, people are at home, they are really, we were looking at shopping, all those shopping places there and grocery stores and they just didn't have the one car in the gas station, there was just clearly nothing happening, really this is affecting the economy and yes it's not going to stop. I mean I just asked somebody earlier today about what was giving that person, giving him help and he said that he is watching every single science based thing about the vaccines. And that's what's giving me the hope because they're on the third trial of a vaccine now that they still think is very promising. So because the way Americans are, we're really a bunch of assholes and so we can't be like England where they just, everybody locked down, nobody left the house for 90 days and it went away and now they have life. ST: I remember first hearing about China and seeing videos where the government or health officials were posting these giant speakers on street corners and it was saying like do not come out of your house and they were only letting people like on Thursdays go grocery shopping and I thought oh my god this is, they're insane over there. And now I'm like oh my god I wish our fucking government was as insane as well. I just didn't realize the magnitude of it at that point, we got no direction though we were like wear a mask if you want whatever. LB: We've seen reports from scientists that have said bone fide reports that if every person in the United States wore a mask for three months it would be over. ST: Yeah wear it properly. LB: Right actually not just -- and if that happened it would be a done deal and yeah if we'd had the leadership to do that and said look I'm sorry I know this is tough for you but if we don't do this we'll hurt the economy kids won't be able to go back to school. Well, we really didn't have that leadership. ST: Are you in your Covid interviews? Do you have any educators or teachers that you're interviewing? LB: No, I talked to somebody who was a retired teacher who has a lot of teacher friends and he was very strong about saying it's just ridiculous and he gave me so many interesting little insights into it. One of the things he said was in the Allentown School District, he was a music teacher so he worked in every single school, and he said in the Allentown School District in September it is so hot many of the schools are not air conditioned, what they do is they take -- so he said they're talking to me about having smaller classes what they do when it's hot like that is they take all the kids and they put them in a big air conditioned auditorium. He said what are they going to do, we're going to leave the kids in the 99 degree temperature and who are they-- ST: No way. LB: New kids have to be in there, but these kids can be in the cool area. He said there's just no way they're going to do that and then he named three or four other things where he said it is just not going to work, you cannot keep these kids from getting kids, sick from everything else. I talked to a number of college educators and one of the people that I know very well who works at Muhlenberg was saying we cannot, you know kids who are young people who are students on college campuses get sick, it happens all the time. You know you can have mono everybody gets mono, everybody gets the flu, it happens all the time. And people get colds and part of the whole experience of going to college is that communal interaction, you're with people all the time, in fact I was just talking to somebody who just graduated today and he was saying you know I haven't seen my friends as much I can only see them on Zoom. And I said you know on the day I graduated from college I had a really good friend that I had seen every single day of college who was still one of my best friends, I just talked to her and stuff, but I didn't see her face to face for ten years after that day. And I said the fact that you have Zoom and you can see -- because she lived in -- she moved to New Orleans and I was living in New York State and it's just like I didn't see her. I talked to her but I didn't see her. And I said the fact that you can see your friends when you leave college, that's what happens if you're not in that communal situation. If you're missing out on that communal situation of all that sharing and being around people that are different that you've never been around a person that was like that before, you begin to have new attitudes and ideas, your family is conservative and you change, your family has only spoken one language and then you see oh there's people that speak all the different -- if you lose that in a college situation it is devastating and yet you cannot stop kids from getting sick in college if they're all in dorms. It's just not going to work, it's like a nursing home, it's not going to work, and everybody has said that. And one professor was saying to me, she was an administrator actually and she said they think they're going to open this college but the staff and the faculty are not going to allow it to open, because it's too dangerous for the faculty and what they've said is it's unethical to do. ST: It really is, you're already asking so much of teachers, now this, and what is your plan and again it's like every district is left to their own devices well you guys write the policy and you figure out what the plan when a teacher gets sick or a student gets sick, but there's also HIPAA laws and what. There's no direction from the top down and I just feel for them, I feel for every parent, you know, we don't have children but definitely our friends do and talking to them through this it's like they're so torn it's like oh my gosh my kid needs to go to school, I need to get back to my job, they need the socialization, but germs. What the hell do you do? It's awful. LB: And there's even that other level of the idea that we're seeing that poor school districts like the school district in the city of Allentown where people don't even really have access to the internet much less having a computer. They don't even have the internet in their home, we don't have a grid here, and what they're talking about is like in cities like this or cities like Easton and Bethlehem they need to make the entire city be a grid and then the payment to be able to get into -- and just have like you never get a password who is in school so that they can be on the internet and then you can get them inexpensive computers and you can do that. But right now kids who are in the Parkland School District are having no problem being able to do lessons and classes and Zoom classes and stuff. But kids who are in Allentown who in some ways need this education more they don't all speak English, they're American citizens, they don't all speak English, they need this, they don't have their family. Their families are essential workers so they're home alone. You know that has to really be-- ST: But the unexpected ripple effects of this you know the more people that you talk to and it sounds like you -- you know you get to talk to all these people with these interviews and things are sprouting up that you wouldn't even think. One of my friends works in the parks system so when this first happened the shutdown everybody's like let's get back to nature and it was March, April, it was great weather so like the first or second weekend there were like seven forest fires not like raging forest fires but there were seven fires in our parks system that had to go be extinguished because it's like people that never go out into nature are suddenly out there, you know, tossing their cigarette butts or whatever and I was like wow what an unintended ripple coming out of this and there's so many of them out there, and there's so many that will continue to happen, there's so many we haven't even identified yet. It's just -- it's a really interesting part of history, I'd rather not have lived for it, but you know let it happen in another hundred years but here we are getting through it. LB: It will be a thing to see if indeed people like for example well we can't afford to pay kids you know we can't afford to pay for kids to have education and suddenly we have a trillion dollars to line everybody's pockets, a trillion dollars is so much money that that would mean every single person in the entire Lehigh Valley could have two million dollars for children, you know. ST: For us to get like a half hour bump on the stock market that was fun right. Couldn't have spent that money better. LB: And yet you know they'll say like well there's not enough money to have universal health care, because if we'd had universal health care that would have been another thing that would have kept people from getting sick, because people went to work because they couldn't go to the doctor, they didn't have health care and stuff, they were afraid to lose-- ST: And they infected other people, yes. LB: So, yeah, well this has been a wonderful conversation, I'm so glad to get to talk to you, what a good time. We'd love to stop by on Zoom at your bar. ST: We've got to hash out the happy hour specials I'll let you know. LB: Tell people what happy hour special it is so that they could bring it to their Zoom. Their own concoction as a mocktail or something. But it would be really interesting to hear what it ends up to be that is your perfect lesbian movie. ST: Yes, well we haven't found it yet. So far, you know, we do like Carol, we got really [ into the Gentleman Jack series on HBO that wasn't a movie but we dressed up like Anne and Ann and we're Sarah and Sarah so we dressed up as them for Halloween and I contacted [Shibden?] Hall and had them put little signs around that was like Sarah's love for you is so strong it can be felt at Shibden Hall, so I did that for my wife. But we are absolutely obsessed with that series so if they could like -- and that's another thing they can't film the next season because of Covid of all the things that are going on that's the most devastating. LB: Are we privileged or what but boy I feel that way too and I actually studied all about Anne Lister I was going to do a whole art history program about her for lesbian visibility day and how brilliant she was and all the problematic things about her and it's such a fascinating thing. That you know they actually had well I'm sure you would know this but they had intimacy coaches to be able to tell them how to make out with each other and how to touch each other and stuff so that it would make more sense and it wouldn't look fake. ST: The theories oh my gosh, no I didn't know that. LB: This is what you should you know because these women are not lesbians, they were saying like you know you have all sorts of coaches for different kinds of movements in movies and stuff. ST: That is so funny. LB: Fighting coaches and stuff like that so they actually said you know this is what you should do, and this is how you should move, and this is the look you have. It is a brilliant series, it's the second, we don't have Hulu, so we sort of latched onto our friend's but it's the second series now, is it the second season? ST: Yes, there were two seasons and now the third one is postponed. So I think or was it one season. LB: I thought it was kind of sad actually so you know. ST: Well we read her, Sarah read her actual diary too and then like you know I never have time, so she gave me the Cliff Notes, but her medical treatment from her diaries was horrible. So I don't know if they'll touch on any of that I doubt it. LB: Fascinating thing but you'll never have time to do but Shibden Hall has a thing that's called Lister Sisters and Michelle Meecham I don't know she lives in our community I don't know if you know her, she also has a whole outfit, a whole Anne Lister, she was at the pride festival dressed as Anne Lister. She wears that ring and everything and she looks -- she became a Lister Sister because you know despite thousands or no it's five million words, she wrote five million words, well they haven't all been decoded. They get people who are known as Lister Sisters and they teach them how to decode it and then they give them pages and they write, they decode it. ST: I have the legend of like her handwriting I think it's saved on my phone, so I was going to like write -- I'll start writing to Sarah in that code, she'll be like what the hell is this. Grocery list, surprise. LB: But you have to know all those math symbols and everything, and actually the actors in that are just, they're so incredibly great the women are so great. I love that you're into that especially since Harry Potter is dead to us, so you know. ST: I was never a fan anyway. LB: I liked it but I'm past it now, I knew a lot of trans people who loved it and it's over such a shame. So good for Anne Lister for keeping us amused. Thank you again so much for talking to me. ST: Absolutely, it was fun. LB: When the transcript is all done, they'll send you the thing and you can look it over and see if there's anything that you say oh, I didn't mean to say that. But I don't think you'll find that, I thought this was wonderful and it was very different than a lot of other people I've been talking about. Each person has such a different insight into that, and this is significantly different because of your working in the hospitality industry so to speak and it's very helpful. So thank you very much for doing that. ST: Absolutely, thank you for thinking of me for the project I'm excited. LB: We're very lucky that we have this archive because Trish and I saved tons and tons and tons of papers over the last twenty-five years that we've been doing this and we're like what are we going to do with this stuff. And now it's digitized, it's all-- ST: Yes, incredible. LB: We're very lucky and we own it, the center owns it, but Muhlenberg is maintaining it so we've very lucky. Anyway thank you very much, keep up the good work, stay safe. ST: I will you too. LB: All that kind of stuff and we'll keep our fingers crossed for November well ninety-nine days, ninety-nine days on the wall. ST: All right thank you, bye. END OF VIDEO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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01:15:26
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Title
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Sarah Trimmer, July 27, 2020
Description
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Sarah Trimmer talks about how the current COVID-19 pandemic is affecting her, her essential worker job managing a bed and breakfast in South City Bethlehem, and her concern about the virus because she is at high risk as a breast cancer survivor. She also discusses how she and her wife have replaced new entertainment interests for things they regularly did before the virus.
