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We reminisce, three childhood friends, each of us separated by thousands of miles and divergent adulthoods a triangulation of space and time.
After all, what else do we have to do? What is left to us but memory? The present is in lockdown. The future is on hold. For the time being, only the past remains. So we mine it, our emails to each other filled with nuggets of bright remembered summers, girlfriends, ball games, music, and recollections of those friends and acquaintances who, with increasing frequency, have died. (When I read about them, my own mortality whispers in my ears, “They were my age.”) The comfort in this melancholy work? There is so much of the past to be dug up.
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We reminisce, three childhood friends, each of us separated by thousands of miles and divergent adulthoods a triangulation of space and time.
After all, what else do we have to do? What is left to us but memory? The present is in lockdown. The future is on hold. For the time being, only the past remains. So we mine it, our emails to each other filled with nuggets of bright remembered summers, girlfriends, ball games, music, and recollections of those friends and acquaintances who, with increasing frequency, have died. (When I read about them, my own mortality whispers in my ears, “They were my age.”) The comfort in this melancholy work? There is so much of the past to be dug up.
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The retirement income of most retired seniors is comprised mainly of pension and/or investment income, and has been virtually unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many retired seniors do not really have a financial need for the provincial government’s tax-free recovery benefit of between $10 and $1,000. If your family net income in 2019 was $125,000 or less, you get the full $1,000. From $125,000 to $175,000, it is gradually reduced.
At first glance, I had no intention to apply for this benefit. But I did apply, and I am encouraging all seniors (and anyone else for that matter) who qualify but do not need the money to do the same. This a rare opportunity to have absolute control over how your tax dollars are spent. Simply take your benefit, whatever the amount, and donate it to a charitable cause that helps people in need in your community, preferably one with low or no administrative costs. Your local food bank and school food programs are good examples.
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Pete McMartin makes several salient and sobering points in his Tuesday column, most of which I agree with with the exception of his first point, namely that Dr. Bonnie Henry being the first to take the vaccine was an ‘exasperating public relations gaffe’.
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Try refreshing your browser, or Letters to The Sun, Feb. 20, 2021: Readers respond to Pete McMartin s Six thoughts of a year in COVID Back to video
I feel that there was a lot of concern early on about the safety and the efficacy of the vaccine, and Henry the most visible non-government COVID-19 authority in the province wasn’t jumping the queue when she was vaccinated. She was leading by example. Henry getting the vaccine wasn’t akin to the captain on a sinking ship stepping first into a lifeboat it was akin to Gen. Curtis Lemay stepping into the lead bomber on a dangerous mission that he had ordered his aircrews to fly.