A Lost Summer

Lucy Sees Jack Off to Camp Before He Heads to San Francisco Airport

(Photo Credit: Daphne Sashin, 2019)

Dearest Jack:

Covid-19 has taken a terrible toll on your summer plans. If all had gone as planned you would have celebrated your ninth birthday at a sports-oriented sleepaway camp for boys in Maine. Despite the fact that the camp you had been planning to attend is one of the few that will open with special safety restrictions in place, I am in accord with Mama and Daddy’s decision to keep you safe at home in the San Francisco Bay Area. Taking a flight would have been risky, and if you had gotten sick, you would be just too far away from your parents.

It looks like Covid-19 has also messed with your sister Lucy’s plans to have your cousin Emily fly from her home on the East Coast for an extended sleepover, to include at least a day at the local gymnastics academy, maybe an outing to the pool where Lucy took swimming lessons last summer, and perhaps a day at the beach. If the plans your Uncle Dan spent so much time coordinating hadn’t been screwed up, he would have arrived at the end of the week to take you, Lucy and Emily to Great America, a fun water/amusement park not far from your home.

Lucy loved kindergarten with Ms. Stout, until Covid-19 required that classes be conducted via Zoom. Despite Mama’s coaxing, there have been days when your sister has said “No,” to joining a great big group discussion. Having some one on one Zoom conversations with her teacher has cheered her up, but because of limits on Ms. Stout’s time, Lucy can’t do that as frequently as she would like. 

Not to mention that when Lucy said she wanted to show her new bedroom furniture to a friend, and Mama offered to set up a FaceTime call, Lucy replied: “No, not FaceTime. I want a real visit.” On the plus side, Lucy has said: "I want to go to Hawaii and Mexico" when we can come out of lockdown. Like her Bubbie, she lives for nice vacations, all of which are off limits for now.

As for your Bubbie Bonnie, Covid-19 has also interfered with typical summer activities. As blessed as she feels to have just last week begun rowing on the Charles -- three months later than she expected to start her rowing season -- a host of necessary social distancing restrictions at her rowing club require advance reservations. What’s more she’s limited her to rowing only twice a week for just one hour.

Every two weeks Bubbie and her friend Gina get on their computers at precisely 8 p.m. on Sundays, and then phone each other. Sunday night is when reservations open up for a limited number of rowing slots. And if there’s a computer glitch despite the best efforts of hard-working volunteers from her rowing club, she and her friend have to reassure each other that whatever’s not working, it’s also affecting other rowers just as eager to snag reservations as they are. 

Had this been a normal summer, we might have all met up with extended family in New York, and you, Lucy and your New Jersey cousins would have had playdates worthy of being captured on my iPhone and posted on FaceBook, followed by ice cream at Van Leeuwen. Before you guys went back to school in early August, I might have flown out to see you in California, and reveled in trips to Mexican restaurants, and the beach, topped off by ice cream at Salt & Straw. 

Covid-19 has sparked at least one nice thing. Because the distance learning program provided by your school district has its limits, your Daddy asked me to spend an hour each “school day” working with you via Zoom. Sometimes we do social studies, and I’m reminded of my years as a fourth grader in the New York City public schools, when we studied the history of our fine city. In your case, the lessons focus on California, and look like they’ve been put together by the local Chamber of Commerce.

Our primary focus is what you and I have chosen to call “Jack and Bubbie’s Book Club.” The two of us take turns reading paragraphs from those chapter books you at first resisted reading. After reading Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot, Beverly Cleary's Dear Mr. Henshaw, and Lauren Tarshis’ I Survived Hurricane Katrina and I Survived the Shark Attacks of 1916, you told Mama: “I can’t believe I started to like reading, with Bubbie.”   

Your school year ends this week, but I hope we can continue our book club through the summer. Covid-19 hasn’t changed my love for you and your sister.

Love, Bubbie