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PH40_30
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COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-
Date
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2020-07-27
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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-
https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/b83ed7b2ae3c028fdb360599268d8839.png
262d749c57495783af37b5965947bb43
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: COVID-19
Description
An account of the resource
In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19.
The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism.
The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Liz Bradbury
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Cynthia Rodriguez
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Viewer)
https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_31b.xml
OHMS Object Text
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contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka
5.4 July 20, 2020 Cynthia Rodriguez, July 20, 2020 (Part 2) PH40_31b 00:02:04 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- COVID-19 (Disease) Cynthia Rodriguez Liz Bradbury video/mpeg RodriguezCynthia_2020072020_video.mp4 1:|23(5)|48(16) 0 https://youtu.be/sZiVWpfGEt0 YouTube video 5 Using Zoom for creative and business ventures CR: Okay. So I’ve learned to get really creative on Zoom from the beginning of the pandemic. Actually also, I wrote a few song parodies regarding the pandemic that I would perform on Facebook Live. 0 MovingImage Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile=
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:02:04
Dublin Core
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Title
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Cynthia Rodriguez, July 20, 2020 (Part 2)
Identifier
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PH40_31b
Subject
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COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2020-07-20
Format
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video
Creator
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
Publisher
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
Rights
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Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs.
-
https://lgbt.digitalarchives.muhlenberg.edu/files/original/698e17af4ed4f3049ed078b183de6ff1.png
c6386d3a56d5aafff0f82c3ebf790f93
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community: COVID-19
Description
An account of the resource
In the spring of 2020, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive received a grant to collect oral histories and written stories for 40 Years of Public Health in the Lehigh Valley’s LGBT Community: Collecting and Curating Local LGBT Health Experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19.
The collection consists of oral histories from individuals who experienced the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as oral histories from members of the local community as they lived through 2020's summer of Covid-19. Running through both are the themes of dealing with the fear of an emerging health crisis, loneliness and isolation, and coming together as a community in support and activism.
The project was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Liz Bradbury
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Cynthia Rodriguez
OHMS Object
This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS
Viewer)
https://trexlerworks.muhlenberg.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=PH40_31a.xml
OHMS Object Text
This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the
contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka
5.4 July 20, 2020 Cynthia Rodriguez, July 20, 2020 (Part 1) PH40_31a 01:12:29 LVLGBT40 40 Years of Public Health Experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Muhlenberg College: Trexler Library Oral History Repository This oral history recording was sponsored in part by the Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium, with generous support provided by a grant to Lafayette College from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. trexlerlibrarymuhlenberg COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- COVID-19 (Disease) Cynthia Rodriguez Liz Bradbury video/mpeg RodriguezCynthia_2020072020_video.mp4 1.0:|23(8)|44(7)|71(8)|106(11)|141(16)|172(14)|199(2)|222(12)|245(2)|266(15)|291(7)|322(12)|363(4)|386(4)|409(15)|432(12)|451(6)|476(5)|501(17)|528(4)|547(14)|572(10)|593(5)|612(10)|633(15)|654(5)|675(2)|706(5)|731(3)|752(4)|783(6)|800(8)|821(5)|844(3)|863(9)|902(5)|925(4)|948(5)|967(10)|990(15)|1013(13)|1040(12)|1063(10)|1086(11)|1105(14)|1130(11)|1153(12)|1174(7)|1201(13)|1224(10)|1247(13)|1270(14)|1303(7)|1322(6)|1349(11)|1380(16)|1405(12)|1426(14)|1455(8)|1474(12)|1507(7)|1540(11)|1567(5)|1590(12)|1621(11)|1640(5)|1661(9)|1684(16)|1703(4)|1730(3)|1749(11)|1784(13)|1815(5) 0 https://youtu.be/NTfNbI4wEBk YouTube video 0 Interview Introduction CYNTHIA RODRIGUEZ: Okay. 
 ; 
 ; LIZ BRADBURY: I have this little backup recording where I’ve got the voice recording too just in case the thing doesn’t work or record. And I’m going to read you this, this thing. So with this project the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of -- oh, wait, I didn’t do some stuff. I’ve got to pin you, I forgot to do that, and I forgot to turn off my phone. I’ll start again. Pin video and I got the audio on. Okay. And I just want to be sure my phone is off. (clears throat) I’m sorry. 0 243 Current living/work/school situation LB: Okay. These are just general things. You can talk about anything you want, but just to check in, let’s start with some basic questions and ask who’s in your house with you? 
 ; 
 ; CR: My mom -- 
 ; 
 ; LB: So you’re -- 
 ; 
 ; CR: -- my mum.
 ; 
 ; LB: Okay, so that’s cool. You’re both there all the time? Are you working?
 ; 0 368 Missing summer classes because of upcoming surgery LB: So what’s it like being a student? And now, you’re doing everything online, I would assume. Are you taking classes in the summer?
 ; 
 ; CR: I did not have to take any classes this summer because originally, I was supposed to get surgery on my left foot, which did not happen because of COVID because they had cut out elective surgeries when the pandemic started. 0 438 Thoughts on Cedar Crest College opening back up/taking classes during the pandemic LB: Do you think that Cedar Crest will open for students, or is it all going to be online? 
 ; 
 ; CR: So far, what we’ve heard, but of course, things can change because they’ve been changing so quickly like all the time depending on how it’s going with the pandemic. As of right now, we are supposed to get what they’re calling a hybrid now experience in the fall, which honestly, I’m used to it anyway because I usually pick at least one online class per semester, so that’s a normal thing for me. 0 756 How the pandemic has changed school life/artistic work CR: They really give you opportunities there to even perform at the school. We had, prior to all this going down, like a student showcase every month that we would perform, show what we learned, so I was already performing with my guitar. The theater club held this big show at the end of the semester in our big main theater. 0 945 Keeping mom healthy during pandemic/keeping outings minimal LB: So have you been pretty much staying in, or what have you been doing? 
 ; 
 ; CR: Well, definitely like everybody else during quarantine, we stayed put here. We don’t really take any chances. I’m very protective of my mom. Even after green light or not, I don’t care about all that. 0 1075 Receiving government aid LB: Yeah, have you gotten additional money from the government or as you --? 
 ; CR: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s helped a little bit and the fact that we don’t have a mortgage anymore because we’ve had this house forever. All those little things helped a lot. 
 ; 0 1098 Communicating during the pandemic/Keeping busy during the pandemic/Coping with personal difficulties LB: So have you been communicating with a lot of people on media like this or by phone or texting or -- more than you would normally do compared to...? I would guess that you’re very involved with MCC, wouldn’t you say that? 
