This too is Yonkers– by Eric W. Schoen
Dateline Eric Schoen’s Apartment: April 25, 2020. If you have been watching the news and listening to the radio, you will notice most broadcasters have been coming to you from their homes and apartments all over America.
I normally write this column sitting in the Starbucks in Yonkers where many of my readers pick up their lattes and come over to my table and share a thought or two with me. Many of those thoughts make their way into this column. Since March I have been sitting in my Abraham and Strauss (do you remember that store) vibrating recliner chair, armrests just starting to fade penning this column for you in the comfort of my home. Yes, quite often in my Christmas pajamas or grenadine shorts with the anchors on them.
Which leads me to the first thing I don’t understand. Several days before Starbucks shut its stores without drive throughs there was a big push to get customers to download the Starbucks app so they could order their drinks and pick them up in stores. You have a barista making the drink orders putting them in alphabetical order on a table for pickup, name labels on top covering the hole you drink from.
Customers come in, get 1 plastic glove and take their drink. Or pastry case item in a sealed bag. Doesn’t seem that complicated. You see the whole process unlike Dunkin Donuts where the preparation of your drink takes place mysteriously behind tall machines. Or 7-11 (until the end of the month all drinks any size are $1) where you touch a cup, push the button to get your drink, touch the condiments to put in your drink, touch the open air stirrers finally reaching through stacks of lids to cover your beverage. I like their hot hazelnut coffee, but how the health department allows them to continue their dispensing process I will never know!
I had been wearing my father’s handkerchiefs, new ones sitting in the draw to cover my nose and mouth these last few weeks refusing to pay $7.99 for a mask in an open gallon size plastic bag at the gas station on McLean Avenue next to the entrance to the Saw Mill River Parkway. I felt a sense of security wearing dad’s handkerchiefs, sort of like dad gone almost 42 years was watching over me.
I finally found some masks for $2 each at the old Shell Station, now a Convenience Mart on Yonkers Avenue across from Marden Hardware. The owners work hard running a good business with signs on the door worrying about their customers health and safety, so I figured I could trust their masks and bought some.
In all actuality I was starting to look like a masked bandit with the handkerchief even though it made me think of my beloved father. I thought I would switch up to the masks only after hearing that most hospitals had sufficient quantities for their staffs. If they don’t and want my masks without hesitation I will give them up and go back to dad’s hankies.
So we have these daily briefings with President Trump, the Vice President, Dr. Fauci and the lady with the scarf, Dr. Birx. (I bet Now that we are required to cover our noses and mouths she opens a business selling those elegant scarfs she wears). Why do we have a President egging on those people who don’t want to wear face coverings and want to open our Barber Shops, Hair Salons and businesses despite the need for social distancing and his own experts saying not to?
(By the way I am doing very well with my Braun Hair Trimmer. Last one of any brand available online the other day at Target!)
We have Governor Cuomo touting antibody tests that check if someone was exposed to the virus and recovered and is immune as a way to see when we can open the economy again. In the next breath we have Dr. Fauci saying we have a way to go before these tests can be reliable indicators.
Oil prices are plummeting, but I don’t see the price of gas at the pump plummeting in this area!
Pressure to release convicted offenders from our jails where Coronavirus spreads like wildfire quickly followed by them going back into society committing additional crimes. Again they are locked up and because of the threat of Coronavirus promptly released!
No excuse in New Jersey or anywhere why the attendant can’t pump your gas. Open the window a little with yours and their masks on, hand the clerk your credit card, tell him or her how much gas you want, they pump gas and then hand the driver credit card wrapped in your receipt through the car window opening.
I could go on and on. Time to think out of the box! Some bits of advice I wish to share with you in this most difficult situation we are in:
Smile or say hello to people you pass on the street, 6 feet away of course. It’s rude and makes for an uncomfortable feeling if you turn your head like the person is a Martian from another planet.
Never been a better time to lose that excess weight and start eating healthy. No better time to stop smoking. Smoking does a job on your respiratory system. You need your respiratory system in top shape god forbid you get infected with the Coronavirus.
Take your relatives out of assisted living facilities if they are healthy and if you can care for them at home. If you can afford to, take your relatives out of assisted living facilities and put them in hotels with 24 hour care. At least until this crisis ends. Why? Patients with Coronavirus are being readmitted to nursing facilities after they have been in hospitals and tested positive for Coronavirus. Center for Disease Control (CDC) says it’s ok for sick healthcare workers to go back to work in nursing homes. If your loved ones are not sick you don’t want them getting sick!
Request your absentee ballots for June and November elections now! Don’t wait till the last minute. https://citizenparticipation.westchestergov.com/voting/absentee-ballots is where you can find the applications online. Return them by email to boe-westabsentee@westchestergov.com. (914) 995-5285 is the number to call for Westchester absentee ballot information. All voters should be voting by mail ballot but our elected officials haven’t made it possible! I Don’t Understand!
Reach Eric Schoen at thistooisyonkers@aol.com. Follow him on Twitter @ericyonkers. Listen to Eric Schoen and Dan Murphy on the Westchester Rising Radio Show Thursday’s from 10-11 a.m. On WVOX 1460 AM, go to WVOX.com and click the arrow to listen to the live stream or download the WVOX app from the App Store free of charge.
