When COVID-19 Becomes Real in Your World, How Do You React?

For the past three weeks I’ve stayed atop all the developments of the pandemic that is fueled by the coronavirus called COVID-19 by faithfully viewing TV news channels that report true facts calmly without hysteria, frankly rather than with duplicity, and with practicality rather than delusion. I’ve been proud of Bryan and College Station and Brazos County civic leaders, who acted early and wisely to contain activities that put our community at risk. And I’ve been blessed by friends as angels calling to check on me, bringing me thoughtful things they know I would be out of, and Skyping, Facebooking, IMing and texting daily to share their love. It’s been painless and has only reinforced love for me so far. But that all changed early this morning when the impact of the coronavirus landed safely in my Mayberry backyard, in the death of TAMU Mathematics professor Jack Bryant.

I became aware of the passing of our county’s first victim of COVID-19 only by the name when it was announced. When I saw it, I immediately flashed back to my days as an engineering undergraduate student, and he had been my instructor in what had to have been the most challenging of all the math courses they required, Math 308, Differential Equations, known to most as “Diff EQ,” and named by me as “Difficult Equations.” Derivatives made sense; integration was evil. I made a D and I was so proud of that D. It meant I hadn’t flunked! But I never once forgot that I had a tremendous instructor, Dr. Jack Bryant. Even when I was living in “D-land,” I didn’t blame him or his teaching. In fact, he was a great teacher.

Despite his seemingly unique appearance, this man had the most logical mind, strong voice and gracious manner. As in my lifetime, I’ve been (perhaps unfairly) characterized before as a “Typical Chemist” (code for “nerd”). Similarly, Physicists and Mathematicians are often described as having hair that might not always be combed, a proclivity for t-shirts, sweat shirts and hoodies. In fairness, that’s true of many, but not all, Math folks. Let's face it, science is creative and that means thinking outside the box and intelligence has nothing to do with hair, wild or perfectly coiffed.

After graduation and an engineering career, when I returned to Aggieland to work in academe, I had the responsibility for fundraising for the College of Science. It was part of my job to introduce prospective donors to key faculty members and to help them find common ground and interests in funding and then get out of their way as they forged their own friendships and funding ensued. At the time, the Mathematics department head (long ago deceased) was a truly off-the-charts personality.

That Department Head’s attitude veered from Wally Cox as Mr. Peepers to wild-eyed mad scientist in five seconds flat if you happened to trigger his temper. Simply saying hello could do the trick. Then you had his number two deputy, Assistant Department Head, as the calm, easy-going type who had a joke for you, a smile, and he would out-talk the dean out of funds destined for another department without his even knowing it. He was the good cop to the department head’s bad cop. And all the faculty members were supposed to function normally under the rather rocky steering of bright but unpredictable "leaders."

And yet in the Math department were these wonderful professors who taught and did research and had wonderful, normal, happy lives, though they lived quietly and far under the spotlights usually cast on others in the college. Their headquarters was, at the time, Milner Hall that was freezing in the winter and stultifying in the summer, and that was on a good day. Today they’re in the newer Blocker building. No matter where they were, you could almost count on seeing Jack Bryant any day on campus and he’d be walking to his next destination no matter how far.

He walked everywhere and he was easily recognizable, most comfortable with his early silvered hair below his ears, that hip 1970s look up north and out west for sure, and he had a devotion to Converse basketball shoes and a Polo shirt in the warm weather and a sweatshirt over it when it was cold. And he was one of the kindest people you’d ever want to meet. A brilliant man who didn’t have any trouble discussing any topic with anyone. He was a tad shy though, so if he looked slightly to the right or left of your eyes, he was just thinking on both sides of his brain, and you still had his full attention.

His career began in Wichita Falls where he graduated from high school in 1953. He earned his undergraduate degree from the A&M College of Texas (as we were called then) in 1958; a B.A. in Math and in 1962, he earned his M.S. degree, also in Math. He then enrolled at Rice University in advanced mathematics studies in 1961-1965. He received his doctoral degree from Rice on June 5, 1965. Jack’s dissertation topic was “Theorems Relating Convolution and Fourier Series.” As are all dissertations, new and groundbreaking work was expected and achieved; his graduate advisor was Richard O’Neil, another renowned mathematician.

