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This is a time for us to push the reset button | Letters
Here’s what readers are saying in Saturday’s letters to the editor
 
Barriers have been placed along the sea wall at North Shore Park to keep people off the beach, on April 1, 2020 in St. Petersburg.
Barriers have been placed along the sea wall at North Shore Park to keep people off the beach, on April 1, 2020 in St. Petersburg. [ MARTHA ASENCIO RHINE | Times ]
Published April 3, 2020

It’s time to learn what matters

March letter of the month | The winning letter is about perspective during a pandemic

I’ve been thinking about the trapped, hopeless feeling most of us have, not knowing when the current state of self-isolation, social distancing and general overall fear of contracting the COVID-19 virus will end. I read on a daily basis the frustrations people have over not being able to work, to come and go as we please, to spend time with family or friends. At the same time, we are witnessing the selfless dedication of the medical community as they put their health, and that of their families, on the line every day around the world. Maybe we don’t truly acknowledge their sacrifice until it’s our care or a loved one’s that is in jeopardy.

This past year, my family has lost a husband, a mother, a sister, an aunt, an uncle, a step-mother and countless friends, leaving holes in the heart that will never completely heal. In these unconventional and unprecedented times, is it not an opportunity for self-reflection, to keep one’s priorities in check, to stop racing through our days with our own agenda as the focus with no regard for anyone else?

It seems to me that we’ve been given time to push the “reset” button on our lives, to realize what is important and what is just noise. People around the world are experiencing the same fear, panic and uncertainty. We all have the responsibility to do our part by self-isolating and social distancing. To those who refuse and continue to be ridiculously selfish, know that every day you think only of yourself, the rest of us remain quarantined, prolonging the current state of affairs. Remove your head from your keister, get in the game of life and think of someone other than yourself. You might become a better person.

Susan Hoffritz, Dade City

‘Essential’ construction?

The American flag flutters in the wind as work is done on the roof of a building under construction in Sacramento, Calif., March 31, 2020. [ RICH PEDRONCELLI | AP ]

The confusion that has been sowed by our leaders in this time is going to carry massive ramifications in the future of this state. For example, the opening date of the St. Petersburg Pier not being pushed back due to construction being considered an essential service is going to prove to have been a bad choice. The construction industry is cutthroat. Multiple bidders drive the cost of projects down for subcontractors throughout the United States. This, in turn, affects the employees pay and benefits, who are the ones placing themselves in harm’s way to serve this supposed essential service. A majority of us in the construction field do not have sick days. On days when we are not at work, we do not get paid.

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By having workers showing up to work sick, we are putting lives in danger. There is no consideration of CDC guidelines on a vast majority of these job sites and, if there is, it is extremely haphazard at best. Slop sinks 500 yards away outside do not constitute a sanitary environment.

Generally, these calls are not made by those working in the field. They are made in offices and, in these times, probably from the comfort of home. We all take pride in our work and want to do the job that we need to do, but we should not be forced to take a chance on our families’ and society’s safety over meeting arbitrary deadlines.

Essential construction (that is, building of hospitals, housing that gets people off of the streets, road repair) makes perfect sense to me. But calling the construction and completion of a golf course or luxury condo “essential” seems irresponsible.

Corey Tolisano, St. Petersburg

My problems are tiny

Both retirees, my wife and I are comfortable enough sheltering in place, or whatever today’s phrase is.

We sneak out roughly every other day to get some drive-through lunch. If we go out for errands, I’m pretty much told to sit in the car and wait — I’m 76, eight years older than my wife, and I’m a Type 2 diabetic, one of those existing conditions that could make me more susceptible. (As if being 76 isn’t concern enough, when on the inside I think I’m 30 years younger.)

I told my wife that I thought about posting something (personal and mawkish) on Facebook about how the virus prevented me, on Tuesday, from even shaking hands with our older son on his 37th birthday or to celebrate our grandson’s first birthday in California today.

But then, on NPR, I heard a report about how a woman is handling the stress of the virus on her two 20-something sons, both severely autistic and in a special home.

Now she can’t visit them, and she notes any change from routine can cause them trauma, so imagine what it was like for them to get swabs stuck in their noses and mouths by strangers wearing masks. The woman doesn’t have the results yet.

Suddenly I realized that in the great scheme of things, my disappointments were nothing.

Robert N. Jenkins, St. Petersburg

Stories about Michael

A voice for people with disabilities | March 27

Editor’s note: This letter reacts to the death of Michael Phillips, a lifelong advocate for people with disabilities.

(Left) Karen Clay, 64, operates a medical ventilator to help her son Michael Phillips, 36, breath. Michael has spinal muscular atrophy and is confined to his bed. He can breath only with the aid of a machine. Here, they are photographed at their Tampa home Wednesday, July 19, 2017. [ALESSANDRA DA PRA | Times] [ "ALESSANDRA DA PRA | TIMES" | Tampa Bay Times ]

Michael Phillips told me once that he wanted whoever prepared him for his funeral to look down at his tattoos — he ended up with 95 of them — and wonder, Who the hell was this guy? Who was he? A complex and beautiful man. The curve of his spine was elegant, like driftwood, or wrought iron; the skin on the soles of his feet was brand new, petal soft. Darth Vader was his imaginary friend when he was little. The dentist pulled his teeth instead of fixing them. As a boy he was treated by a nurse who turned out to be a serial killer, but she never laid a hand on him.

Once he lay on a beach and looked up at the sky as the stars came out.

He wanted to fire a gun. He did. He went out dancing in Ybor City in eyeliner and nailpolish; when he danced it was invisible, but if you put a hand on his shoulder you could feel the minute movements of his muscles.

When he was still able to speak, he would usually make a joke very quickly upon meeting someone so that they’d know he was human. When he lost the ability to speak, the marks on his skin had to signal his humanity, his adulthood.

He loved words; he loved music. He loved women; he could seduce with a single long look. He was proud of his writing: poems and short stories full of darkness and glinting lights. He was proud of his tattoos. He contained a space larger than himself. He was a whole world. He lived 39 years and he fought for every second of it. He refused to let go; he wanted it: everything beautiful, everything painful, every breath.

S.I. Rosenbaum, Queens, N.Y.