City Voices

LANDGREN WORCESTER'S RAT POPULATION ON THE RISE

WORCESTERIA

COVID-19 surge mess could have been avoided

Veer Mudambi

Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

There are a few common refrains that I hear regarding vaccination and boosters: A.) “Why bother with the vaccine — people are getting sick anyways — it’s not working!” B.) “Why do we have to get a booster? It can’t be that effective.” And my personal favorite, C.) “My decision to not get vaccinated doesn’t hurt someone else who does.”

Worcester Health and Human Services Commissioner Dr. Mattie Castille had something to say about that: “We would never have had this situation if the majority of people were vaccinated.” You hear that? This could have been avoided. Omicron very well may not have happened.

So yes, not getting vaccinated does indeed affect those around you who made a more enlightened decision — because you are acting as a testing site for future variants. According to Castille, about 55% of the community is vaccinated. That’s nowhere near close to the coveted “herd immunity” that could be our ticket out of this mess.

According to the data scientists at the New York Times, as

HARVEY

Thom McAn in the Worcester Galleria Jan. 7, 1983. T&G FILE PHOTO

Remembering when The Galleria was ‘a great place to be’

Janice Harvey

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

Of all the gifts I received this past Christmas, none was a bigger surprise than the one that caused an instant nostalgia rush. Searching the internet, my daughter found a Tshirt that reads: “THE GALLERIA at Worcester Center.” Beneath a lime green arch is the slogan “We’re a great place to be.” For a time, it was.

For those of us attending its much-ballyhooed opening, the Galleria was a marvel. It was as if L. Frank Baum, P.T. Barnum and William Filene had struck a deal to dazzle us. A replica of a hot-air balloon hung from the glass ceiling, and I remember thinking Dorothy Gale should be on the bridge with the city dignitaries. The event evoked the climactic scene from the "Wizard of Oz," when the magical kingdom’s citizens gathered round in awe. Little did we know that just like the movie, the balloon would drift away without any of the native denizens of Oz on board.

The T-shirt represents personal history for me. It was in the Galleria that I held my first real job (baby-sitting didn’t count) at Hickory Farms. “America’s Leading Cheese Store” paid me two bucks an hour to shill summer sausage

The line for COVID-19 testing fills the courtyard outside

Mercantile Center on Jan. 3. RICK CINCLAIR/TELEGRAM & GAZETTE

Mess

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of Jan. 19, new reported cases in Worcester county had reached a seven-day average of 1,956. Considering we have no less than three different vaccine options, with centers popping up all over the city ready to administer them, this figure is staggering. Clearly, a conversation must be had.

The key fact is that the more people get infected, the more the virus mutates. We’ve all heard the saying ‘what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger’ — well, that doesn’t apply to COVID-19, instead ‘it’s what doesn’t kill you will mutate and try again.’

That’s how we get new variants — especially the deadly delta variant and most recently, the highly transmissible omicron. When a virus mutates enough, it can overcome the vaccine in what’s known as a breakthrough infection. In this way, the virus persists even as the antibodies from vaccines administered back in the spring begin to wane.

This isn’t to say that vaccines don’t work against variants. Yes, you may get sick but your symptoms will be milder and you’re far less likely to be hospitalized. And because it bears repeating — these breakthrough infections could have been avoided with higher vaccination rates.

And before you proudly declare you got it, got better and didn’t even get a runny nose, studies clearly show that the antibodies from the vaccine are superior and last longer than what you get from contracting COVID-19.

As far as masks go, Castille said, “I think the best protection is KN95 or N95 masks, and well-ventilated indoor spaces are important as well.” About home tests, she indicated they had given away about 140,000 tests right before Christmas and New Years and will be doing so again.

Anyone who was vaccinated more than five months ago is now eligible for a booster and she was clear that, “we have got to get our numbers up — part of our issues is communities of color and our youth, where 5-11 year olds are only 15% vaccinated.”

When asked why she thought the vaccination stats were low, she didn’t hesitate, “there’s a huge distrust of what the government says so people just don’t believe it is a danger or they’re spending most of their time working to make ends meet and cannot take the time to go get the shot.”

“If you’re not boostered, you’re not considered fully vaccinated right now,” said Castille.