 ; 
 ; CR: Oh, yeah, yeah. But I’ve kept very, very busy. We’ve known each other for a while. You know I keep very busy with a lot of activities and I stay... From the beginning of this pandemic, I made a decision to keep some kind of structure in my life like a schedule because it’s so easy to fall into this rut. 0 1628 Friend who had to leave Italy during pandemic/Knowing people who have contracted Covid-19 LB: Let me ask you something. Do you know anybody that’s had the -- have -- has had the coronavirus or anybody that like [who got that?]?
 ; 
 ; CR: Actually, yes, especially in the beginning because I think a lot of people did not... They weren’t taking it seriously, I don’t think, you know? And so I think people were a lot more careless in the beginning because they just didn’t know before everyone’s wearing masks and I don’t think... 0 2165 Protecting self and family from catching Covid-19 CR: I feel like it’s just too new for us to really nail anything down, to really know about it. So with all that, that’s all I need. I just protect myself across the board. I don’t care what’s like -- unless they really learn about it, figure it out, get a vaccine, whatever, I feel we’re going to take these precautions the rest of the year until next year. 0 2330 Participating in the Black Lives Matter movement CR: And speaking of that, the other thing that I got involved with unfortunately, not that I was trying to do that now during COVID, I’ve been part of the Black Lives Matter movement the whole time it’s been around, for seven years now, I think, ish. And since like Trayvon Martin times, been involved with that, been using actually the same signs that I made a long time ago at my old studio, and I wasn’t going to do that. 0 2492 Thoughts on Dr. Rachel Levine/Governor Tom Wolf's handling of the pandemic LB: What do you think about...? And then one of the things we have here in the state of Pennsylvania is that we get to see Dr. Rachel Levine on the news, and she’s the secretary of health. Have you had a chance to see her? She’s transgender, and she is speaking about -- I mean, we really have pretty good leadership in the state of Pennsylvania. Has that affected you, or have you had a chance to see that? 
 ; 0 2668 Frustrations over state opening too soon/People not wanting to take Covid precautions CR: I really wish we had done that longer honestly. I wish we’d have done... I’m just being honest about that. I feel like we opened too soon. I think we went the whole business as usual too soon, and now, we’re seeing a spike. It’s totally going to affect the -- all school for everybody across the board and for the whole country. 0 2958 Concerns over children returning to school during pandemic/for parents during pandemic/caretakers and healthcare workers CR: That’s a big concern for me for people when kids go back to school. I think that’s my biggest concern is kids coming -- basically coming back home and bringing this stuff -- even if they’re not sick, if they don't have symptoms coming home and infecting their parents, grandparents. That’s a big concern of mine. 0 3132 Working at the Allentown Women's Center and concerns for former colleagues CR: I used to work at Allentown Women’s Center for six years, all my best friends work there. Oh, that’s been like a nightmare just worrying about them, and every time I talk to them, not being able to be close to them any time soon, like, “You guys, really be careful,” and it’s -- 
 ; 
 ; LB: Are they open? 
 ; 
 ; CR: -- and praying for them every day. Hmm?
 ; 0 3308 Uncertainty over how the pandemic will pan out LB: We’re still in the beginning of it too. 
 ; 
 ; CR: Huh? 
 ; 
 ; LB: We’re just at the beginning of it too. We don’t even know what’s going to happen. I mean if people are looking at this video of you talking thirty years from now, they know what happened. 0 3377 Source of hope during pandemic LB: What’s giving you hope? I mean, what’s the best thing that’s happened out of this, or what’s really giving you hope, or generally, what gives you hope? 
 ; 
 ; CR: I think the biggest thing that’s kept me together like mentally, emotionally, everything is probably I’m really grateful for my spirituality honestly. 0 3434 Importance of staying connected digitally/having support systems CR: I think is really important for people to have that support system and a Zoom account (laughs) to really connect with people because it is -- I feel bad for anyone that doesn’t have that connection via... Like if they don’t have good internet or a laptop or whatever, I really feel for them because that’s like the lifeline for most people to the outside world. 0 3521 Using Tinder during the pandemic/Forming a romantic relationship during the pandemic LB: Are you using any dating apps or any queer dating apps or anything? 
 ; 
 ; CR: (laughs) Yeah, Tinder is probably not the best --
 ; 
 ; LB: (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) 
 ; 
 ; CR: (laughs) Yeah. Yeah, I feel like you have to be really, really careful. Shoot, I haven’t done like online dating app [00:59:00] or anything for years. 0 3653 Heightened feelings of loneliness during the pandemic CR: If somebody wasn’t partnered before this went down, this is like -- then it’s been -- I know it’s been tough for people. I got lucky, but I know like that’s -- it is what it is though. Huh?
 ; 
 ; LB: I think people who are living alone, completely alone, it’s very, very hard for them. 
 ; 0 3756 Thoughts for the future LB: So we’re pretty much at the end of this. I wanted to just ask you in the future, we hope that somebody -- well, I think people will look at these. These are very interesting artifacts because comparing this to the flu that happened a hundred years ago, a hundred and two years ago, the flu epidemic of 1918, they didn’t have social media then. 0 4154 Wanting to get in contact with old friends from Spain LB: You spent a lot of time in Europe or you were in Europe last year for three and a half months, and I’m sure you have friends in other countries too that -- have you been communicating with those people in other countries about what that -- their experiences were, or was it mostly students that were from here that you were around? 0 4263 Conclusion LB: Yeah. Well, this has been a great interview. I really, really appreciate you taking your time to do this with me today, and -- 
 ; 
 ; CR: Thank you. 
 ; 
 ; LB: -- I appreciate it very much. 0 MovingImage Cynthia Rodriguez talks about how the current COVID-19 pandemic is affecting her, her friends and family, her experience as a full time student and her work as an artist and musician. She also talks about prayer and meditation and civil rights activism including Black Lives Matter. Cynthia Rodriguez Part 1 2020-07-20 CYNTHIA RODRIGUEZ: Okay. LIZ BRADBURY: I have this little backup recording where I've got the voice recording too just in case the thing doesn't work or record. And I'm going to read you this, this thing. So with this project the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of -- oh, wait, I didn't do some stuff. I've got to pin you, I forgot to do that, and I forgot to turn off my phone. I'll start again. Pin video and I got the audio on. Okay. And I just want to be sure my phone is off. (clears throat) I'm sorry. CR: Make sure I don't get interrupted. (speaking Spanish) Sorry. LB: (Spanish), right? CR: Yeah, yeah. LB: Okay, I'll start again. With this project, the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and the Trexler Library at Muhlenberg College will collaborate on forty years of public health experiences in the Lehigh Valley LGBT community collecting and curating local LGBT health experiences from HIV/AIDS to COVID-19. My name is Liz Bradbury, and I'm here with Cynthia Rodriguez to talk to her about her experiences in the Lehigh Valley community during this time of the COVID-19 epidemic as part of the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive. We're meeting on Zoom on July 20th, 2020. So thank you so much, Cynthia, for being willing to speak with us today. To start, can you please state your full name and spell it for me please? CR: Sure. It's Cynthia, C-Y-N-T-H-I-A, Rodriguez, R-O-D-R-I-G-U-E-Z. LB: Okay. And will you please share your birthdate? CR: Sure, it's 04/29/71. I am forty-nine years old. LB: Okay, and what town are you in? CR: I'm in Allentown, Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. LB: Great. This is the consent portion. So do you consent to this interview today? CR: Yes, ma'am. LB: Okay. Do you consent to having this interview being transcribed, digitized, and made publicly available online in searchable formats? CR: Yes. LB: Do you consent to the LGBT Archive using your interview for educational purposes in other formats including films, articles, websites, presentations, and other things we may not even understand now because it'll be -- CR: Yeah. LB: -- in the future? Great. Do you understand that you'll have 30 days after the electronic delivery of the transcript to review your interview and identify parts you'd like to delete and or withdraw from the project? You can withdraw the whole thing if you --? CR: Yes. LB: So what is your zip code? CR: It is 18109. LB: Okay, and you just stated your age. You said you're forty-nine. CR: Yes. LB: And how do you identify within the LGBT community? So you could say anything about how you identify within the community. CR: I would identify myself as a soft butch lesbian. LB: Okay. And here are some things to talk about, and we can talk about all sorts of different -- and would you say that you're cisgender? CR: Yes. LB: Okay. These are just general things. You can talk about anything you want, but just to check in, let's start with some basic questions and ask who's in your house with you? CR: My mom -- LB: So you're -- CR: -- my mum. LB: Okay, so that's cool. You're both there all the time? Are you working? CR: Yeah, I work part time. I've been mostly working part time since I went back to school as a full-time student. LB: Uh-huh. So what are you doing? CR: I clean part time. I was working at Stonewall for -- as a security for a few years, and that ended this year especially with everything closing. LB: Yeah. So -- LB: And I'm a full-time student. CR: Oh, so you're still a full-time student? LB: Yes, I am right now. I graduated from LCCC with an associate's in general studies, and now I've been -- I'm in Cedar Crest College. I am an art therapy major, and, God willing, I'll be graduating in the spring and going into their master's program in the fall. CR: A master's in Cedar Crest? LB: Yes. CR: Oh, cool. LB: And -- CR: Yeah, I'm planning to do it all the way. I'm going to get -- go for my doctorate after that, hopefully at Drexel in art therapy. LB: Uh-huh. So your master's will be in art therapy too? CR: Yeah, I'm getting a bachelor's in art therapy at Cedar Crest in the spring, then from there immediately, I'll be going into their master's program for art therapy in the fall, so I can get my license to practice. And I plan on continuing my education for art therapy hopefully at Drexel because there are very few places in the northeast that do that, that offer that program