Lately, these items accompany me each morning as I lock the front door and walk to the car for the 15-minute jaunt to campus. A leather briefcase, which was a birthday gift from The Grand Duchess back in 2016 when I reached a certain milestone, a new umbrella (a birthday-Christmas gift this year from my sister), and the hat, a 2017 birthday gift from my late mother.
The Blueberries for Sal carryall peaking out from beneath everything else, was a gift several years back from my sister. Blueberries for Sal is an old picture book with some text for small children that dates to the 1940s I think. It has been a running joke in my family since I neglected to return the copy I borrowed from my 1st Grade teacher Mrs. P. before the school year ended way back in 1974.
In the years since, said book has resurfaced a number of times as we, and later I, have moved around the country due to parental transfers, family moves, later college- and graduate school-related moves for yours truly, marriage, buying that first house, and other milestones of adult life. Through it all, Blueberries for Sal has been with us and now me, appearing every few years from the bottom of some moving box or other.
The book now occupies a pride of place over on one of my bookshelves here in my home office, Zum Stollenkeller, in our Michigan house where, hopefully, we will remain until they carry me out feet first. It stands on the shelf next to a more recent paperback copy that my sister sent 20 years or so.
The Blueberries for Sal carryall has been extremely handy for carrying extra materials needed during my face-to-face classes before Covid hit. I now use it when on campus to carry my ever-present jug of Chlorox wipes and hand sanitizer.
Although my current mode of course delivery remains asynchronous online, and will so for the foreseeable future, I still wipe down every surface before getting out my laptop or other materials and settling down for work on campus. The custodial staff in the library, for instance, do a bang-up job of cleaning and wiping down (also with Chlorox wipes) all of the tables at least once daily, but you can never be too careful in my view.
Especially given the highly contagious Delta variant and the fact that we can, apparently, still get sick even after the requisite two vaccinations. I know of at least two colleagues who have tested positive in the last few weeks for example. And that after their own vaccinations last spring.
So, just as soon as I can, I plan to get the booster shot. Call me foolish, a sheep, running scared, and a filthy liberal so and so, etc. But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure as the saying goes. I, for one, do not feel like my imagined freedoms are being walked upon simply by taking a few common sense safety measures.
I mean really.
-- Heinz-Ulrich
Deriving pleasure from small things is itself a pleasure.
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