Galleria

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and cheddar while wearing an ill-fitting gingham blouse and jumper — not unlike Dorothy’s iconic get-up. One of my many duties each morning before opening was to scrape the mold off the cheeses in the case and rewrap them for sale.

I once had a full-blown anxiety attack in the storage room loft, thanks to my life-long fear of heights, while the only other employee in the store kept ringing the buzzer for me to come up front to help with sales. Good times.

I moved on to Lerner Shops, where for $2.05 I sold everything from overcoats to nylon stockings. We had quotas, and were told that if we didn’t sell 20 kids’ back-to-school dresses, we’d have to wear one pinned to our chests for a day. Imagine a store manager pulling a stunt like that today? Fat chance. I soon tired of selling (it was dog-eat-dog in the coat department, working with older, seasoned saleswomen who would cut a mother for a sale) and wrangled myself an apprenticeship of sorts with the window dresser named Richard. Richard was a patient and funny gentleman who lived with his mom and told stories about her over bottles of Coke. I was soon dressing mannequins and fixing displays that were tugged on by customers in both Worcester and Framingham’s Shoppers World.

I was in the Worcester window when I met the man I would marry. Gary worked for Worcester Center Associates, and he wore a suit. I wore denim overalls to hold my scissors, Allen wrenches and pins. We were an odd pair. Gary had been called to the store to help eject a regular mall nuisance named Joe, who fancied himself a spy. Joe was sniffing garment tickets for the presence of explosive materials. The mall had its share of memorable characters, but Joe was truly an original. Most were panhandlers who were shown the door for trying to scoop the change from the fountain, but Joe was on a mission.

Upstairs, in Paperback Booksmith, my brother Kevin was busy managing both the store and his complicated dating life. He would eventually marry Nancy, one of his assistants. It was in that bookstore where I would become lifelong friends with Wendy, a Clark student from New York. The friendship lasted, though the marriages didn’t, but they produced two great kids apiece. Regrets? A few, but not the marriages.

The T-shirt made me think about my lunch breaks, when I would sit in Toupin’s bakery with Gary and Jay and Buz, all employees of the Galleria. Buz would sometimes epoxy quarters to the mall floor just for the fun of watching shoppers try to pick them up. We were easily amused. How could we know that I would outlive all three?

I’ve often crabbed about how the Galleria at Worcester Center was the worst thing that ever happened to the city. It decimated Main Street as a business district and ruined many a locally-owned shop. Now, when I marvel over Legos my grandson constructs and watch my granddaughter feed the chickens she’s raised, I have to be thankful for the notexactly-yellow brick road that led to retail Oz. The Galleria really was the place to be.

I just hope this T-shirt fits.

The Worcester Galleria in 1979. T&G FILE PHOTO/FRANK JAMES

FIRST PERSON

The Librar y of Disposable Art — QSL cards

David Macpherson

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

Sometimes, when you enter the Library of Disposable Art, you can look at what’s there and get it right away. “Hey, that’s a T-Shirt.” Or “Look at those cute ceramic animals that came from the tea box.” You can understand what they are and figure out for yourself if it is cool or not. Then there are some alcoves in the library that have items that make a fella scratch their head in confusion. What the hell is this and why do people collect them?

And this is not me attacking the lovers of Hummel figures (though I just don’t get that one bit. Those are nightmare inducing totems). No, this is not about your personal taste, but things that you look at and don’t understand and when someone explains it to you, you still don’t understand. It’s like we are suffering from bric-a brac aphasia.

That is the case with QSL cards. I have a zine that reproduces authentic QSL cards from Washington State during the 1970s. You see. I wrote the words using as much English as I ever was taught, and yet the damn sentence does not make much sense. But just because it is odd for myself and you (probably) does not mean that somewhere in town, there aren't several people with large collections of these aforementioned QSL cards.

What are QSL cards? I have been dreading this part of the column. The part where I explain what I am going on about. I have never been an ace at making myself clear (see earlier essays in the series to prove my point). And I feel like I might not make much sense (so what else is new?). But here goes.

When people communicate to each other through Ham Radio or through CB radio, they will reach one person somewhere in the globe. That is the purpose. To contact another lover of Ham or CB. To reach somewhere you never have reached before.

