Our latest issue of 50 Plus spotlights people in the Santa Cruz community who are challenging stereotypes about aging in incredible ways.

First, Richard Stockton’s story of isolating in the pandemic, learning to change his breathing, and discovering he can’t live without his comedy reveals how creativity burns bright throughout our lives. Not only does the story of Patricia Grube, the 97-year-old poet who has two new books, reinforce the point, but in one of those books, Then and Now, Grube directly challenges the ageism in our culture.  Finally, local photographer Jana Marcus is making the world look at women over 50 in a whole different way with her latest project—and perhaps even more importantly, making them look at themselves differently, as well. We hope you enjoy this issue!

STEVE PALOPOLI | EDITOR

FEATURED STORIES:

• A Boomer in Lockdown
• Poet and Playwright Patricia Grube Pushes Back Against Conventional Ideas About Aging
• The Power of Jana Marcus’ ‘50 Over 50’ Portrait Project
• Senior Guide

FULL ISSUE:

A guide to resources in Santa Cruz County:

Living Facilities

There are many types of senior housing options, ranging from residential facilities and assisted living homes to independent living and retirement communities. Learn more about the differences and search for options near you at eldercare.gov (800-677-1116) or seniorfacilityfinder.com. 

Alexandria Victoria 

226 Morrissey Blvd., Santa Cruz, 429-9137.

Dominican Oaks

3400 Paul Sweet Rd., Santa Cruz, 462-6257, dominicanoaks.com.

Golden Age Convalescent Hospital

523 Burlingame Ave., Capitola, 475-0722.

La Posada

609 Frederick St., Santa Cruz, 429-9230, laposadaretirementcommunity.com.

Maple House

410 Pennsylvania Ave., Santa Cruz, 423-6347, themaplehouse.com.

Oak Tree Villa

100 Lockewood Lane, Scotts Valley, 205-7363, brookdaleliving.com. 

Pacific Coast Manor

1935 Wharf Rd., Capitola, 476-0770, covenantcare.com.

Paradise Villa 

2177 17th Ave., Santa Cruz, 475-1380, paradisevillaelderlycare.com.

Sunshine Villa

80 Front St., Santa Cruz, 459-8400, sunshinevillaseniorliving.com.

Twin Lakes Manor

777 Volz Lane, Santa Cruz, 477-1100, twinlakesmanor.net.

Valley Haven 

2266 Chanticleer Ave., Santa Cruz, 818-8372, valleyhavencare.com. 

Valley Heights

925 Freedom Blvd., Watsonville, 722-4884, valleyheights.com.

Westwind Memory Care

160 Jewell St., Santa Cruz, 440-8795, westwindmemorycare.com.

Classes & Activities 

Academy of Martial & Internal Arts

1570 Soquel Drive, Santa Cruz, 475-1429, reelingsilk.com.

Awakening Chi

1060 River St., Ste. 111,Santa Cruz, 334-7757, awakeningchi.org.

Bridge Of Hope

P.O. Box 576, Soquel, 464-2362, bridgeofhopefoundation.org.

Chair Yoga with Suzi

Yoga Center Santa Cruz, 428 Front St., Santa Cruz, 234-6791, suzimahler.com.

City of Capitola Recreation Department

4400 Jade St., Capitola, 475-5935, cityofcapitola.org/recreation.

City of Santa Cruz Parks & Recreation Department 

323 Church St., Santa Cruz, 420-5270, cityofsantacruz.com.

Dominican Hospital’s Personal Enrichment Program 

1555 Soquel Drive, Santa Cruz, 462-7709, dominicanhospital.org.

Lenz Arts

142 River St., Santa Cruz, 423-1935, lenzarts.com.

Santa Cruz County Parks Department 

979 17th Ave., Santa Cruz, 454-7901, scparks.com./adult_senior.html.

Simpkins Family Swim Center

979 17th Ave., Santa Cruz, 454-7960, scparks.com.

Watsonville Community Hospital

75 Nielson St., Watsonville, 724-4741, watsonvillehospital.com.

Adult Mental Health Services

Santa Cruz: 1400 Emeline Ave. Bldg. K, Santa Cruz, 454-4170, santacruzhealth.org.

