City Voices

FIRST PERSON

COVID asides on a visit to Maine

JOE FUSCO JR.

Cyndi and I went to Maine for four weekdays. She took some vacation time and I’m sort of retired.

With plenty of masks, we left the afternoon of Columbus Day. My

Age of COVID-19.

car displayed “low tire pressure” as we turned off the Wells exit. It was raining domesticated animals. We found a car repair shop on Route 1.

“My car is saying the tires are low and we didn’t see any self-serve air pumps and my wife is expecting very soon,” I lied to the proprietor.

“I charge $3 to check the tires, “he replied.

I almost suggested that he should charge a buck-a-tire but thought better and thanked him with a fiver upon completion.

“Why was he looking at me so strangely,” my wife asked.

“Told him you had a bun in the oven, “I replied.

At the motel in Maine, they gave us the keys to our room by passing them through the registration window in a COVID-19 metal bucket.

The TV remotes were wrapped in COVID-19 plastic which made changing the channels very difficult so we endured the “Jurassic Park” movies late into the evening.

The shower had three plastic squeeze-tubes attached to the wall. The first contained shampoo, the third had conditioner, and the middle tube to my surprise and infantile delight read “douche (shower gel).”

“Can’t wait to douche with my pouf,” I would shout seductively to my wife from the bathroom at every opportunity.

“Moron,” she would softly reply

A visit to Maine just isn’t the same in the

as the slots tumbled on her iPad.

RGOEHL/PIXABAY

The first night in Maine, I feasted on seafood chowder, stuffed mushrooms, and picked lobster drenched in butter along with two Tanqueray and Tonics.

The second evening in Maine, I gorged on hearts of lettuce with blue cheese, veal Parmesan with raviolis, and two Painkiller cocktails.

The third morning in Maine, I awoke at 4 a.m. to a throbbing, bright-red right toe the size of a bicycle horn.

“I think I have an ingrown toenail,” I exclaimed to my sleepy better-half.

“Might be gout,” she replied then re-slumbered.

The might-be-gout worsened as we attempted to walk Ogunquit Beach Wednesday afternoon. I limped back to the motel like Chester on “Gunsmoke” and googled my apparent malady.

“Gout — the rich man’s disease.” I went back to my ingrown toenail theory.

That evening, the pain subsided so we went to Dairy Queen after steak dinners for hot-fudge sundaes to go. The young person behind the plexiglass seemed nonplussed by our arrival five minutes before closing and charged us $1.50 extra for whipped cream and nuts.

“Attica, Attica,” I mumbled into my mask.

The four days in Maine also gave Cyndi and I time to examine our current situations. She is worried I won’t have enough retirement stuff to do and will become sullen and bored. I’m hopeful that she will enjoy her job at UMass Hospital enough to work into her seventies.

“You are our Gravy Train and I’m fine with being melancholic,” I summarized.

We also touched briefly on my COVID weight gain.

“I need to find a program whereby I can lose weight and still keep my dietary desires and exercise output at their current levels,” I offered.

“Cut out the Italians for lunch every Tuesday and Thursday,” my wife countered.

We agreed to disagree then watched the sunset behind the Hannaford Supermarket as we planned a trip to the casino.

Life is … OK.

Joe Fusco Jr. is a poet and humorist who lives in Worcester.

LETTERS

WoMag’s not fake news?

Ya gotta give ’em credit and you won’t regret it; WoMag entertains diverse views, from Antifa to Corrigan.

That’s more than you can say for the mainstream news; Dem Party coatholders and stenographers, spewing out manufactured views again and again.

You’re burnin’, lootin’ and rioting, oh what a joke. You just scored some new Nikes; you’re so woke. I’m guessin’ you got it all figured out - tear down Frederick Douglass’ statute, that’s what it’s all about.

Dems put kids in cages, it’s a dirty shame. The GOP forged emancipation but the media just plays the bogus information game.

“Big Guy” gets his Ukrainian cut, while Hunter fills the crack pipe and smokes it up. Facebook and Twitter got the censorship goin’. They don’t want the truth for the public to be knowin’. Scores of brothers locked up under Big Guy’s watch without clemency; he claims he’s got their back yet he terrorized them without mercy. A Marxist Trojan Horse, the Big Guy’s gonna bring Chairman Mao to you with unrestricted force.

Socialists support infanticide with clinics in minority hoods; a disproportionate number of black babies killed; as long as Planned Parenthood’s coffers are filled. Check out founder Margaret Sanger’s creds; she promoted eugenics to keep white folks ahead.

William Thomas lives in Worcester.

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WORCESTERIA

Bias on the Board of Health?

VEER MUDAMBI

If the Worcester NAACP released a letter calling for the resignation of the chairman of of the Board of Health, Edith Claros, one would have to sit up and take notice. On Oct. 22, they did just that. On the grounds that she attempted to silence members of the BOH as well as community voices. The letter stated that it appeared to be an attempt to tilt the discussion in favor of the police representatives who were present at the meeting.

I received a copy of the letter from a Worcester resident following my article discussing the Defund WPD movement. I watched the video of the Aug. 24 meeting and then the follow-up discussion on Sept. 14 for good measure.

My takeaway was serious doubt about the ability of Claros to be impartial in this discussion about the effect of systemic racism on public health. Everyone has their personal opinions, but in a position such as hers, Claros should be expected to hide any biases she may have. When public officials fail to do so, it will foster doubt in the integrity of city boards and departments.

This past summer, David Fort, former BOH chairman and current member, proposed a set of 12 recommendations on how to address systemic racism regarding law enforcement, including the establishment of a community police misconduct review board, composed of city residents with at least 50% of those members being persons of color. The August meeting was intended to discuss these, but Claros extended a “surprise invitation,” according to the NAACP letter, to WPD leadership. It was at this meeting where Chief Steve Sargent said he had not witnessed any racism in the WPD.

Initially, Claros maintained an almost apologetic attitude when talking to the police, making it as clear as possible that she personally felt they should not have to attend this meeting or listen to the recommendations.

As the meeting progressed, she cut off a fellow BOH member Chareese Allen, after allowing Local 504 Police Official’s Union President Rick Cipro to attack other members of the board. He went so far as to call Fort’s comments “pretentious” and said the BOH “had no idea what they were talking about.” He ended with the implication that those who view racism as a public health issue should not be on the board.

After such an aggressive statement, one would think a response would be called for, but Claros, speaking over Allen, stated that “everyone had their chance to talk” and suddenly they were pressed for time.

Interestingly, I would not have known about this from just reading the minutes of that meeting. This is because when Claros refused to acknowledge the critics, she prevented the segment from being recorded in the minutes, allowing the WPD to officially get the last word. Since the chair cut off the rebuttal to the statements by Cipro, a reader would likely think that WPD statements ended the debate with a statement that went unquestioned by BOH members.

At the following meeting on Sept. 14, BOH members stated they were prevented from responding to Cipro’s attacks - this discussion would have been the only reference to Claros’s conduct. Unless you took the time to watch the video.

After the NAACP called for the resignation of Claros, Cipro went after the two NAACP members on the BOH, calling them “frauds and phonies” on the union Facebook page. Interesting that he chose not to mention the other two BOH members who tried to question Claros, focusing his ire on the NAACP.