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Older Americans are fêted each May, but spring 2020 has seen many of us separated from our elders due to the coronavirus pandemic. Changes can occur or begin to occur at any time, but when elders have less socialization and interaction there can be sudden or accelerated change. It may start with not feeling like dressing since nobody will be around, and that can become holding off on bathing or wearing the same clothes too long. A senior parent with a normally active social life may not even reach out to call friends if quarantined alone.

We are beginning to “open” our local economy and bring some normalcy back to our daily lives while we remain very vigilant with our physical distancing, protective masks and extreme hand washing to decrease the spread of the novel coronavirus. Patience and good manners...

Sonoma County Department of Transportation and Public Works (TPW) is working on several infrastructure projects for the unincorporated area of Fitch Mountain during the ongoing COVID-19 shelter-in-place order.

This is not the time to break down, this is a time to build up, as wise man King Solomon observed 3,000 years ago. Although it seems hard to imagine what Healdsburg will be like after the current crisis fades away, it seems prudent to assume that it will take a long time to revive our town’s success story of the past 10 years.

Mattie Washburn has been extremely busy training staff on Google Classroom, getting the devices in the hands of our students, making phone calls to assist families with logging on and implementing Google Classroom and Zoom meetings successfully for the past few weeks.  

Local arts education continues during shelter in place

There is still grocery shopping. Some things remain oddly the same, as though there is no world pandemic. This strange situation covers the world as we thought we knew it, challenging our every perception of what should be, yet isn’t.

I am stressed. I still have my job and for ten years I have been working from home. I cannot imagine how much more stressful this current situation would be if I had no income or were new to working from home. I have Medicare. It must be very stressful for those whose healthcare was tied to a job they no longer have. I am grateful. I have so much more than many. Yet, I am still stressed.

Even though it feels and looks like it, it is incorrect to say our economy has been shut down. Cars are still going up and down Highway 101. All the grocery stores are busy. The list of essential services just got a little bigger...

We’ve had two weeks of farmers markets as I write this, and it’s such a pleasure to be back. I’ve missed all of you, and love how we’re able to reconnect despite masks, gloves and hand sanitizer.