for art therapists, so yeah. So my ultimate goal is to have my own practice and hopefully come back to Cedar Crest as a professor. LB: Oh, cool, that'd be neat. Yeah. So what's it like being a student? And now, you're doing everything online, I would assume. Are you taking classes in the summer? CR: I did not have to take any classes this summer because originally, I was supposed to get surgery on my left foot, which did not happen because of COVID because they had cut out elective surgeries when the pandemic started. And by the time they allowed it, it was too late for me to do that since class is starting soon, and there's a long recovery time for the type of surgery I'm getting. It's about a few months of recovery time at least because it's the Achilles tendon. LB: Oh, God, yeah. CR: Yeah, I had it done on my right foot when I had a bone here -- a bone spur removed. I was laid up all summer. That was five years ago, and they said that I would eventually have to get it on my left foot, which that would have been this year because I can only do that during the summer because of school. So since that didn't happen, it's been postponed till next summer after graduation. LB: Do you think that Cedar Crest will open for students, or is it all going to be online? CR: So far, what we've heard, but of course, things can change because they've been changing so quickly like all the time depending on how it's going with the pandemic. As of right now, we are supposed to get what they're calling a hybrid now experience in the fall, which honestly, I'm used to it anyway because I usually pick at least one online class per semester, so that's a normal thing for me. However, if things change, students may have to switch some classes because it's some things -- I don't know how they're going to navigate that as far as classes that we really need to do live, hands-on especially being like an art/psych major, which is basically what an art therapy major is. I can see maybe one, possibly two classes that I can do online. The rest, I don't know because it's -- I'm supposed to take printing, print shop this fall, so I don't know how that's going to work. With the ceramics class, our professor got creative thankfully. He basically sent us home with a bunch of clay and told us to make stuff, and (laughs) he was much more lenient. He was like, "You can be abstract." I'm thinking of course, you know, and we would like video and all kinds of stuff. They do the best they can. We did that for art therapy and -- but for... We'll see. And then for music, I minor in music, it depends on the instructors, which are basically like independent contractors there anyway, that you meet one-on-one. I take an instrument every semester. I have learned guitar, piano there, and this semester, I'm supposed to do drums. I don't know how that's going to work. I did plan on getting my own set anyway, so I don't know. We have to get creative. Maybe they can teach me while I have my drum set in front of the laptop. I have no idea. It's going to be a lot of fun trying to figure it out. Everyone jokes that I'm trying to become my -- a one -- because I sing too, my own one-woman band, so... I love music, and I love having that opportunity at Cedar Crest to learn all these instruments. After this semester for my last undergrad semester, I was planning to learn sax. So if I'm done there, I'll have like four instruments at least under my belt, but -- so things like that. Depending on how they figure that out, I may have to switch classes last minute. Honestly, I'm really trying to stay flexible mentally to be ready for anything and just go with the flow. Because these days, I feel if you don't have that mentality, you can just really go nuts. And I know that that may not vibe with the people that are not too good with change and are so accustomed to like a set schedule and so structured. But you really can't be like that these days. You know, this pandemic I realized, well, you kind of have to go with the flow or you're going to really stress yourself out. LB: Yeah. Do you have a saxophone? CR: No, but I would totally be getting one (laughs) if it all works out well for the spring. Amazon is your best friend during quarantine. LB: (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) in a way, yeah. I was going to say I have a C saxophone, which is a -- CR: Nice. LB: -- which I will be happy to give you for as long as you want. CR: No way, wow. LB: I haven't used it in a long time. I was studying clarinet, and one of the things I found -- and I don't want to be discouraging you -- but if you've never played the saxophone or clarinet before, it's hard to learn it as an adult. Like piano and guitar is pretty -- and -- but like Trish and I, she wanted to learn violin and I wanted to learn clarinet actually, they just -- it's very hard to learn those as adults. You can pick up piano great but -- [boy?]. But anyway, so I have a C saxophone with a mouthpiece and everything. CR: Oh, great. LB: That's a marching band saxophone. So it's not really the jazz kind, but it's like a regular saxophone. And so if you want to have that, I will lend that to you probably forever because I can't imagine -- CR: (laughs) LB: -- as I -- CR: Permanently borrow your saxophone? LB: You could permanently borrow. I can't imagine me needing this and if -- CR: Thank you. LB: -- and I said to Trish, "I wish I knew somebody that needed to borrow the saxophone, I would be happy to --" CR: That would be great, thank you, thank you so much. LB: Get to that point, feel free, and I will lend you. CR: Great. LB: I haven't used it in a long time. I had it refurbished right before when I was using it, but that was a long time ago, so I don't know -- CR: Oh, wow. LB: -- if it works. CR: Yeah, it's been great. They really give you opportunities there to even perform at the school. We had, prior to all this going down, like a student showcase every month that we would perform, show what we learned, so I was already performing with my guitar. The theater club held this big show at the end of the semester in our big main theater. To be onstage with the whole school, I mean it was great. It was great. I felt like a rock star because I have an electric guitar as well, and I was doing that. They're fantastic. I mean we had a lot of... That's going to be the kind of -- like one of the tougher things going back, not really being able to fully enjoy like some of the activities that we had. Like, we have a great theater department. I was heavily involved with that. I was part of their stage crew backstage like painting, building sets. And the biggest thing that I'm warned honestly like with the creative things there was they were going to do this play this past semester called Silent Sky, which I was really excited about. The head of the theater department took me out to lunch last summer when I came back from studying abroad in Spain, and she gave me the script to read and offered me a solo art exhibit in the lobby of the theater to go with this play, like a whole woman-centered kind of exhibit to go with the play. Because the play if you're not familiar with it, it's like that one movie Hidden Figures about the female astronomers or NASA, working in that?. Yeah, it was similar to that. I think it was a true story too. So we had this whole thing. They had just printed -- they had just printed the posters for me for my exhibit right before the school shut down -- LB: No. CR: -- in mid-March. Oh, it was... That would have been a huge break. I was already in the middle of working on these four major, big, installation mixed-media pieces I had set. I got the approval of like the cabinet, the school, the president who -- oh, actually she's -- we're -- really we're real tight over there at the college, Elizabeth. I had her on my radio show that I had there, and she was like, "Oh, I'd love to have you back here as a professor." She's really cool, Elizabeth Meade. But, yeah, I was really excited. I went through this whole approval process. I even had my own art assistant and I was doing all this stuff working with the theater department excited about having the show and a reception and the whole thing and then, boom, then that happens, so we closed. LB: Yeah, that's tough. CR: Yes. LB: So have you been pretty much staying in, or what have you been doing? CR: Well, definitely like everybody else during quarantine, we stayed put here. We don't really take any chances. I'm very protective of my mom. Even after green light or not, I don't care about all that. Because I feel green light does not mean the pandemic is over, which I think people have been confusing the two. Yeah, she's been like grounded for months now. But she goes out like when -- with another immediate family member. I mean, we basically have a hazmat thing on her because we don't want to take any chances. I have an elderly parent, and we're both actually immune compromised. I have diabetes, so I have to watch. It was -- [unless changed?] that it's probably not one of the best things to have during this pandemic right now, diabetes. So I've been really, really careful, very minimal contact to no contact with anybody. And honestly, Liz, it's not even more for me. I will probably survive for the most part, but I don't think she would, so I can't -- I don't take any chances with that. LB: Yeah, (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) -- CR: We keep it very minimal. I don't go to many places other than my part-time job. I clean a doctor's office a couple of times a week, so I was considered essential, so I never stopped working for this cleaning service. I was thankful for that, you know, so... I haven't stopped working throughout the whole time. But fortunately, I get to work by myself, so I didn't have to worry about being around anyone. LB: Yeah, have you gotten additional money from the government or as you --? CR: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.That's helped a little bit and the fact that we don't have a mortgage anymore because we've had this house forever. All those little things helped a lot. LB: Yeah, that makes a big difference. CR: Oh yeah, a big, big difference. LB: It's (inaudible) how that changes. So have you been communicating with a lot of people on media like this or by phone or texting or -- more than you would normally do compared to...? I would guess that you're very involved with MCC, wouldn't you say that? CR: Oh, yeah, yeah. But I've kept very, very busy. We've known each other for a while. You know I keep very busy with a lot of activities and I stay... From the beginning of this pandemic, I made a decision to keep some kind of structure in my life like a schedule because it's so easy to fall into this rut. I would joke about it nonstop when it first started. I was posting on Facebook, but I will be like, "There is no excuse to not wear pants people," you know, like yeah... (laughter) And I've had to push myself, but I would -- especially with school and being online, just it can be like -- you can get lazy. I would make an effort to just keep the routine. I would get up every day, take a shower, brush my teeth, put on real clothes. I didn't