Story and photo by Van Mitchell, Staff Writer

Faith has played a major role in Charlie McGregor’s life including several life-changing events that impacted him and his family.
Born on May 3, 1919, McGregor grew up in the small town of South Haven, Kansas, located 50 miles south of Wichita.
After graduating high school, he and his late wife Millie married before McGregor was drafted into the United States Army in World War II.
“My wife and I were going together, and we discussed whether we should get married now or wait until after the war? We decided to get married before the war in 1941,” he said.
McGregor served four years, four months, and four days in the war and was stationed in Marseilles, France.
He said that was an eye-opening experience.
“It was an education, that was for sure. I didn’t know anything. I was just a high school student,” he said. “I got promoted several times. I used to be a company clerk, then they made me a platoon corporal, and then they made me a platoon sergeant, then they made me a staff sergeant in charge of the supply room.”
McGregor traveled to Europe with about 18,000 other troops on the Queen Elizabeth ship.
“When they were going to invade France, they sent the Queen Elizabeth to pick up a bunch of us in New York. Picked up 18,000 of us,” he said. “We crossed the ocean in five days. My first child was born while I was overseas. The Red Cross let me know that I had a daughter named Judy. I wouldn’t get to see her for another year-and-a-half.”
After the war, McGregor and his wife returned to her family farm south of Honeywell, Kansas whose property extended across the Oklahoma state line.
McGregor took over his father-in-law’s farming operation after he passed away.
“He died of a heart attack, and I took over his land that he was farming, and I just stayed farming until I moved here (to Villagio of Bradford Village in Edmond).”
McGregor said he operated a versatile farming program. He had cows and sheep, and grew wheat and hay and barley.
“You have to be pretty smart to farm,” he said. “You have to know animals, you have to know grains, you have to know seeds, plants, and everything. I was free to make my own choices. I was my own boss.”
McGregor never farmed on Sundays.
“We always shut it down on Sunday. I had a very good relationship with God, and He showed me many things that I couldn’t believe, I couldn’t imagine,” McGregor said. “He taught me and blessed me.”
McGregor said prayer is a powerful tool. He cited the example of his daughter Diane who was born with heart valve problems, and wasn’t expected to live to be 7-years-old.
“We went to my mother’s place. She lived in Kansas City, and she had become a Pentecostal,” he said. “We went to church with her, and she came back, took Diane up to the front, to the pastor, to the people. Everybody in that church just rose up and went up there to pray for her. They all believed in healing.”
McGregor said the family asked for a family doctor friend to examine Diane a few days later.
“He was going over her with his stethoscope, and finally he said, “There’s nothing wrong with this girl. She’s 77 now and lives in Dallas,” McGregor said.
McGregor also recited a story about how prayer saved his wheat crop, while several around him had their crops destroyed from a storm.
McGregor and his wife raised four daughters, and has 11 grandchildren, 30+ great-grandchildren and one great-great grandson.
“My children and grandchildren treat me very well. Better than I deserve,” he said.
McGregor has lived through two pandemics, the Spanish flu pandemic that lasted from 1918 to 1919, and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.
McGregor said growing up in South Haven, his family was excited to be owners of new vehicles during an era when many people there didn’t own a car.
“Dad, my grandpa and three uncles all bought a new Ford in South Haven for $800 each,” he said. “It was a curtain top. You have to run the wipers a certain way. You had to crank the car to start it.”
McGregor spends each day reading his Bible, and says he always learns something new.
He also recites the same prayer each night.
“God, I’ll see you in the morning, your house or mine,” McGregor said.
McGregor said he has lived a great life, and he is not afraid of death. He said he looks forward to the day when he enters the Kingdom of Heaven.
“From what I read in the Bible, my mouth may fall open and I may not be able to close it for two or three days,” he said.

From Terry “Travels with Terry” Zinn t4z@aol.com
text and photo provided by the Oklahoma Historical Society