In September 1964, Dr. Bryant was hired to teach Mathematics at Texas A&M, and in 1990 was named Professor Emeritus. During his career at A&M his research was supported by NASA and others know far more about his areas of expertise than I. He addressed students by their last names, preceded by Ms. or Mr., the way you’d expect in a northeastern school, and it was nice that he actually knew our names as there were close to 40 of us in the class at the time.

Like any Aggie who remembers a professor who stood out in their minds as memorable, the memories become associated with the way we were progressing in our goals and dreams on our own ways to graduation, careers and life beyond Aggieland. He loved A&M and this community enough to not only want to come back but to make this his permanent home. And although Prof. Bryant’s granddaughter was quoted (in the KBTX story online tonight) as saying that her grandfather would not have wanted to be “that kind of statistic,” the fact is he is the first person whose name I knew and whose passing hit home in a personal way. Today’s kids would say, “This just got real.”

COVID-19 today is a real thing in our community. We have tremendous city leaders and county officials who are proactive and in these times of sorrow, loss, lockdown, shut-in, we are finding reasons to reach out together via virtual means via Facebook, FaceTime, IMs, Skype and Zoom.

We are not to fear, we are not to panic, we are to stand ready and stand together, reaching out (at a socially safe distance) for our friends, neighbors, and loved ones, to let them know we know they’re here with us and we are here for them, too. Everyone can do something, even if it is “Just to pray” for the safety and security of all first responders, emergency personnel, health care workers, and teachers who face online challenges, self-employed people and those whose financial stability has been upended with no warning. There is no “Just” in prayers—every prayer helps.

Our childhood passes away from us every day. We lose family members, mentors, neighbors and friends of a lifetime, in our lifetime. Prof. Jack Douglas Bryant will not be remembered as a statistic, the “first” to die in our county from COVID-19. Instead, he will be remembered as a fellow Texas Aggie, a bright Math prof, and a kind and gentle soul.

May his family be comforted at this time of sorrow and loss. As we all prepare to transition from this life into another eventually--now, or down the road--it’s about the amount of love we can share while we’re here that can make an impact. The number of “I love you’s,” and “I appreciate you’s,” and the “Thank you’s” can always be increased, exponentially in fact. The way kindness begets other kindness…it’s exponential; it has to be. And someone can likely find a way to put that in an equation. I won’t integrate it, but I will find its derivative….it’s called love.

Rest in Peace Dr. Bryant. Amen.

Kindness Is Contagious — Random Acts Kick the COVID-19 Blues

With so many media announcements sharing rules of what we cannot do and where we cannot go during the wise behavior of our communities to prevent unnecessary spreading of the COVID-19 virus, it’s easy to get a feeling of being trapped, even when we have the freedom to walk up and down the neighborhood and while we can still drive up to our favorite local restaurant for our take-out. There’s much to be grateful for in the world of the team “glass half-full” types, where I claim membership.

However, today’s gray skies invited a case of the blahs, hastened by the rainstorms that flowed without letup. The only cure I had at hand was to think back to childhood, when my mom would assign me the task of making a list of things that made me happy whenever I presented with a sullen mood.

I had plenty of work this week, and every freelancer is grateful for that, but the consideration of what else was on my checklist wasn’t going to be the game-changer for an attitude shift. The rain kept going.

Time for the wayback machine. Make a list. What had made me happy this week? About three weeks ago a 70 mph wind and rainstorm had taken out a good chunk of my back yard fence and I’d done zero about it since that time except lament to a dear neighbor (part-time pup, Barney’s, other mom) that it had happened. She told me that her oldest son was coming into town and he could help out. I’d forgotten about that until Saturday evening, when he greeted me with a big smile. He’d just completed a car repair on his car and he wanted to start on my fence.