want to roam around in pajamas all day. That was a huge, huge thing for me because I know how it's so easy to fall into. It's so easy, so I really made an effort. Even if I was going to stay in the house all day, it didn't matter. We have a yard and stuff. Fortunately, we get to like go outside and not be cooped up all day. But almost from the beginning, I started going to the park more. I go almost every day to our local park just to -- even if it's just to get some air and sunshine. I wasn't going to be cooped up for just -- yeah. I thought that was really important. With the activities, well, school kept me till the end -- almost the end of May, I want to say -- no, like mid-May. That kept me pretty busy because I had six classes, so that's enough to keep you busy for a while. Other than that, after that ended, I realized I had to -- other than working a little bit, I had to do more things, so... During this whole thing, I joined the Red Cross, and I've been in training for one of their jobs, a caseworker but -- that you could do online. That was like a safe job. But now, I want to expand to like in-person stuff, possibly transport blood and things like that from blood drives and things like that. There's like a million jobs they had there, volunteer work that you can do for them. As of right now, what I've been doing lately for them -- to help clients that seek help from the Red Cross. I'm one of their Spanish interpreters now, so that's been -- you know, that's just on the phone or, yes, that can be via Zoom or whatever, but there are plenty of meetings, opportunities. They provide free training on a lot of stuff when you're a volunteer, first aid, CPR, etc., which I'm certified in all that anyway because of prior jobs but... So I did that to occupy my time, and I just felt like I wanted to give back and help the community a little bit in the pandemic. Because you can just get in your head a lot and just feel sorry for yourself about it, and I'm not about that. It was like I just want to get out of my head, help other people, and just be proactive about it, you know? Like, you can be proactive during a crisis like this just like anything else and just do your part. So other than that, I took up learning American Sign Language. I've been taking an ESL course because I love learning different languages, and I've always wanted to learn sign language. So I'm working on becoming trilingual, and I want to practice with other people via Zoom that speak as well. With one, I've been doing that with a friend of mine. So I'm doing that, and, yeah, just I, like, over cope. I do a lot of stuff and play my guitars, keyboard, and writing, doing art. It's a ton of stuff. And I feel like the other thing that I've heard a lot from the beginning of the pandemic that I've never -- I never had to deal with even during the crisis, oh, I'm bored, I'm bored. Boredom seemed to be like a huge issue with people when it first started and I guess even now, but I'm never bored. That's not even part of my vocabulary. (laughs) Like before crisis, after, during, whatever, I still feel like I don't even have enough time in the day usually to do everything that I want to do because I feel like it's really what you make of it. And I can be indoors forever, and I'll never find -- like I'll never not find something to do. I always write a to-do list every day, I've never stopped, I've been doing that for years. I'm also in recovery. So I was a sponsor, and I do step work in Al-Anon for friends and families of alcoholics. I'm not one myself, but you basically follow the same program. So that's kept me busy too as of last about a year or so I've been in it. And so I do that and I'm now the chair the -- the new chair of the meeting every Friday night. So I work on that. My relationship ended that I had almost a year and a half. She was an alcoholic, so I got into Al-Anon to kind of be a support or whatever, but unfortunately, that ended during the beginning of the pandemic. And so that was probably the hardest part for me was dealing with a double whammy, oh, pandemic and a breakup, yay, things are great, so... (laughs) But I have a big support system, family, friends, people from church, and just everybody, so I made it through. The professors were great. Everyone was very patient and understanding about, like, everything. So I got through that. I decided to stay in the program for myself because it's still good. So everybody could use that probably. So I do that. So, as far as communicating with people, I've never stopped. It's been like business as usual just like via the internet, and it's been fantastic, and I had no problems with it. I'm practically in Zoom meetings Monday through Friday with all different people with -- I talk to my advisor, the therapist. And I have a behavior specialist for adult ADHD that I was diagnosed, which would explain all my activity probably a lot, and I'm on medication for that Adderall, so I have a shrink I talk to once a month about that. And, yeah, my sponsor, advisor from school. So I'm basically in the meeting, and plus, I do Zoom things, like I said, with sign language. I do guitar jams with a friend from Georgia who was my roommate in Spain. So I keep super busy like... But that's Monday through Friday, Zooming all week, and I've been involved with a big online lesbian community, lesbians around the country, Canada, and Europe that I talk to regularly almost every day with this chat forum, and we meet via Zoom. So I keep really, really busy with all that stuff. I just have to close this door just real quick so -- LB: Okay. CR: -- just to minimize noise a little bit. (pause) CR: Sorry about that. LB: No problem. CR: I'm just like rattling, but it's been really -- LB: Well, let me -- CR: Huh? LB: Let me ask you something. Do you know anybody that's had the -- have -- has had the coronavirus or anybody that like [who got that?]? CR: Actually, yes, especially in the beginning because I think a lot of people did not... They weren't taking it seriously, I don't think, you know? And so I think people were a lot more careless in the beginning because they just didn't know before everyone's wearing masks and I don't think... You know, the weird thing is -- well, not like funny, funny, but when this all started months -- maybe by the beginning of March, I already definitely could tell that it was going to be bad. I knew like for some -- like I knew it was going to get to this point, and people thought I was being paranoid including my ex-girlfriend and her mom. It's funny like as this was all approaching and I just saw the signs, and I remember talking to them about it. Like, I was, "This is going to be -- this is really going to be bad. This is going to big. I think everything is about to change really soon," and they were like, "Oh, no, no, don't worry. This is just going to pass by like Y2K." (laughs) LB: Oh. CR: I was like, "Y2K? I don't think so." (laughter) I'm like, "I don't think so. I think this is really going to hit everybody like they're not expecting it." Because I was watching Europe and everything, and I knew it was going to be bad. I knew something big was coming, and I had a friend from school who was kind of stuck in Italy for a minute. Because the way -- I went to Spain last spring, it was her turn this summer, and she was in Rome, and I felt so bad for her. I had a bad feeling that it was going to be very short-lived, and she had been planning for this for a year and so excited, and then halfway through the trip, they sent her home. They cut off all study abroad programs, and I'm like, "Wow, I had a good time last spring." I was there three and a half months. That was fantastic. She had to come home because that was just when Italy was closing basically, and if she wouldn't have left when she did, she would have totally been stuck over there, you know, so... I remember already by mid-March, I had started getting masks and all kinds of stuff. And I remember getting -- giving my ex and her mom supplies just before all this started, and they thought I was just being paranoid, which I kind of am naturally anyway, but it was really coming in handy, you know? I remember bringing them -- towards the end, I brought this box. I'm like, "I'm calling it -- this the anti-COVID box." I brought them a bunch of -- this was, yeah, like before mid-March -- a bunch of latex gloves, masks, sanitizer before they all started going off the shelf, and I remember they laughed at me. They were like, "Oh, no, this is --" I'm like, "Hold on to this. Trust me, you're going to need it," you know? LB: Yes. CR: And what happens? I was thinking to myself afterwards ; I'm like, I'm sure they're sitting around thinking, yeah, she called it. LB: Yeah, she called it. CR: (laughs) Yeah, so... LB: So you know people who've had it or...? CR: Oh, yeah, I was going to tell you -- LB: Yeah. CR: Hold on one second. (pause) CR: Sorry about that. It was really scary in the beginning. Probably, oh, gosh, almost a month, going -- so it started in mid-March, it all got shut down. Maybe almost for a month, one person after another who I knew what was starting to get it, some really, really close friends. And I think it was just coupled with the breakup and trying to finish school online, everything was so chaotic. Now, of course, they're going to be totally ready and prepared all summer, but it was so sudden and everyone -- and they just had to adapt, we all had to adapt right away in such a short period of time. The professors were going nuts like, "How are we going to do this?" It was just all so new in the beginning, and just with everything else, the life stuff, it was crazy. I had a slight breakdown at first, like emotionally between that and friends getting sick and then I was getting worried about getting sick and my mom, so really buckling down, and we're not going anywhere. It was a really kind of a state of panic almost in the beginning. And I had some really close friends from other states getting it. My one friend, she's still recovering, she lives in -- originally from Alabama, one of my best friends, and she is in Kansas. She's a professor of biology there. I'm pretty sure she got it at her school. She got very sick from corona, and she was already immune compromised. Now, she's still dealing with the after effects, like the stuff that it dealt. She no longer has corona that I know of, but it did some damage with the other stuff that she has, so she's still dealing with that. Last time, she was at the Mayo Clinic. LB: Oh, my. CR: And my friend from Georgia that I mentioned before, my guitar buddy who I met in Barcelona, Spain, with -- we've kept in touch forever, like in touch since then with each other. She got it twice, and she's young, a young, heathy girl in her twenties. I feel like people are really... They have this illusion that, oh yeah, well, I'm not immune compromised, so I'm not... No, no, no, this is hitting and killing some healthy, young people out there. There's a sixteen-year-old I know from -- that my sister-in-law knows that -- a local person that died from it, a teenager. A friend of mine from church had several family members die from it. My brother had