Adult Protective Services (Human Services Department)

1400 Emeline Ave. Bldg. K, Santa Cruz, 454-4101, santacruzhumanservices.org.

Family Service Agency of the Central Coast

104 Walnut Ave. Ste. 208, Santa Cruz, 423-9444; 11 Alexander St. Ste. D, Watsonville, 728-9970 (24-hour multi-lingual crisis line), fsa-cc.org.

Hospice of Santa Cruz County

940 Disc Drive, Scotts Valley, 430-3000, hospicesantacruz.org.

Mental Health Client Action Network

1051 Cayuga St., Santa Cruz, 469-0462, mhcan.org.

Santa Cruz Vets Center

1350 41st Ave. Ste. 102, Capitola, 464-4575, santacruzhumanservices.org, va.gov.

Women’s Crisis Support—Defensa de Mujeres (Monarch Services)

1685 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz, 425-4030; 233 E. Lake Ave., Watsonville, 722-4532, (888) 900-4232 (crisis line), wcs-ddm.org.

Financial Services

Bay Federal Credit Union

Multiple Locations, 479-6000, bayfed.com.

Countryside Financial 

464-6464, countrysidefinancial.com.

Edward Jones Investments

Multiple locations, edwardjones.com.

Main Street Realtors 

2567 Main St., Soquel, 462-4000, mainstrealtors.com.     

Pacific Inland Financial Inc.

5161 Soquel Drive, Soquel, 475-2600, pacificinland.com.

Santa Cruz Home Finance

1535 Seabright Ave., Santa Cruz, 425-1250, santacruzhomefinance.com.

Santa Cruz Community Credit Union

324 Front St., Santa Cruz, 425-7708, scccu.org.

Terry Ballantyne/Sereno Group Real Estate 

2407 Porter St., Soquel, 588-8485, terryballantyne.com, navigatingolderhood.com.

Food and Nutrition 

Agri-Culture

141 Monte Vista Ave., Watsonville, 722-6622, agri-culture.us.

Grey Bears

2710 Chanticleer Ave., Santa Cruz, 479-1055, greybears.org. 

Carnation Cafe Senior Lunch at Louden Nelson Community Center

301 Center St., Santa Cruz, 427-0901, cityofsantacruz.com.

Cindy’s Celebrations, Inc.

320 Carrera Circle, Aptos, 479-7509, cindyscelebrations.org.

Community Bridges Adult Care Food Program 

236 Santa Cruz Ave., Aptos, 688-8840, communitybridges.org.

Elena Baskin Live Oak Senior Center

1777 Capitola Rd., Santa Cruz, 476-3272, liveoakseniorcenter.com.

Highlands Senior Dining Center at the Senior Center of San Lorenzo Valley

8500 Hwy. 9, Ben Lomond, 336-8900.

Human Services Department

1020 Emeline Ave. Bldg. B, Santa Cruz; 18 W. Beach St., Watsonville, (888) 421-8080, santacruzhumanservices.org.

La Manzana Community Resources

521 Main St. Ste. Y, Watsonville, 724-2997, communitybridges.org/lmcr.

Live Oak Family Resources 

1740 17th Ave., Santa Cruz, 476-7284.

Meals on Wheels for Santa Cruz County

Contact Community Bridges for meal times, locations and drop-off information: 464-3180, communitybridges.org/meals.

Mountain Community Resources 

6134 Hwy. 9, Felton, 335-6600, communitybridges.org/mcr.

Pajaro Rescue Mission 

111 Railroad Ave., Royal Oaks, 724-9576, teenchallengemb.org.

Second Harvest Food Bank

800 Ohlone Parkway., Watsonville, 722-7110, thefoodbank.org. Food hotline: 662-0991.

Scotts Valley Senior Center 

370 Kings Village Rd., Scotts Valley, 438-8666.

Watsonville Senior Center

114 E. 5th St., Watsonville, 722-1333.

Healthcare & Health Resources

Aimée Gould Shunney, ND

Licensed Naturopathic Doctor. 740 Front St. #130, Santa Cruz, 465-9088, drshunney.com.