It was already dark but he brought his brother, his brother-in-law and his father! One had a helmet light, and there were two iPhones with better flashlights than the ones I discovered in my house had leaked battery acid from non-use. (Memo: Get new flashlights after stores restock).

In 30 minutes, the four men, led by “my oldest boy” (I claim them as part mine as I do Barney), had taken care of Ms. Dawn Lee and all I could do was smile. The next day, my oldest boy returned with a hammer, to make sure all the nails were securely in place. And, as a sign of his mature perfection, he pulled 10 different nails out of “iffy” posts to find a more secure place to fix them. I couldn’t stop smiling or feeling more special as this incredible young man had thought to remember me. I’ve had the joy of watching him grow up the past two decades and I’m so proud of the adult he’s become.

Wednesday morning, my next-door neighbor and I had both forgotten to put the trash cans out, and given our night owl schedules sometimes, the unspoken pattern is whomever is first to get there puts both cans out and the other brings the cans back in. Except that this Wednesday, the horses had never left the barn. I'd like to brag on the City of Bryan waste truck driver who understood my series of laughable motions that resembled charades for "Can you help us? We forgot!" and he smiled, nodded, and motioned "I'll be back to get y'all when I'm going the other direction. No worries." As he did that, my neighbor and I talked about how grateful we were to be living here, where we have the best city services team and we're more than another account number.

Yesterday morning, a friend texted our “text message group” to remind all of us that the weekend approaching was Hallmark holiday movie marathon weekend. Yes, we’re all Hallmark junkies from time-to-time or all the time.

This morning a dear neighbor called to check on me to see if I needed anything from the outside world. How thoughtful! I said I’d be interested in any toilet paper if she found any. I was running low (haven’t been to try my luck at any grocery stores as I’d just run to the deli for some basics a few days ago). She said she’d look when she was out.

An hour later dear neighbor pulls up with two large shopping bags she deposited at a social distance in front of my door. She said she’d thought of a few things I might like and it would keep me from having to hit the grocery store (She knows how much I cannot abide grocery shopping since Albertson’s closed.)

To my delight, she’d stocked the bags with the most thoughtful items. One especially brought the biggest smile: a 10-pack of Ivory soap!! Plus two megarolls of TP and a roll of paper towels (my pattern: paper!). Ivory soap was my mom’s favorite choice and a childhood memory of the scent of those wonderful bar soaps I’d somehow forgotten in lieu of the fancier liquid soaps. What a grand memory!

The kindness behind every single item was so special. Plus, there was no way she could have known this, but my favorite brand of toothpaste was in that bag! We’ve known each other for thirty years, but she doesn’t have a clue of my favorite toothpaste…and yet, there it was.

Inspired by dear friend made me want to surprise someone and make them smile. So, I thought of who I might surprise…and did. That brought even more smiles, from them and from me. An hour later, I received an e-mail from a neighbor who shared some grand and poignant news. More smiles. Sky was improving and the rain was clearing.

An e-mail (reading while waiting in a drive-thru line) from a senior writer friend made me smile. Just for me, she’d sent me one of her blog posts from her archives that recalled our mutually favorite senior, now in Heaven. She had no way of knowing that just 10 minutes earlier, I’d driven past the former resident’s home, looked at the newly painted building, and I smiled. I shook my head at the coincidental timing.

Her blog post had a title that reminded me of my Mom—again. It was “Love Letters in the Sand,” a Pat Boone song that was noted as “the second song I ever heard” the day my parents brought me home from the hospital. Those were in the days where they kept you for a few days even if you had only had a standard delivery. And June Cleaver wore pearls when she washed the dishes, back then. My first three “songs” were inscribed in my baby book that my Mom faithfully kept of my entry into the world, accompanied by Dad’s pictures. Coincidence? Hmm, Don’t think so.