some friends in New York City that he grew up with and already knew for a long time that died from it. It just seemed like at least several times a week, we heard that somebody passed away. So when people got sick, we got really scared. I have one cousin -- and unfortunately, a lot of them are usually people that work a lot with the public. One cousin of mine, we were worried about her going back to work again. She works in a nursing home, and she got it pretty bad. And she had to stay home for a while. Luckily -- I don't know how she didn't get the rest of her family sick, but somehow, she didn't. She was isolated pretty well. So from all these people who are sick, their whole -- I would hear about their whole... It's not just when you're sick like at home with loved ones. You're not just under quarantine, but you're like under quarantine under quarantine because it's like you have to literally isolate yourself in your little bedroom with your cat or whatever, which now dogs and cats are getting it too apparently, you know? But -- LB: Yeah, but it doesn't make them sick, and they can't give it to anyone else, so it's kind of a weird thing. Like they're carriers -- CR: It is weird. LB: -- you know? I don't think -- CR: And like -- LB: -- not really a danger I think to humans -- CR: It's -- LB: -- or to the pets, kind of an odd -- CR: Hopefully not. I mean it's like you hear... I feel like we still don't even know enough about it -- LB: But that is better -- CR: -- to know everything and then I heard that there's more than one strain. I mean you never know like... And it hits everyone differently, different -- it's just so crazy. I feel like it's just too new for us to really nail anything down, to really know about it. So with all that, that's all I need. I just protect myself across the board. I don't care what's like -- unless they really learn about it, figure it out, get a vaccine, whatever, I feel we're going to take these precautions the rest of the year until next year. (sighs) Because I'm supposed to graduate in the spring ; I'm really hoping. I don't see that happening honestly, but I'm really hoping things go back to normal. I've waited so long, like over (laughs) 20 years to go back to school, to be able to walk that stage again with a four-year degree, and do the whole thing, cap and gown, etc., like the whole... I'm really, really, really excited about doing that like I did at LCCC. And I really want my mom to be able to be there, so... Like in my family, we're doing everything we can to keep her safe and healthy. LB: So that's your biggest concern is to keep your family healthy and safe? CR: Oh, yeah. That's been my number one priority. I feel like when a pandemic like this happens, which is like what, around your ears, it really makes you... I feel that the whole quarantine time -- at least for me and I hope a lot of people took this opportunity to do that. Maybe it's because -- (coughs) excuse me -- in recovery or I've always been really spiritual because of my church or whatever it maybe. I took a lot of time to reflect about things, about life, you know? LB: Mm-hmm. CR: That's when you really realize what's important. And I think not being able to go out and about and be so distracted as we usually are, and be stuck with family or whatever, like more time than you're usually used to, to get to know each other and to really just reflect on what's most important. This is a really big, rude awakening, kind of harsh reminder especially for those people that have lost people. There have been like entire families almost wiped out in this stuff, and it's really heartbreaking and sad. And I think with the time off from not being in school or at work or whatever it's been for people -- I feel like that definitely was an opportunity for people to change a lot of things. And speaking of that, the other thing that I got involved with unfortunately, not that I was trying to do that now during COVID, I've been part of the Black Lives Matter movement the whole time it's been around, for seven years now, I think, ish. And since like Trayvon Martin times, been involved with that, been using actually the same signs that I made a long time ago at my old studio, and I wasn't going to do that. I wasn't going to jump in to any rallies or anything any time soon. Under normal circumstances, I would have been to everything. I've been doing that for a long time, but it's -- but it was, of course, like a real concern and... But like my mask and I never take that off outside, and I really stayed. Like, I kept my distance from people. People got too close, I mean I got paranoid. I'm like, "Back up, like immunocompromised" you know like --? LB: Yeah. CR: So I've been really super careful about that. But I've been to a couple of rallies: one for George Floyd and the one from -- for Allentown that happened recently. So I've been involved -- pretty involved with that and a whole bunch of people in both rallies and just involved with a lot of the local organizations. I've been a member of Make the Road PA for some years now. LB: (inaudible) CR: I did some stuff for them. So still doing my activist thing with all that. Unfortunately, that was something that was completely for me -- this shouldn't be unexpected I guess, but that was an unexpected thing to deal with I felt like in the middle of all this going on, but I don't know. I guess everything happens for a reason, and there has been some change happening, which is good, more than I've seen the whole time I've been part of that movement. I think like any other -- like everything else, I feel like some things have gotten a little out of control. I feel like some real good, legitimate change whether it's doing any kind of reform [and things?], it's great. But when it goes to the -- starts going to the direction like, "We're going to take out the seventh episode of The Office" and stuff like that, it's like come on. That's not like -- you know that's not what it's about. Yeah. LB: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.. What do you think about...? And then one of the things we have here in the state of Pennsylvania is that we get to see Dr. Rachel Levine on the news, and she's the secretary of health. Have you had a chance to see her? She's transgender, and she is speaking about -- I mean, we really have pretty good leadership in the state of Pennsylvania. Has that affected you, or have you had a chance to see that? CR: Yeah, I've seen her. Yeah, she seems pretty cool I think. I think she's been harassed a little bit especially during -- with now... I think she's been doing a good job, and this is kind of dumb, like just focusing on the fact that she's a trans woman. Like big deal, you know what I mean? As long as she's doing her job, I don't care what she is, you know what I mean? It's like... That I don't get. I don't think it has anything to do with somebody's job performance -- LB: [Work?]. CR: I think a lot of people just use that as an excuse for their hate speech or whatever they need to do but -- yeah. So I don't have any problems with that. Honestly -- I'm going to plug in my laptop soon before it dies. Hold on. LB: Okay. CR: I'm in the living room trying to get (inaudible). All right. I know like our governor, Wolf, right? LB: Yes. CR: Yeah. He's been under some fire with the way he dealt -- honestly, I like him. I like the way he's dealt with it. I was all okay with the whole shut down and everything. Sure, and probably because it was easier for me ; I was already an essential worker and going to school or whatever. But to me lives come first. I'm sorry, but it's like we can deal with all that later. If we don't take care of this, it's not going to matter. Nobody is going to be around for it, then we won't have to worry about anything. But I totally agree with the way he did it. There's a reason why we're one of the states that had the lowest like the COVID, what, the report of how many cases we have and all that. They said we dealt with it pretty good. I know we're spiking a little bit now, but it's not like Florida or the way New York City was. It could have been way worse, and I think because he did what he did that it's not like Florida. I know it's inconvenient and this and that, but you do what you have to do. I mean this is... How often do we deal with this? I really wish we had done that longer honestly. I wish we'd have done... I'm just being honest about that. I feel like we opened too soon. I think we went the whole business as usual too soon, and now, we're seeing a spike. It's totally going to affect the -- all school for everybody across the board and for the whole country. I feel like this is dragging out probably way more than it should. And to tell you the truth, Liz, I knew it was going to be like this. I knew back in like March when everybody thought I was being paranoid, I knew that it was coming, it was going to be bad, and that it was going to drag on because that's how we are in this country. Like Americans, we are so stubborn and so just dumb when it comes to this kind of stuff and -- LB: You think that that's like your most frustrating thing? That it's really frustrating that you go out and people aren't wearing masks or like that and --? CR: Yeah. I knew they were going to turn it into some kind of rights thing. Like, these people had come out and -- oh, it's disgusting and comparing it to -- it's making it like a civil rights issue. It's like, "What are you doing?" and, "Oh, like we have a right," or like a sign that I saw, My Body, My Choice. Like, no, you don't get to steal like the prochoice movement's stuff for your stupid, like I don't want to wear a mask campaign. I feel like this has really brought out -- this pandemic, a lot of people's true colors, like a lot of people's true color. Like you can see. And I think it's really sad. I feel like... You can just see the people are just out there just for themselves. Like, they're just showing that they just have no concern or care about anybody else but themselves, you know? LB: Mm-hmm. CR: And it's just so selfish what's going on right now. Like when people get sick and they're like, "Oh, that's my problem," whatever. I'm like, "No, any time anybody's sick now anymore, it's everybody's problem. That's the whole point." I mean you have to be careful. You have to like think about other people. You just can't go out there hacking away or whatever and thinking that people aren't going to think you're sick with COVID. Everything has changed. I feel like a lot of people don't want to accept the new normal. Like it sucks, it's not ideal, nobody wants to live like this right now, but unfortunately, it's reality, and the more we realize that, I feel like the quicker we'll get this over with. But I feel like they're just unnecessarily prolonging it being stubborn and going out with signs like, "Let me play golf, let me go get my haircut." (laughs) It's just so ridiculous. LB: (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) really, really being cut back. (laughs) I mean just play golf if you wear a mask because now like I want to be able to play golf and not wear a mask, you know? We're like, "Just for [heaven