Alzheimer’s Disease Care Center at Elderday 

100 Pioneer St. Ste. C, Santa Cruz, 458-3481, communitybridges.org.

Arthritis Foundation Great West Region

90 New Montgomery St. Ste. 710, San Francisco. (415) 915-2862, arthritis.org.

Cabrillo College Stroke & Disability Learning Center

6500 Soquel Drive, Aptos, 477-3300, cabrillo.edu/academics/strokecenter.

Cancer Detection Program: Every Woman Counts Central Coast Regional Contractor: Community Health Partnership

1401 Parkmoor Ave., Ste. 200 San Jose, (408) 556-6605, dhs.ca.gov/cancerdetection. 

Carol Shwery, DC CCN

831 Bay Ave. Ste. 1E, Capitola, 476-6906, drcarolshwery.com.

Central California Alliance for Health

1600 Green Hills Rd. Ste. 101, Scotts Valley, 430-5500, ccah-alliance.org.

Dakota Health Center

111 Dakota Ave. Ste. 2, Santa Cruz, 429-1188.

Diabetes Health Center

85 Nielson St. Ste. 201, Watsonville, 763-6445, pvhealthtrust.org.

Dominican Hospital

1555 Soquel Drive, Santa Cruz, 462-7700, dominicanhospital.org.

EyeCare America Seniors Eye Care Program

(877) 887-6327, eyecareamerica.org.

Health Projects Center

1537 Pacific Ave. Ste. 300, Santa Cruz, 459-6639, hpcn.org.

Hearing Aid Helpline

(734) 522-7200 ext. 2, ihsinfo.org.

Hearts & Hands, Post Acute Care & Rehab Center

2990 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz, 479-9000. 

Holistic Pelvic Care

515 Broadway, Santa Cruz, 431-3826, kelleylinn.com.

Homeless Persons Health Project

115-A Coral St., Santa Cruz, 454-2080, santacruzhealth.org.

Horsnyder Pharmacy

1226-A Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz, 458-1400, horsnyder.com.

Katz Cancer Resource Center at Dominican Hospital

3150 Mission Drive Fl. 1, Santa Cruz, CA, 462-7770.

Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

100 W San Fernando St. Ste. 365, San Jose, (408) 490-2666, lls.org.

LifeCare Management & Caregiver Referrals

200-1870 or 650-714-6377, lifecaremanagement.com. 

Medi-Cal

18 W. Beach St., Watsonville, 454-4036, medi-cal.ca.gov. Also, see Central California Alliance for Health.

Medicare

(800) 633-4227, medicare.gov.

Natural Foundations

4450 Capitola Rd. Ste. 105, Capitola, 325-0202, naturalfoundations.com.

Optimage Health Inc.

930 Mission St., Santa Cruz, 421-0197, optimagehealth.com. 

Orthonorcal

4140 Jade St. Room 100, Capitola, 475-4024, orthonorcal.com.

Pacific Pulmonary Services

440 Westridge Drive, Watsonville, 722-3001, ppsc.com.

Parkinson’s Support Group in Santa Cruz

477-9412, 708-2906, parkinsons.stanford.edu. 

Physicians Medical Group of Santa Cruz 

100 Enterprise Way Ste. C110, Scotts Valley, 465-7800, pmgscc.com. 

Rejuvenate Medi Spa

304 Lincoln St., Santa Cruz, 226-2108, navigatormedical.com.

Santa Cruz AIDS Project

542 Ocean St. Ste. 1, Santa Cruz, 427-3900, scapsite.org.

Santa Cruz Core Fitness and Rehab

317 Potrero St., Ste. C, Santa Cruz, 425-9500, santacruzcore.com.

Santa Cruz County Prostate Cancer Support Group

1555 Soquel Drive, Education Bldg., Santa Cruz, 462-7770, scprostate.org.

Santa Cruz Naturals

9077 Soquel Drive, Aptos, 688-7266, santacruzcannabis.com.

Side By Side Memory Care

687-8121, sidebyside.info.

Sutter Maternity & Surgery Center of Santa Cruz

2900 Chanticleer Ave., Santa Cruz, 477-2200, sutterhealth.org/smscsc.

Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired

413 Laurel St., Santa Cruz, 458-9766, vistacenter.org.

Watsonville Community Hospital

75 Nielson St., Watsonville, 724-4741, watsonvillehospital.com.

Watsonville Pharmacy Medical Supplies and Gifts

1433 Freedom Blvd., Watsonville, 728-1818, watsonvillepharmacy.com.

Westside Pharmacy Medical Supplies and Gifts 

1401 Mission St., Santa Cruz, 423-7175. westsidepharmacyrx.com.

WomenCARE

2901 Park Ave., Ste. 1A, Soquel, 457-2273, womencaresantacruz.org.

Housing

Bay Avenue Senior Apartments

750 Bay Ave., Capitola, 464-6435.

Habitat for Humanity, My House My Home

469-4663, habitatmontereybay.org.