Back at the computer at home, a pal called me on Skype and we had a grand visit, laughing about some good memories. Text message arrived from a friend in the midst of a happy occasion, just to say ‘hi’ and ‘have a great day.’ IM’s popped up on Facebook from three different friends at once, all of which carried the equivalent of smiles. By then, the rain had stopped for good. I prepared a meal from the goodies dear friend had delivered and it was delicious. I must try cooking again soon. Next week, I will try again. Baby steps.

At the end of the day, I’d had multiple signs from above and from across the street and around the block that I was neither alone nor were things going to be bleak in the future. Just the opposite in fact. Out of each seeming disaster, there is always something to be grateful for.

At the top of the list, the researchers who are fervently trying to formulate antidotes and cures, for the health care workers who are front line taking care of those with COVID-19 and for all the city and state officials across the country who are prioritizing safety first practices for our safekeeping. We have reporters who keep the news going for us so we can stay current. And we have young people working in drive-thru windows trying to keep their bills paid. And our city services workers keep daily life flowing seamlessly, and though they're deserving of more shout-outs, sometimes they get lost in the shuffle.

Yes, times ahead are going to be rocky for a while. But if we have faith, rely on a sense of our surroundings as community, work together, look in on each other, and most of all, give those we know and care about a call to let them know they’re in our thoughts and prayers, we can get through this. Communicate however you like; text message, cell phones, landlines, FaceTime, Skype, Zoom, e-mail or even mail a greeting card. Every smile you create is a random act of kindness and it just tends to domino if you jump on board and share your joy with those you care about (at a socially safe distance).

As the sign says, “Kindness is contagious.” May we all catch our fill of that in the weeks to come.

Coincidences, COVID-19, and St. Patrick's Day

How do you feel about coincidences? In this current week of our lives, I’d guess that most people we know are either in a total zone of Zenlike calm, which is a good thing; or, they’re jumpy as heck, on the verge of panicked desperation because our world has been turned upside down without our permission. It’s a case of: “we shoulda seen this coming but didn’t.” Right after being wary of the Ides of March, one day before St. Patrick is remembered across this country (in gatherings of less than 50, or 10, people depending on who you listen to), yesterday I received a Facebook message from a friend. It had four image panels and looked like this:

Paragraphs of text were circled in red on two separate pages and there was a photo of a well-worn paperback cover and a panel of “Published 1981” on it. This is likely one many of you have received today to focus on the “coincidence” of a virus with ties to Wuhan, China, where the first case of COVID-19 was noted. Since this hardcover was released April 1, 1989, I’m not sure where the “Published 1981” came from. Statistical outlier no doubt. Here’s the synopsis of the Koontz book:

"A year had passed since little Danny's death - A year since his mother began the painful process of acceptance. But Tina Evans could have sworn she just saw her Danny in a stranger's car...Then she dreamed that Danny was alive. And when she awoke, she found a message waiting for her in Danny's bedroom - Two disturbing words scrawled on his chalkboard: NOT DEAD. Was this someone's grim joke? Her mind playing tricks on her? Or something ...more? For Tina Evans, it was a mystery she couldn't escape. An obsession that would lead her from the bright lights of Las Vegas to the cold shadows of the High Sierras. A terrible secret seen only by...The Eyes of Darkness." Aside from being amusing since I have a friend named Tina Evans, I stared again at the four panels…the other printed page had a page number on it at the bottom middle (p. 312) and looked to be printed in a font close to Century Schoolbook.

From the get-go, receiving anything in a mass-chain type of communication is 99% of the time going to be a hoax. But, I was between the Ides of March and the faithful Saint Paddy and I fell down the rabbit hole for a while. The sentence most intriguing of Koontz’ novel was “They call the stuff ‘Wuhan-400’ because it was developed at their RDNA labs outside of the city of Wuhan, and it was the four-hundredth viable strain of man-made microorganisms created at that research center.” The text continues to describe viability and how it dies, but that was not the point.

The other printed page had a header with the book title and page number in the upper right-hand corner, and a sort of Georgia kind of font (my font expert friends can correct me), I knew that meant two different books were being cited.