sakes?]," you know? CR: Yeah, yeah. It's like, whoa, I'm so glad you have your priorities straight, you know? (laughter) LB: No kidding. CR: I mean it's just like it's not for themselves especially for other people you're going to be around. It's like, do you want to see your parents or grandparents again? The more you do that, the more you have to isolate from your loved ones because then you can't be around them. You're like literally putting people in danger unnecessarily, and that's terrible. And I've heard left and right, stories about, oh, like older people passing away because they were around people they probably shouldn't have been around, and a lot of them are their close relatives. I really feel that people don't realize they're like killing their own relatives by doing -- not following these precautions. We have a responsibility to take care of the most vulnerable people in our society. You've got to be a little considerate. That's a big concern for me for people when kids go back to school. I think that's my biggest concern is kids coming -- basically coming back home and bringing this stuff -- even if they're not sick, if they don't have symptoms coming home and infecting their parents, grandparents. That's a big concern of mine. I mean kids are great, but honestly, I'm staying away from them this entire time. (laughs) I've really avoided them at all costs. I know that sounds terrible, but -- LB: [Like with their family?] -- CR: -- that's how I feel. LB: I mean everybody knows that. You take your kid to day care, they're going to get a cold. CR: Oh, yeah. LB: This is far more contagious than a cold or the flu, the regular flu. I know a person who's a pediatrician who was asked by some of her parents of the patients she has, "Well, can I take my kid to daycare?" She said, "Well, if you don't mind them getting it." Here's the thing ; I mean you think that they don't get a cold, they don't get every single infection, everything from the head lice (laughs) to infections to poison ivy, to -- well you name it, your kids are infected if it's in day care of if it's in school. That's why -- you know? CR: Yeah, I'm so glad I don't have to deal with that. I mean, you've got to love them, but it's like they're literally, little germ buckets walking around right now, and I just can't -- I can't deal with it literally. (laughs) I avoid them like anything right now but... I really, really feel for the parents that have to navigate that whole thing, their life with parenthood and the pandemic. That must be awful, especially the parents that I know, especially the single mom parents that don't have that option. Oh, you can't take them to daycare, they don't have school, what do you do with them? They have to go to work especially the ones -- like my one ex that works at a -- what is it, like a nursing home environment, that whole thing. She's the caretaker forever, and these people are constantly worried about bringing stuff home to their kids, you know? LB: Right. CR: And very, very... The best people I know, I know a lot of caretakers, a lot of therapists and everything, and they're all struggling with that. Most of the closest people I know are in health care, so of course, that was a big concern. That was a big worry having so many loved ones in health care like the women's clinic. I used to work at Allentown Women's Center for six years, all my best friends work there. Oh, that's been like a nightmare just worrying about them, and every time I talk to them, not being able to be close to them any time soon, like, "You guys, really be careful," and it's -- LB: Are they open? CR: -- and praying for them every day. Hmm? LB: Are they open? CR: Yeah. They've been open since the beginning. They're considered essentials, women's health. They do abortions, but they do like GYN health care. They've been -- LB: A lot of trans health -- CR: -- about forty years. LB: Yeah. CR: Yeah, now the past... It's been a few years now. They have a whole trans health initiative. I'm proud to say that I got them into -- I put them on the gay map, so to speak, in Lehigh Valley a long time ago back in... I was working -- started in 2005 till 2011 when Jenn Boulanger was there, and I got them to PrideFest, and I was translating a bunch of things in Spanish. I was in charge of -- the bilingual counselor there, I was in charge of the Spanish-speaking patients since we got them -- we started this whole LGBT initiative thing, and so, yeah, they've grown a lot. They've grown a lot in their services, but yeah, being at a doctor's office, like that's been really scary. All my best friends are there, and it's already bad enough with that kind of business. It's already a risky field to begin with. Like prior to the pandemic, it was -- when I was there, it was hard because of protestors, and you get threats. You get bomb threats, you get that kind of stuff all the time really, so they were already in danger even before this but then the pandemic comes rolling around, and then you have to worry about your friends getting sick. That's been stressful. So I always check in with them all the time about that because, yeah, I'd be devastated if anything happened to any of my girls there. Yeah, because those are the best women I know ever, and we've been through a lot together, so... Like I said, this really makes you think what's important and you end up -- I don't know if you've done it, but I know especially in the beginning, you got used to quarantine and everything, I was reconnecting with people I hadn't talked to for a while -- LB: Yeah, absolutely. CR: -- you know? Yeah, and you wonder like, who's going to survive this, who's not going to survive this. In the long run when it's all over, like who's going to be left? I started thinking about stuff like that. LB: We're still in the beginning of it too. CR: Huh? LB: We're just at the beginning of it too. We don't even know what's going to happen. I mean if people are looking at this video of you talking thirty years from now, they know what happened. They may not know what the individual experiences for people would be, but they know what's going to happen with regard to this and how it's going to change the world, and we don't. And people who think that this is going to be back to normal, I mean we had employees at the center or other people that we're working with us would say, "Well, you know in September..." Actually, somebody just asked me to do a training in September, I said, "Well, I can't --" What I said was, "If I can absolutely guarantee that a person at risk won't be at -- there won't be any risk for someone who has high risk there, yes, I'll do it in person." Well, I know that's not going to happen, so there's no way that that's going to happen. Nobody can foresee that. Unless they came out with a vaccine tomorrow that eradicated the entire thing, well, that's going to happen, you know? CR: Right. LB: It's just not, so anyway. What's giving you hope? I mean, what's the best thing that's happened out of this, or what's really giving you hope, or generally, what gives you hope? CR: I think the biggest thing that's kept me together like mentally, emotionally, everything is probably I'm really grateful for my spirituality honestly. And I did this prior to all this happening. I pray and meditate every single day, so I'm very grateful for that. I've been attending church online, visiting several actually in the area, the Gregory Edwards Church and mine. My spirituality, I feel like, and the program recovery, it's given so much comfort so that that's helped a lot. I feel very blessed and lucky to have that and also my support system. I think is really important for people to have that support system and a Zoom account (laughs) to really connect with people because it is -- I feel bad for anyone that doesn't have that connection via... Like if they don't have good internet or a laptop or whatever, I really feel for them because that's like the lifeline for most people to the outside world. The support system I have that I've made for myself from people from school, from church, from other like mental health professionals. Honestly, I feel that we're all going to have -- I think we're feeling the effects of it already especially from quarantine, and I've talked about this with them. I think we're all going to have some form of PTSD from this thing, you know? And I feel like everyone can benefit from some kind of professional help when this is all over or even more like during because it's a lot. It's a lot especially for people like me that are... Well, I'm kind of an ambivert I guess. I can do both like still stay at home and be introvert and extro-- but I am mostly extroverted. The quarantine, that's probably the biggest thing like being out there and hanging out with people and being around people and hugging, and just the whole very people person and [there be?] -- LB: Are you using any dating apps or any queer dating apps or anything? CR: (laughs) Yeah, Tinder is probably not the best -- LB: (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) CR: (laughs) Yeah. Yeah, I feel like you have to be really, really careful. Shoot, I haven't done like online dating app or anything for years. Fortunately being involved, I think being involved in so many circles really improves your chances of dating. But luckily, even after the break, I'm thinking, oh, cool, so dating is not going to happen any time soon. But fortunately, somebody from my recovery group -- we were friends before, we're kind of seeing each other now. So I guess I'm like in a rebound relationship now you can say, so I got lucky with that. And we've kind of screened each other like physically and everything. She works by herself, a caseworker, so it's worked out. It's really worked out that we were able to like get together and know that we're safe because we're -- we've been isolating. (laughs) So I got lucky with that. But, yeah, I know that's not usually the case with most people, and I really hope that people aren't doing that too much. And if they are, I don't really know how you could do that safely at this point and not consider like -- LB: That's why they say -- CR: -- the people (overlapping dialogue ; inaudible) -- huh? LB: -- right now, you're your own best friend. CR: Yeah, yeah. (laughs) Absolutely. Yeah, you have to be safe like that especially these days. LB: Sex during corona, you're your own best friend is the -- CR: Seriously, yeah, because it's like -- because in the end -- that's all the things I considered. Like in the end, I'm thinking, is it really worth hooking up with someone right now and then taking that home to your relatives? LB: Yeah, (inaudible). CR: Is it really worth it in the long run? I'm like, nope. So, yeah, it's tough. If somebody wasn't partnered before this went down, this is like -- then it's been -- I know it's been tough for people. I got lucky, but I know like that's -- it is what it is though. Huh? LB: I think people who are living alone, completely alone, it's very, very hard for them. CR: Sure. LB: It's an off thing. I say that to Trish every day. I say, "We're so lucky that we get to be here. We're also so lucky that we have a big enough