Homeless Services Center

115-A Coral St., Santa Cruz, 458-6020, santacruzhsc.org.

Housing Authority of Santa Cruz County 

2160 41st Ave.. Capitola, CA, 454-9455, hacosantacruz.org.

Mobile Home Commission

701 Ocean St., Santa Cruz, 454-2772, sccounty01.co.santa-cruz.ca.us/mhc/index.html. 

Mobile Home Ombudsman’s Office

(916) 263-6928, hcd.ca.gov.

Senior Housing Finder

462-1433, seniornetworkservices.org.

The Shelter Project of the Community Action Board

501 Soquel Ave., Ste. E, Santa Cruz, 457-1741; 406 Main St. Suite 207, Watsonville, 728-4634, cabinc.org.

Valley Haven

2266 Chanticleer Ave., Santa Cruz, 818-8372, valleyhavencare.com.

In-Home Services 

Care from the Heart Home Service

3143 Paul Sweet Rd., Santa Cruz, 476-8316, carefromtheheart.net. 

ComForcare Home Care

100 Doyle St. Ste. F, Santa Cruz, 427-1553, comforcare.com.

Companion for Life /Lifeline Project

234 Santa Cruz Ave., Aptos, 688-9217, seniorscouncil.org/programs/companionforlife.

Dominican Home Health

8030 Soquel Ave. Ste. 104, Santa Cruz, 465-7988, dominicanhospital.org.

Familiar Surroundings

2901 Park Ave. Ste. C3, Soquel, 480-3990, fshomecare.com.

Helping Hands Senior Home Repair Program

427-5070, scvolunteercenter.com/programs/elderly-disabled/helping_hands.

Home Helpers

343 Soquel Ave. #100, Santa Cruz, 477-6265, homehelpers.com.

Home Instead Senior Care

3912 Portola Drive Ste. 3, Santa Cruz, 476-9500, homeinstead.com.

Heartland Hospice

824 Bay Ave. Ste. 40, Capitola, 476-2158, heartlandhospice.com.

Hospice of Santa Cruz County

940 Disc Drive, Scotts Valley, 430-3000, hospicesantacruz.org.

In-Home Support Services (IHSS) Public Authority

1400 Emeline Ave. Bldg. K, Santa Cruz, 454-4101; 12 W. Beach St., Watsonville, 763-8800, santacruzhumanservices.org.

Lifespan Care Well-Being Program

600 Frederick St., Santa Cruz, 469-4900, lifespancare.com.

Safe At Home Senior Care

820 Bay Ave., Capitola, 462-3500, safeathomeseniorcare.com.

Senior Network Services Registry

1777-A Capitola Rd., Santa Cruz, 462-1433, seniornetworkservices.org.

Visiting Angels

5274 Scotts Valley Drive, Scotts Valley, 430-0616, visitingangels.com/centralcoast.

Visiting Nurses Association (VNA) of Santa Cruz County

2880 Soquel Ave. Ste. 10, Santa Cruz, 479-6620, santacruzvna.org.

Volunteering

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Santa Cruz County

1500 41st Ave. Ste. 250, Capitola, 464-8691, santacruzmentor.com.

Grey Bears

2710 Chanticleer Ave., Santa Cruz, 479-1055, greybears.org.

CASA

813 Freedom Blvd., Watsonville, 761-2956, casaofsantacruz.org.

Dominican Hospital Volunteer Services

1555 Soquel Drive, Santa Cruz, 462-7740, dominicanhospital.org.

Seniors Council of Santa Cruz and San Benito Counties

234 Santa Cruz Ave., Aptos, 688-0400, seniorscouncil.org.

Suicide Prevention Service

104 Walnut Ave. Ste. 208, Santa Cruz, 459-9373, fsa-cc.org.

Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz County’s Retired Senior Volunteer Program

1740 17th Ave., Santa Cruz, 427-5070; 349 Main St. Suite 208, Watsonville, 722-6708, scvolunteercenter.org.

Jana Marcus has made a lot of women cry—in a good way. And all she had to do was show them what they look like.

