To the editor: When Maggie Assaele looked at the photo of herself in the Dec. 20 L.A. Times, unmasked and holding a “Recall Newsom” sign, I hope she read Gustavo Arrellano’s column on the same page about pancreatic cancer patient Kim Folsom’s tragic death while looking for emergency medical care at hospitals with no beds available, as well as the pain and anger of her surviving husband, Billy.
To borrow Billy’s term, she and the pictured restaurant customers defying the restrictions on outdoor dining should stop being “maskholes” and start examining their own selfish actions. I am livid at GOP opportunists using these dark days to attempt a recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“I’m scared.”
They were the last words that Billy, a retired mechanic for the city of Costa Mesa who was in the parking lot of the small hospital, ever expected his wife to say.
Kim called Billy just as he had returned from their home with some of her clothes. She was a former nurse with a radiant smile and matronly toughness that could calm down angry drunks at the biker bars she and Billy loved to visit. A three-year bout with pancreatic cancer hadn’t diminished her spirit or resolve.
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Billy and Kim Folsom bought a house in Joshua Tree, Calif., three years ago, around the time she received her cancer diagnosis, so they could fight it together in an area they loved.