house that we don't have to be in the same room every day," you know? CR: Right, right, right. (laughs) Definitely, oh, my gosh, and I think that was a big thing too I heard was -- I forgot what country it was. That definitely the corona has gone down and it's going back to normal, and divorce rates are up because people just got so sick of each other, you know? LB: Well -- CR: I could see that. LB: -- a lot of people are looking at their smaller apartments, like people who lived in New York City that were very in small -- like the lodge that I just sleep there, are really looking at different kinds of living arrangements. I don't know if I can ever -- maybe I can never imagine. What if I get stuck doing this again? I have to move to the suburbs, or I have to have more of a communal living situation where a group of people are living together so that they don't have to be alone. They said that like every pet in the -- all the dogs and cats that were in, the strays, everybody adopted them because -- in all the places because people didn't want to not have anything to hug. And I think it was a big deal. I think a big deal. So we're pretty much at the end of this. I wanted to just ask you in the future, we hope that somebody -- well, I think people will look at these. These are very interesting artifacts because comparing this to the flu that happened a hundred years ago, a hundred and two years ago, the flu epidemic of 1918, they didn't have social media then. On the other hand, they didn't really know how dangerous it was, and that's why so many more people died. I mean fifty million people died in that flu epidemic and for a lot of -- one of the reasons is that people weren't sharing information. They weren't telling each other really how they were communicating and how they had to do distance and stuff. You weren't allowed to talk about that really. I think for a lot of us who are concerned about other people, the biggest frustration is elected officials who are leaders who were saying to people, "Well, so what if people die? Go ahead and open. It's only fourteen thousand children that are going to die," that kind of stuff. So that makes us all nuts but.. And it's ridiculous because there's no finite number. We have no idea what this is going to do, and we also know that there has been indication that people -- scientists have said if every single person in the United States wore a mask for three months, this would be over. CR: Mm-hmm, yeah. LB: Right? CR: Yeah. LB: Literally, it would end it. It would end the thing. But people won't wear their masks ; it's crazy. But anyway, what I wanted to ask you is people would be looking at this, so now you're talking to the future and you're going to tell them. Tell them one -- a couple of phrases about sort of what's happening and what you hope is going to happen and to just communicate the feeling of -- like your feelings about how things are now and maybe some hope and what you'll hope it's going to turn out to be and that kind of stuff. What would you say to them? CR: Well, to kind of piggyback on what you just said, I realized that when it first started, like everything shutting down in mid-March or whatever, in some countries, this was already winding down in some places. I think already in China, like it was already winding down, and it wasn't really a long time overall when you look at it because they were really strict with themselves about that. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen here any time soon. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's not already the country where it lasts the longest because of so many people fighting it. They wouldn't even put up with that in other countries. They haven't as far as I know like the protesting about wearing masks and all that. Yeah, I feel that this has really, like I said, been an opportunity to really -- to unite and just fight this together and just follow what we're supposed to do. But honestly, I feel that it has divided us as well unfortunately, and I can't say that I'm surprised by that. It's really disappointing. That combined with other things that we already had here that we're dealing with. Don't even get me started on our so-called leadership of the country. I think that's a huge, huge part. They have not set a good example in how to deal with this crisis, and I feel that it says a lot. Like whatever the leaders are doing, they're leading by example or they're supposed to be, people are going to follow that. And I've literally heard, I'm sure you did too, on the news, I literally heard people saying like on the beach, "Well, the president doesn't wear a mask, why should I?" That says a lot, and I feel like things would have been one hundred percent completely different if we had somebody else there who would have spotted this a long time ago. It should have been taken care of like the end of last year honestly. If that would have happened, things would have been totally different. So I feel like we were not prepared for this at all, but we should have seen this coming a mile away. Unfortunately, we haven't, we didn't, and this is the result of that but I'm hoping that... And I think sadly, it's going to take another serious wave for it to really kick in, for a lot of people to really realize it especially the people that are still saying, I don't know why, that it's -- I don't know where they're getting this information from, that it's a hoax. People have been dying and getting sick. I feel like they're the ones that need to get sick or have someone around them to really understand. I don't wish this on anybody, but it's like, what is it going to take, you know? LB: Right. CR: So it's been really scary. And it's almost like you have to walk on eggshells and have this constant stress over you all the time. Like, am I going to get it? Am I going to bring this home today? It's like we shouldn't have to live like that, and it doesn't have to be like that. But hopefully, we'll get through it, and a lot of lessons I'm hoping we'll learn to be better prepared, hopefully to have better leadership in the figure. We do have an election -- a big election coming up, so I hope that's reflected in the upcoming elections. If it's not, then it's like, have we really learned anything? So I think there are so many lessons to be learned with the pandemic on a very, very personal level, on a level like your community. It takes a village, you know?LB: Yeah. CR: National level, international level. I mean so many lessons. You need to take this opportunity to really reflect on so many things and not act like it's business as usual because it's not, and it's not going to be for a long time. LB: Yeah. You spent a lot of time in Europe or you were in Europe last year for three and a half months, and I'm sure you have friends in other countries too that -- have you been communicating with those people in other countries about what that -- their experiences were, or was it mostly students that were from here that you were around? CR: Mostly students, but that's a good question. I did make some friends over there mostly from the university. I was -- actually became good friends with my professors that I ended up hanging out with early -- like we hang out with them and fellow artists over there that I worked with. It's a shame ; I haven't gotten in touch with them. I should even if it's just via WhatsApp or whatever. That's been a great source of -- for communication. Yeah, I'm going to check up on them with that because I know Spain was in a major lockdown, major lockdown, but they seem to have done pretty well with it as well. That's what I noticed. The ones that had that most strict lockdown, quarantine procedures are the ones that came out better off in the long run, you know? I really wish we could have done that here. I knew we wouldn't be able to, I just -- I knew. There would just be too much of a hassle, too much ruckus with all these crazy groups going out there on the steps of city hall with -- or wherever it was with their guns and what -- it's so ridiculous. I'm just -- I can't -- you know like -- yeah. I think that's just really dragging it out, and we'll eventually learn the hard way, so... LB: Yeah. Well, this has been a great interview. I really, really appreciate you taking your time to do this with me today, and -- CR: Thank you. LB: -- I appreciate it very much. You do get that thirty day -- we'll try to get the transcript. This goes to a college, a transcripts groups that they transcribe this into writing so that you can look at it then you have some time to look at it and stuff. I can't imagine that you would want to take anything out. Everything you said was brilliant -- CR: Thank you. LB: -- needless to say. And let me give my best wishes to your mom and take care of yourself, and I really appreciate all of that. and I appreciate all the stuff you've done over the many, many years that you've done. I think we've known each other for at least twenty-five years. CR: Oh gosh, yeah, yeah. LB: So yeah, and you've always been there working on this stuff and always very, very vocal and very... And one of the things I was thinking about because I have the same quality as you, is artists are never bored. You always have something. CR: (laughs) Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. LB: Especially since we have the internet where we can show our art on the internet. So it's like, -- CR: Oh yeah. LB: -- well, nobody can see the work I'm doing. You can -- CR: Yeah. LB: You work all the time, and maybe in some way, kind of cool that you get the time to just work and work. I've made two paintings yesterday, so I really do understand it. CR: Excellent, yeah. LB: Thank you very much. I'm going to stop the recording here. CR: Sure. LB: Thanks -- CR: Okay, yeah, no -- END OF VIDEO FILE Copyright for this oral history recording is held by the interview subject. video This oral history is made available with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). The public can access and share the interview for educational, research, and other noncommercial purposes as long as they identify the original source 0 /render.php?cachefile=
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01:12:30
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Cynthia Rodriguez, July 20, 2020 (Part 1)
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Cynthia Rodriguez talks about how the current COVID-19 pandemic is affecting her, her friends and family, her experience as a full time student and her work as an artist and musician. She also talks about prayer and meditation and civil rights activism including Black Lives Matter.
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PH40_31a
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COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-
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2020-07-20
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video
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Muhlenberg College Special Collections and College Archives
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Copyright remains with the interview subject and their heirs.