When she started doing her “50 Over 50” project—portraits of 50 women over the age of 50—out of her photography studio in Santa Cruz this year, she quickly got into a pre-Covid rhythm: consult with each woman to design the shoot; bring them into the studio for makeup, hair and wardrobe; and then take the pictures.

But that isn’t the end of the process, and the most powerful moments inevitably come afterward.

“What I usually do in non-pandemic times is I invite them back to the studio about a week after our shoot, and I put 20 of the best images up on the wall for them to look at,” says Marcus. “And most women come in and start crying. They can’t believe it’s them. They’re like, ‘Oh my god, it’s me! I look good!’”

Now, of course, she’s doing the unveiling process on Zoom rather than in person—but that doesn’t stop many of the women from shedding tears when they see the images.

Marcus isn’t really surprised. It’s a reaction she first got a few years ago when doing portraits of transgendered women for her photography book Transfigurations.

“It was while I was shooting that that I realized the power of photography,” she says. “It’s not that I didn’t know that before, but I had these transgendered women who, when they went to the exhibit and saw the pictures of themselves on the wall, would start to cry. And they were like, ‘Oh my god, you captured the way I feel inside that I never thought I looked like on the outside.’ I realized how transformational photography can be in a person’s life.”

After that project, she took her studio full time and was trying to think of a portrait project that would get it noticed and bring people in, but that she also felt a personal connection to.

“I started thinking about how all of us women in our late 50s are in the second half of our lives—and we’re probably at our best,” says Marcus, who is 58. “We’re fully conscious and aware of our power, what we’ve lived through. But a lot of us don’t like how we look, because we don’t look like we did when we were in our 30s and 40s. I thought, ‘You know what, I want to do this for women. I want to photograph women. I want to give them a day where they can feel like a rock star and come to the studio and have a makeover and a fabulous photo session totally designed around them. Whatever they want represented of themselves—have them celebrate exactly who they are right now, whether they’re 50, 60, 70, 80, whatever they are.”

Once she started offering the 50 Over 50 package, she quickly had three times that number of women wanting to be a part of it. She planned to have finished the project by now, but thanks to Covid-19 she has only done about half. Her studio is currently closed, but she plans to open in September and is booked through November.

She has also been asking each of her subjects to write a few words about aging, or advice they would give their younger selves.

“Women are so all over this, because there is no representation in the media of women over 50. We’re invisible, like we don’t exist anymore. So they are loving this opportunity to be seen and to say a few words.”

Most of her subjects have never been professionally photographed, Marcus says, and while there’s a strength and confidence that shines through in the photos, it’s often her job to bring that out.

“Every single one of them is nervous before they come in,” she says. “I have a Zoom consultation with them before they come, and we talk in detail about how they want to be photographed, what they’re going to wear, and they’re all nervous, and they all are like, ‘Oh my god, get rid of this, and this, and this, and this.’ I’m like, ‘OK, I can airbrush whatever you want, but this is about photographing you right now, as you are.”

As the shoot goes on, the women being photographed inevitably get more comfortable, and Marcus says most of the best shots come near the end. The project itself seems to be gaining swagger as it goes on, too.

“They’ve started to bring props with them. People are wanting to say something about what they do in their life with the pictures,” says Marcus. “I had a florist who brought in flowers, and we photographed her with all these flowers. I had one woman who brought everything but the kitchen sink—she brought a bicycle and a fly-fishing rod and life-saving equipment! She had all this outdoor stuff that represented her life as an active person. And then when we were shooting in the studio, she said, ‘I also have these gowns from the 1940s that were my grandma’s.’ So I said to her, ‘Put the gown on.’ We made her all glamorous, and then we put her with all her outdoor stuff around her. It sounds crazy, but it’s the coolest picture, and she actually looks like a warrior woman holding the staff of the fishing rod.”

Currently, Marcus is planning her latest round of 50 Over 50 shoots, which will include Santa Cruz’s Ethel Lewis, the 90-year-old great-grandniece of Harriet Tubman. She hopes someone in the community will host an exhibit of the project in January, health orders permitting.

Marcus has always embraced the unusual and countercultural—from her 1997 book In the Shadow of the Vampire, about Anne Rice fan culture, to her award-winning 2004-2005 photo series “After Midnight: Youth Subcultures of New York City” to Tranfigurations (which won an Independent Publishers Book Award for Best LGBT Non-Fiction Book of 2012) to this summer’s Line of Blood: Uncovering a Secret Legacy of Mobsters, Money and Murder. With this project, too, she’s ready for anything.