How a city that has one of the single worst public restroom systems hasn’t fostered something outside of a laboratory long before this is a mystery. They’re not big on communication in general as news reports have traced the identification of the first case there to November 17, 2019. From The Guardian on March 13:

“…report in the South China Morning Post said Chinese authorities had identified at least 266 people who contracted the virus last year and who came under medical surveillance, and the earliest case was…weeks before authorities announced the emergence of the new virus. The Chinese government was widely criticized over attempts to cover up the outbreak in the early weeks, including crackdowns on doctors who tried to warn colleagues about a new…virus which was emerging of Wuhan…”

If that’s not enough, there’s a new headline in an Australian publication: "Social media star missing after calling Chinese president a ‘clown.’" Uh oh. Shades of Jamal Khashoggi, or just a coincidence? I don't want to ask that question. Moving on...

Now, Dean Koontz had no way of knowing and none of his other books have any psychic forecasts that have struck a chord, so let’s just call that one a coincidence and be done with it. But the other page was definitely from a second book. Back to Snopes.

The post of February 18, 2020, goes to show you that this is an “old” rumor if it’s already been snoped for a month. However the post by Dan Evon merely dismisses Koontz as a prognosticator for Coronavirus and yet subtly reveals a very interesting fact. When the book was first published in 1981, the virus was originally called “Gorki-400” and the city of creation was Gorki, Russia. By 2008 another printing of the book had the virus renamed “Wuhan-400” and the city of manufacture as China. Hmm. Coincidence? Maybe.

Then on Snopes, I discovered a related story by Bethania Palma (March 4) with the “other” printed page as the image. Aha! That page was from psychic medium Sylvia Browne’s 2008 book “End of Days,” and her text indicated that “It will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrived, attack again ten years later, and then disappear completely.” Well, good guesser or not, Browne’s prognostication arrived 12 years early. Coincidence? Sylvia Browne’s predictions occasionally found home plate until she died in 2013, so who knows?

On Amazon, there’s only one copy of Browne’s “End of Days” and it’s an audio CD; you’ll have to have deep pockets to afford the $500.02 for the one used copy now available. Oh, by the way, shipping is $3.99 as it’s not a Prime purchase. Heck, if you can afford $500 for the used CD, the extra $4 won’t sink you. There is one new paperback for a bargain price of $327.27. Hey, if they’d just throw in a few 12-packs of toilet paper, I might think about it but…well, never mind. Darned hoarders.

If you want a hardcopy book of Dean Koontz’s “The Eyes of Darkness,” there are five collectibles from $599 up. We can get a bargain on the mass market paperback from $295.28, but the audiobook is free if you just want to listen and are willing to join Amazon Audible for a trial run. What have you got to lose? Other than $599. We’re living in strange times right now. I’m not here to make fun of a serious disease. Coronavirus. It threatens the very lives of our senior communities and those with impaired immune systems. State and federal responses to this pandemic remain, with few welcome exceptions, political. Our city and municipal responses of first responders and emergency personnel as well as all our health care providers across the Brazos Valley are the most dedicated, reliable, and caring groups of individuals we are lucky enough to have. I pay close attention to what they say.

In days and times of serious consequences, it’s easy to get caught up in panic, fear, and what-if’s that drive you to distraction. It’s unnecessary when you use common sense, pay attention in your hometown, and keep the faith that together we can all get through this. The state of faith and hope and confidence is the best state you can live in. Even if you don’t believe in coincidences, you can still take a chance on the luck of the Irish and try to enjoy the day, even if there’s no bar you can go to for green beer unless it's one with less than 50 people. This celebration day will be around again next year at this time and, with all of God’s grace and good fortune, we will all be here, too. Stay safe out there, save your money by avoiding scam prices on goods that will be back in stock in a week or two, and have faith in things unseen to combat things unseen. Don't pass on or forward on Facebook any viral messages that even look fake, because they generally are. In the end, we have an abundance of hope and faith in great people doing their best to keep us safe here in Bryan-College Station, and for that reason we can smile. We're all in this together. My the luck of the Irish be with ya!