You could say that Baltimore is a city designed for Senior leisure. The hop on and off water taxi around the bay is an ideal way to see a lot of the area’s attractions with a minimum of exertion, as it stops at many attractions. The minimal fee is good for the entire day. The small boat captains are eager to answer area questions as to where to eat and museum times. Note, many museums and attractions are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Of course it stops at historic Ft Mc Henry – famous for the inspiration of the Star Spangle Banner composition. (www.nps.gov/fomc) You have to change boats to go the extra distance, but worth the convenience, when you think of the inconvenience of getting a taxi or uber to take you to the far out bay point. The preserved and reconstructed brick fort is informative if you have never visited a fort of this generation. It’s humbling to stand in the area that inspired America’s Anthem.
Once there it’s always good to schedule your visit with a tour by a park ranger for details of the fort. If not, the film is always inspiring, if not a bit nostalgic ,when at the end of the movie, a curtain opens to let you view through a large picture window the Fort in the background as the National Anthem plays.
Back in the downtown area is the Flag House where the American garrison size flag was created. Besides the history of the flag you can take a self-guided tour of a small period house, complete with furniture and staging of the time.
For pure entertainment, although you can’t help but learn something, is the national aquarium centrally located at the base of the Inner Harbor. (www.aqua.org) All levels of this multilevel aquarium is easily accessible with riding the multiple escalators, or if needed there is an elevator. Hosting over 20,000 aquatic animals with a Backtip Reef and Living Seashore, and a couple of large screen animal related movies, and a live dolphin show, make the aquarium one of the Inner Harbors best attraction. Of course they host a extensive gift shop with snack bar.
When you’ve got to eat, Baltimore with its vast seafood menus offers many venues. The off the beaten track funky Little Havana Bar and Grill offers many seafood based foods along with an extensive bar and their famous large Mojito.
Phillips Seafood (www.phillipsseafood.com) is a Baltimore tradition. They offer an upscale indoor or outdoor dining experience with reservations recommended. Their 8 ounce Crab Cake Extreme with Mac and Cheese, made with pure Jumbo Lump Crab with no fillers, is served in a skillet, and guaranteed to fill your Crab Cake desires. ($50.00)
If you plan to visit the Baltimore Museum of Art, be sure you check its times, as it is closed on Monday and Tuesdays. While it was closed the days I was in Baltimore I made sure I dined at Gertrude’s, where the Museum of Art displays culinary arts, under the expert guidance of owner, John Shields, is a must. Shields is a veteran TV host, and author and is called the “Culinary Ambassador of the Chesapeake Bay” with the restaurants opening in 1998. Gertrude’s is Shield’s tribute to his grandmother, Gertie. Shields is a personable entrepreneur and you may want to pickup one of his cookbooks including the 25th anniversary, “Chesapeake Bay Cooking.” Many menu options looked appealing but I chose the Irish Salmon, flown in to Gertrude’s several times a week. This is an example of the attention paid to the high standards that has made John Shield’s reputation.
An evening dining cruise aboard the Spirit of Baltimore, is a relaxing way to see more of the bay’s landscape while enjoying a buffet and beverages served by congenial staff. The cruise departs from the west wall of the harbor and cruises the Inner harbor along the Patapsco river, and includes glimpses of Fort Mc Henry. Come prepared for a casual and enjoyable evening, mixing with other tourist and those celebrating special occasions (www.spiritcruises.com/Baltimore).
While visiting the Fells Point area of the harbor you may want to stop in to the upscale Sagamore Hotel for a respite and beverage, or if your budget allows overnight accommodations. For a budget minded traveler the Days Inn Inner Harbor (www.daysinninnerharbor.com), about 3 blocks away from the harbor, and near the Horseshow Casino Baltimore, Ravens Stadium, and Oriole Park at Camden Yards, can fulfill your travel needs.
As you can guess there is much more to discover in Baltimore than I could cover in just two days, so historic and friendly Baltimore may require repeat visits (http://baltimore.org/).

Photography and Text by Terry “Travels with Terry” Zinn t4z@aol.com

There is no better way to travel and see more than on a cruise. Unpacking once, having an amenable home base for dining, education, entertainment and security are all additional cruise advantages. The ultimate cruise experience is river cruising, where there is never a dull visual moment. Whether moving slowly along picturesque landscapes or stopping at iconic locales to sample the best they have to offer, river cruising is a travel seekers delight. While we wait for safer and healthier traveling it’s never too early to explore travel opportunities for the Summer. And, it’s fun to imagine.
A summer cruise along the Danube and Rhine Rivers in central Europe was just such a joy aboard Viking Danube of Viking River Cruises. I cruised several years ago with this company through the canals and rivers of the Netherlands in the height of their tulip season, so I had expectations for this fifteen day Grand European Cruise. Many improvements had been made since that enjoyable cruise, and I can easily now see why Viking is the most awarded river cruise line.
The daily routine, while predictable, was never a bore. Starting off the day with an overwhelming come and go breakfast buffet, suited my non-morning personality perfectly. Then it was either preparing for an onshore morning tour (always included in the price of the cruise) or confirming an optional afternoon tour (which was always worth the price and effort for a full day of touring.) Viking rates their daily walking tours in relation to physical exertion, so passengers can choose the tour best suited for their abilities.
After the morning tour, we would return to the ship for beverage refreshments before lunch, which was served in the restaurant or in the lounge for a more casual light lunch. Cocktail hour had George playing away as all enjoyed exchanging tour experiences or just relaxing as the world glided by outside and peered through expansive windows. I must mention that Tibor and Danielle, efficiently and congenially executed cocktail requests, whether it was my usual or their ever-changing specialty of the day.
Soon Kurt, our program director, would join us for an over view of the next days events, and pass out administrative announcements. Off to dinner, where the presentation of 4 course cuisine was astounding. A selection of regional specialties were offered with an option of ordering a traditional steak, chicken or pasta alternative ~ wine always included. The elevator down to the restaurant is an added benefit for passengers wishing to by past the stairs. In my experience Viking River Cruises caters to its passengers, making all feel like VIPs. And with only 148 maximum passengers aboard the Viking Danube, this was easily accomplished.
After dinner it was either relaxing in the lounge, escaping to the library for solitude, planning your next day’s activities, viewing a destination oriented movie in your cabin, or going up on the sun deck to marvel at the ever changing scenery.
Highlights of my cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam included a night time river salute to the lit buildings and bridges of Budapest, to the exceptional Vienna Palace Concert of Mozart and of course the celebration of cruising by the castles of the Rhine valley.
The cruise seemed all too short as I had developed traveler relationships with the crew and fellow passengers, who once were strangers, but now compatriots. Through mutual travel experiences you naturally bond with fellow passengers, adding to the credit of river cruising. To paraphrase an old commercial, “Try it, you’ll like it.” I say, “Try river cruising, you’ll love it!”
While now the Viking Danube River Ship has been replaced, there are many new Viking ships along the same itinerary and routines.
For more information on Viking River Cruises and their special offers go to: www.vikingrivercruises.com