When you do have contact with someone, the routine is to send a QSL card to a central processing center who will then send the card to the other person involved in the conversation. The QSL card has the user’s personal information on it. It will also give details of the contact the two users had. This card means, “I acknowledge this transmission.” People collect these cards to show where all the people they spoke to over their radio were. They try to get cards delivered from as far as possible.

The cards themselves can be plain postcards with just the info printed on it. But in the peak of the CB craze in the '70s, the cards became illustrated. They had funny cartoons on them. They had pictures. There were people who made a living drawing QSL card cartoons. They are a little bit folk art, a little bit underground comix and a touch of “what the hell is this.”

I was going through the zine that had all of these examples of QSL cards and an old friend confessed he was getting his Ham Radio license. He told me that he loves QSL cards. He still gets them. He is in the process of creating the image for his own card, which will be an aerial photo of his hometown.

This blew me away. The idea that people still do this is crazy to me. That they still use Ham radios to communicate with and use postcards to acknowledge that moment of contact with another. Yesterday, I spoke to a co-worker in Oaxaca, Mexico. I picked up my mobile phone and we chatted about work for a half hour. While it was sleeting here in New England, he described the 75degree weather he was afforded outside his house in the mountains. Do we need Ham radio to shrink the world? Do we need kitschy postcards to say that, “I am here. And for a moment, we spoke together over a radio. We are here together?”

And for some of us, the answer is yes. Yes. I need to talk to someone outside of Zoom and unlimited minutes. I need to put some effort in the act of reaching out. I need to get something in the mail, something that was touched by many hands, to say that we are all here together.

The world is a lot smaller than we ever thought it would be. But we need to put some effort into it. We need funny postcards sent to us, to remind us of the world that is all around us. We need someone to say to us, in the friendliest tone possible, “I acknowledge this transmission.”

David Macpherson is a poet and humorist living in the Worcester area. His book "Gin and Tonics Across Worcester" is available for sale online.

BAD ADVICE

Getting soaked by the landlord

Shaun Connolly

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

Editor’s Note: Worcester comedian Shaun Connolly provides readers bad advice in his brand-new weekly column. Send your questions to woocomedyweek @gmail.com.

DEAR SHAUN: My landlord never cleaned the gutters and now it’s raining in my kitchen. What should I do?

Hello Gutters: The phrase “raining in my kitchen” is so full of whimsy. It sounds like it’s in a twee Michel Gondry movie where a manic pixie dream girl off-handedly says to the doe-eyed male lead, “oh yeah, sometimes it rains in my kitchen.” Then she takes a bite of a Twizzler and skips back outside while a Band of Horses song swells in the background. I understand that this is not your life. No one wants to have soaked socks as they fry an egg and make their coffee. The toughest thing is it is totally not your fault. Unfortunately the responsibility lies on your landlord, who is not a real human being as is true of all landlords, and that is a scientific fact. My advice is lure your ogre-ish landlord out from their dwelling with a piece of meat or whatever their monsterish liking is. Then have them go up a ladder to the gutters. Then, tell them that all the gunk in the gutters needs to be eaten by them because it makes landlords extra powerful and cool. Then as they eat, mop up your kitchen and play a Band of Horses song while the credits roll on our hero, you.

DEAR SHAUN: Is it Bad Advice to suggest you tell your new boss (editor) to edit the period out of the end of your gmail address? Let’s face it, most people who actually read the paper are over a certain age and while they are literate, they tend to be literal when it comes to navigating technology and websites.

Cut and paste will not allow them access to your not so sage advice because they will end up at gmaildotcomdot They may seek bad advice from a worse source in order to rectify this issue. Would it be better that they get the worst bad advice possible?

Dear Inept: It seems like you are trying to give me bad advice by telling me to tell my editor (after I just got this job, by the way) what to do. If you are not a person of a certain age and you are generalizing about their technological grasp, shame on you. That is ageist. Plus people of a certain age don’t want my bad advice anyways. They are too busy killing our environment, voting for Trump and taking their bi-weekly trip to Twin River to worry about what this aging millennial has to say. If you are that person who is of a certain age, I will gladly give you a tutorial of how to copy and paste correctly so it doesn’t include that last period. My fee is for you to stay home on voting day, to start recycling and use your gambling money to donate to a nonprofit for children. You’re welcome.