Baile Rochel Locked In? Nah! Can't Keep a Good Girl Down

Baile Rochel tell you how it really is:

Life in The Corona Lock-down

The other day I got an emergency call from my childhood playmate:

"Baile Rochel, the world is waiting for your words of wisdom."
"Nu, me?"

What wisdom?

I'm just a sloppy overweight middle-aged senior citizen who keeps getting chastised by my children for taking walks outside the house. I dress like a bandit with a mask and all. OK, I admit that the "mask" is just a folded shmatta, cut from a ripped flannel sheet. For goggles, I have my trusty multifocals.

When people ask why I still go outside I answer:

"Doctors orders!"

When corona virus, COVID-19, the plague, or whatever you want to call it, is no more than an awful memory, high blood pressure, diabetes, serious aches and pains, etc ad nauseum will still be live threats. In addition, I live in the "sticks," in a private home, so I don't need scuba gear in an elevator or public stairwell.

I rarely see anyone when outside, and if I do, I cross the street. And if that's not possible, proper corona manners demand that the younger wanderer must climb the nearest tree. A close call was averted when a clueless little kid started approaching encroaching on my personal space, about the distance/height of a star basketball player, so I growled. He got the hint and ran away.


Like many, I'm hoping that I still have clothes that fit when this corona has crooned away. In a "normal year," I would have given fattening chametz, the food forbidden on Passover, away before the holiday begins. And in case you haven't been following the Jewish calendar, Passover's next week. Corona prevention regulations forbid giving away food, so my husband and I are enjoying suffering by eating pancakes-made in large family quantity and other forbidden for dieters foods. Yes, I'm finishing the beer, too. It's chametz!

I haven't seen my grandchildren in person since Purim. But now on the advice of one of my kids I am "living my old dream" to be an international "entertainer" by reading children's stories daily on facebook. Anyone can tune in, as long as you have a facebook account. Join to watch my daily shows.


One corona related regulation I'm following very strictly is staying away from the supermarket. My husband can't do his beloved shuq, open market, shopping either; it's in Jerusalem and shuttered. We must be saving a lot of money. Every few days I call the manager of the local grocer and order a few things. They arrive straight to our doorstep.

And I can't remember the last time I ate out with friends, another frugality of the corona lock-down. We now meet frequently on Zoom, Skype, Whatsapp, email and, of course, my blogs written under my other name. But:

 I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND!

Mrs. Sullivan's Dancing School, Bayside, NY, circa 1953

Another "Puzzle Piece" of My Life Found

I don't know if this sort of thing is happening to my peers, but of late, now in "late middle age," I've been rediscovering/reconnecting with old friends and have made contact with relatives I hadn't seen or heard from in more than a half century but I'm now in contact with a branch of relatives I had barely known existed. Internet and facebook are fantastic tools for reuniting.

A few months ago when I had written Dancing Memories... about the dancing school run by a Mrs. Sullivan in her tiny basement, I mentioned that I was looking for the friend who is next to me in the picture. Just a few days ago, my friend Margaret found me!

I woke up to an email from her, and yesterday, before Shabbat, we spoke on the phone, and we must talk more and meet in person, even though the logistics are complicated. What timing; I just returned from the states and had spent over a week in Manhattan. But I shouldn't complain, because at least I found out that she had felt the same. We have never forgotten each other.

And along with others who grew up, or at least spent the best years of our childhoods, in Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, New York, we considered it a Garden of Eden for kids. We had a freedom and security that doesn't exist nowadays.

PS Now out of the five of us in that picture, only two are unknown to me, the girl in the middle and the blond next to her. The picture was taken either in spring, 1953 or 1954, when we were four or five years old. If anyone has a clue...