“I had my first senior tell me she wanted a nude,” she says. “I hadn’t shot any nudes! So I said, ‘Well, what do you want?’ and she said, ‘I’m a free spirit, and I think everybody should love their body.’ I was like, ‘Ok!’”

Jana Marcus Photography can be found at janamarcus.com.

It has been three days since I last cleaned the horse stalls and I believe I have finally dug all the manure out from under my toenails. On day one of lockdown, March 16, I scored a job taking care of nine Arabian horses on the Corralitos farm where I live in my Airstream trailer. It’s a good job—it’s a stable job.

There is no time clock; my day starts at dawn. I push my cart to the horse pens loaded with their hay and grain as the horses paw the ground in anticipation. While the outside human world descends into madness to fight over masks on their faces to prevent infection of their lungs, it’s my job to put fly masks on the horses’ faces to prevent infection of their eyes. The horses do far better with masks than the humans.

The horses can see through their eye masks, but it is still an intimate maneuver for me to reach under their necks and lift the mask over their faces, adjust it over their eyes and fasten it with Velcro. My first two weeks on the job, I am terrified of the 1,200-pound Arabian named Moose. You could put a half-dollar in his nostril. A few years ago Moose was abused by a man and injured. Moose is not mean, but because I am a large man, the minute I come through the gate his eyes go wild, ears go back and he runs in circles, kicking and snorting. I am scared, and he knows it.

By April, I get my breath under control and announce my intention to Moose. I stand still and he comes closer. I whisper to him that I am here to protect his eyes and that’s why we are going to put his mask on. He lowers his nose to my nose and I feel the powerful suction as he inhales me. He lets me scratch his neck and lifts his head with pleasure. He leans into my hands so that I will scratch him harder and it nearly knocks me down. Then he lowers his head to receive the mask.

Laughus Interruptus

Moose and I connect through breath. Air connects every one of us on earth. I have read that atoms from Julius Caesar’s last breath are in every breath I take, so I’m glad to hear that the big guy didn’t die of Covid-19. It turns out he had a bad day in the senate. Some things never change.

For my generation’s mantra of “We are the generation of sex, drugs and rock and roll,” I have a punchline: “any one of those three can lead to a hip replacement.” Coronavirus has made my joke obsolete. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll? Any one of those three can kill you.

As a small boy, I knew that I was born to perform in vaudeville but had arrived 40 years too late. Then I discovered standup comedy, and I got to be who I was born to be after all.

Standup is a call and response dialogue with the audience. It’s not intellectual, you feel their response. My body knows where the audience will let me take them; it’s not a calculated transaction, it’s emotional intelligence. When I am doing my job well, I am as sensitive as a horse.

I’ve gone all in on committing to make rooms of drunk people laugh. This is who I am, it’s what I got good at, and I’ve done it 3,000 times. I did my last live show on March 15 at Michael’s on Main in Santa Cruz, and it felt like the crowd was desperate to laugh. There was doom in the room. On March 16^, the calls started coming in from agents and bookers—all my clubs, casinos and theaters had closed. By 5pm, my live performance career was over.

I feel obsolete. If I’m not a comedian who makes people laugh, then who am I? I start doing Zoom shows and build my YouTube Channel, Richard Stockton Comedy. At first I love the zero travel time and Zoom seems like the answer for isolation. But Zoom family meetings seem vacuous, and Zoom comedy shows have a built in delay that makes us feel more separated. Computer dating is great if you’re a computer.

I begin smoking weed and binge-watching the news. Starting with CNN, I pour over every news story. Hours pass. When I finally do push myself away from my computer, I am spent and cannot remember 95% of what I read. The news is an intravenous drip of fear into my blood. I walk toward Safeway without my glasses and think I see Trump rising out of the sidewalk. I get closer and see that it is an orange safety cone half buried in gravel. I hold my breath until I can get back on the farm to talk things over with Moose.

I do see news that inspires and lifts me, as even the Statue of Liberty is taking a knee. We thought the times were a-changin’ in the ’60s, and then they didn’t. But this feels different, as people of all colors march for racial equality. I hear from my kids who protest at the capitol in Sacramento. The image of my children running from rubber bullets terrifies me, but it makes me so proud of them. I pray they wear their goggles and masks while my heart soars to hear how they are finding their defining moment; they could be the generation to bring equality home.

