One way to handle the big changes

I was lucky to be sick a lot when I was a child.
I never realized those many weeks I spent on the living room couch was a blessing until this Coronvirus hit.
I learned to keep myself amused with mind games and an old dog puppet my mom made for me. He was black and didn’t have a nose. Mom either ran out of time or didn’t figure out how to close the fabric and put on a nose.
I made up stories but mostly jokes and funny play on words. I guess I still tend to do that for my own amusement.
Now we spend more time alone or in small groups, or we should. Some are in denial and a few people have insisted the COVUD-19 is just a scare tactic by the media to sell newspapers and attract TV viewers. Pretty hard to do when you have such divergent TV networks as FOX and CNN that can’t agree on anything but all the networks, the Associated Press and every other news organization you can think of are sending the truth: CIVID-19 is real, it’s making people sick and taking lives.
I was inside for two weeks due to an infection I picked up in my foot (NOT COVUD-19 related.) During that time I relied on what I learned as a kid: Rest and find ways to stay entertained while staying as calm as possible.
As a kid, that meant a lot of time watching black and white TV. As an adult, I came to have a whole new appreciation for YouTube.
I learned that “What you appreciate, appreciates” in other words, it grows.
At 67 years old I have a pretty good sense of what is true and what to ignore. This idea made sense.
I began the nightly practice of thanking the Lord for each of the blessings of the day and was amazed at how many there were.
That also got me thinking about “my happy place” as I believe was mentioned in the movie “Hook.”
Perhaps you can help yourself by “going to your happy place, too.”
Mine was in Winamac, Indiana, in the 1960s.
Each summer, mom loaded a light brown suitcase into the front seat of our 1954 Ford, put my “car seat” (a foam rubber block covered with plastic to look like car seat upholstery, ) and I rode to Winamac sitting on it. My “restraint” was mom’s arm across my chest when she applied the brakes.
I DO NOT RECOMMEND LETTING KIDS RIDE WITHOUT THEIR OFFICIAL CAR SEATS TODAY but I’m just saying that’s what we did in the early 1960s and late 1950s.
When we pulled up in front of Grandpa’s house on Riverside Drive, I said, “We’re home.” Grandpa’s house offered me more security than any other place in the world.
My happy place included his neighbor, Mrs. Billerbeck, and her two granddaughters who were there every summer. They had a “ride” consisting of a car locked to the top of a metal frame. A child climbed a ladder, got into the car, released a latch and rode the rails to the ground and several feet beyond in the grass.
There was Oscar Strasser, a former Winamac police officer, who ran the little store at the end of Riverside Drive.
There was mom’s friend, the lady who worked in the TV shop downtown.
There was Mike Sinclair who lived across the street from Grandpa, a boy about my age.
There was the drive-in restaurant with the brightly colored umbrellas over each of the outdoor tables.
And, there was the lady who also lived across the street from Grandpa, next to Mike’s house. One time we were there and she told mom and I all about her train trip through the Rockies with the overhead windows. She also commented on what a handsome boy I was (even then I had enough male ego for her comment to make a lasting impression.)
So, when the stock market crumbles, when we are told to avoid crowds when the store shelves are empty, try remembering your happy place. It helps me. It might help you.