Family Time

My two kids and I become a family again. Before the pandemic I was estranged from my children, but when the disease spread they came back to me. This is the best thing that has happened to me since their birth. There is nothing like an apocalypse to bring a family together.

I succumb to the cheap thrills of Google and read The Dangers Of Letting Your Lawn Go To Seed! And How Not To Let Your Cannabis Go To Seed! What I want to know is how to keep myself from going to seed. I have stopped shaving and stopped addressing ear hair, nose hair, and eyebrow hair. I lose the will to remove the manure from under my nails. I call Julie and tell her that I have turned into a sloth and she sends me a video of a sloth scratching his ass. As I watch this video, I find myself scratching my ass.

For financial reasons, Julie and I shelter in place 500 miles apart. I’m afraid that I’ll never work again, and on the farm I do have a job. So Julie gets a puppy, I get nine horses, and the animals keep us alive. We have experienced being apart for a month before, so we thought a few weeks would be easy. Turns out that the coronavirus did not decide to take a summer vacation.

I am crazy about this woman. Julie is half-Italian and half-Chardonnay. We are Weedo and Wino. Julie is a scientist and she says that moving at the speed of light is when you take a wine bottle out of the refrigerator before the light comes on. I find a substitute for my horse job and plan our wild weekend. Julie asks me to quarantine for two weeks before I drive down. I consider boiling myself.

I came of age during the glorious experiment of Free Love, before HIV and herpes and just three years after the arrival of the pill that unlocked sex and marriage. A woman with several lovers was considered “popular.” And now 50 years later I have to quarantine for two weeks before I see my wife. I always thought the apocalypse would somehow be more exciting.

Sick Days

Back in the trailer on June 19, I come down with the symptoms of Covid-19: fever, cough, sore throat, aches, weakness, and the onset is like a fire hose running through my alimentary canal. One end just loses its steam in time for the other end to take over. This continues until I am completely empty Monday morning.

I sleep all day, through the night and Tuesday morning my throat is so sore I cannot swallow. I try to coax water down but my throat squeezes shut. I keep my EpiPen handy.

Tuesday night my delirium turns into scenes where I kill my friends with disease. I hallucinate living through Revelations as a horse of the Apocalypse. I have done bad things in my life, but I have never killed anyone. Kind of a low bar I know, but I’d like to be able to take that one with me.

When I wake Wednesday morning, I feel like days have passed. I think it’s Friday. I look at my laptop, “What? No way!” Surely a timer got switched on, it says Wednesday! I look at my phone, “My phone is wrong, too!”

Then my head starts spinning, the walls of the trailer whirl to the left, I realize I’m losing it and push off my kitchen sink to fall backwards onto the bed. That’s the beautiful thing about passing out in the Airstream—the soft landing.

I pull out of the sickness, but have to take two weeks off from the horses. I obsess over how I intend to make a living. I have been offered performance opportunities at outdoor wineries, but wonder if this is the time to gather people to drink alcohol.  Laughter does heal in ways, but I doubt that hospital nurses are shouting down the halls outside of ICUs, “Somebody quick! We need to get a comedian in here!”

Off the Clock

Now I have a new appreciation of time. I go to bed early and get up at dawn because I am in alignment with the sun. Moose doesn’t care what day it is, he cares about getting fed at daylight. I feel like I’m living in an earlier human time, in rhythm with the animals and the sun, a time when it is natural to stay home.

Since we got off the clock we have enjoyed the glorious experience of living with less pollution and we may see a path to our survival. Civil rights seems to be at a tipping point and we may see Harriet Tubman’s picture on the twenty dollar bill. And if I ever do get to stand in front of a comedy crowd again I will be a better comic when I breathe them in like Moose.

Five years ago, at the age of 92, Patricia Hernan Grube was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. For many people of her advanced years, surgery would not be a viable option, but the neurologists decided that in this case, the patient was strong enough to survive it. They were right.

“When the surgeon was cutting into my head,” remembers Grube, “she said, ‘I need a stronger saw. This woman has a hard head.’ And all my kids said, ‘Yep, we all knew that.’”

At 97, Grube is still recovering from the trauma of brain surgery. But, in keeping with her hard-headedness, she’s not exactly slowing down.

A longtime Santa Cruz-based playwright and poet, Grube is having a high-profile 2020, having released two books this year: a new collection of poems, many of them about the frustrations of being an elder in a culture that often ignores elders, called Then and Now; and a memoir of her family’s experience living for two years in the African nation of Zambia in the early 1970s titled Chickens in Africa.

Grube has spent most of the second half of her life as a writer, particularly as a playwright. She has been involved in the Santa Cruz-based Actors’ Theatre for more than 30 years and has seen several of her plays produced, both 10-minute short plays in the theater’s 8 Tens @ 8 festival, and full-length plays. Her play Relative Shades—featuring three incarnations of the same woman at different stages of her life—was considered one of the best plays of the year when it debuted at Actors’ Theatre in 1994.

“I enjoy writing plays more than anything else,” she says. Before the pandemic, Grube had been negotiating to have another of her plays produced. What Is the Question? is a play about the final years of writer/critic Gertrude Stein during World War II.

“Someday it will be done,” she says. “But I may not see it.”

In the meantime, Grube is celebrating the release of her latest works. The new book of poems, elegantly designed by Grube’s daughter Alice Hughes, features a few previously published poems, but mostly it’s new work, on a theme: what it’s like to be seen as an old person.

“Older people are not very much loved these days,” she says. “At a certain point, you end up being seen as just an old person with nothing to say. And the reason that there’s nothing to say is that no one ever asks.”

Friends and fans have responded most to a poem called “The Gift,” which is about the very real phenomenon of older people being literally overlooked in public places, such as standing in line at grocery stores and movie theaters:

Now I know I have a knack, a talent,/ an ability to become invisible./ The disturbing thing is that/ I have no control over the time or place./ Sometimes this is annoying, sometimes amusing.

“I’ve read that several times at different events,” she says. “Everybody’s laughing. But I remind them, ‘Someday this will happen to you.’ And some in the audience are, ‘It already has!’”

Chickens in Africa is an absorbing account of the Grube family’s two-year odyssey living in southern Africa from 1970 to 1972. Grube and her husband Lester had seven children, five of whom went to Africa with them (the other two were adults by that time). Lester Grube went to Zambia to help the newly independent government there establish a poultry industry. Zambia was subject to British colonialism for decades, until it gained its independence in 1964.

“Colonialism was just another form of slavery,” Grube says. “Instead of bringing the people to you to be slaves, they go and enslave the people where they are. When the colonials left, there was no one to handle the business, because no one had been trained. That’s what people like my husband were doing, training the people there to take over.”

Most of the book was written in 2013, before Grube’s brain-tumor battle. She gathered together old letters she had written and sent to her mother, as well as others sent to a friend, at the time.

“Letters were almost like a journal,” she says. “All I had to do there was take care of the kids and answer letters.”

At the same time, she had discovered an old audio recording of Lester Grube talking about the Zambia experience. The complete transcript is part of the new memoir. There is also a chapter written by each of the children, written from their memories of the period, as well as many family photos.

“I sat down to write some stories (of the period), but it was not very big, not enough to make a book. Then I thought I’d ask the kids if they wanted to write something. They all contributed, even the ones who had only come to visit us.”

“My parents were doers,” writes Stephen Grube in the new book, and indeed, the book outlines the efforts of Lester and Patricia Grube in the early farm workers movement in California in the 1960s, before moving to Ndola, Zambia. It also provides anecdotes and background stories of what it was like for a white American family to come face to face with the legacy of European colonialism in Africa, and the uncomfortable realities reflected in the cultures there.

But Chickens In Africa is not the end of Patricia Grube’s writing about her life. Even at 97, she’s readying another book for publication, this one called Generations. “It goes back to my childhood,” she says. “I’ve got stories about my father, and things about my grandmother and how she taught me to do things. There’s some letters I found from some great-greats. It should be out by next year.”

She would also still like to tell the world about her late husband, the Peace Corps idealist and World War II veteran. “He did more things in his life than anyone I know, working for racial justice, working with farmworkers. I shouldn’t be writing about myself. I should be writing about him. He was a person who loved everybody and everybody loved him. I don’t think he would have believed it if someone said they didn’t like him. Me, I’ve always been just the opposite.”