Mr. Terry Zinn – Travel Editor
Past President: International Food Wine and Travel Writers Association
3110 N.W. 15 Street – Oklahoma City, OK 73107
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Story and photos by Darl DeVault

While Oklahoma seniors have been the most vulnerable to COVID-19, our modern heroes, medical health professionals, have also been impacted by this huge stress event.
Medical outcomes are stark. There are no proven therapies to treat or cure the disease. In Oklahoma, the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths are in seniors 65 or older, as high as 80 percent. The statistics go on and on, unchanging in dire descriptions of how vulnerable aging bodies are to the pandemic.
Another group shares a vulnerability every bit as brutal in descriptions. Our medical health professionals are the next highest death rate in America. Besides the brutal numbers of deaths, there is another facet of their suffering.
They are repeatedly exposed to preventable unmanageable stress. This immersion in the onslaught of a pandemic has the potential to inflict post- traumatic stress disorder.
In honor of the 200th birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale, the World Health Organization (WHO) has designated 2020 as the “Year of the Nurse and Midwife.” Since National Nurses Week is celebrated soon from May 6 through May 12 it is appropriate to ask one “What are you going through?”
Nurse Beth Bierig said last week from New Jersey, “Working on a floor of all COVID-19 positive patients whose change in status happens quickly without warning, makes you feel constantly guarded as to when your own medical health will quickly turn badly as well. You don’t have time to even comprehend how scary the silent killer surrounds every piece of air you work in, but it weighs heavily on your mind.”
Bierig, from Hackensack University Medical Center, goes on to explain how having a servant’s heart can put a nurse in harm’s way. “While performing life sustaining measures on your patients and respiratory fragments flood the air in the process, you can’t help but wonder, will it be saving their life that takes mine?” she said. “I don’t know the effects it will have on myself or other people, because everyone has had different experiences. Every nursing specialty has their own traumas and people are generally drawn to what they can handle.”
Also, “the support nurses receive after this will affect their long-term mental health pertaining to this situation. The whole situation has affected everyone strongly, not only health care providers. We’re living in a historic time and hopefully we all learn from it.”
From the respiratory therapists who manage ventilators, and technicians that manage ICU equipment to the direct caregivers, stress can be overwhelming. The heroes who share their servant’s heart signed up to be properly supported and use their knowledge and ability to affect positive change. Again, at present, there are no proven therapies to cure COVID-19.
Some health care professionals function where they are overwhelmed by the sheer number of deaths that take place right in front of them. Sometimes as often as hourly, these deaths may inflict a PTSD future on the frontlines of medicine.
For those healers who were constantly worried about their own health because of a shortage of personal protective equipment life can change. Just the apprehension of spreading the disease to their family could have a dire outcome.
COVID-19, the severe respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic is extremely transmissible. Properly protected ICU critical care team workers being readied for patient interaction look like preflight prep before blastoff for our moon missions.
These heroes may share an almost as strong an impact as the vulnerable seniors who perished. Some may suffer grave symptoms of psychological stress impacting their ability to deliver medical health care in the future.
Every psyche is different in the many roles played by helping healers who suited up to sustain the COVID-19 patients. Science tells us women are twice as likely to suffer PTSD symptoms.
This pandemic is something different. The onslaught of stress can change brain wiring for the worse — at the level to create PTSD. Later, some may seek to stay away from the situations that remind them of the traumatic events.
Some caregivers may not be able to adaptively overcome the stress and adversity while maintaining normal psychological and physical functioning.
The potential for PTSD is when an individual is placed in a situation where they do not have all the needed equipment, weaponry, support by colleagues in numbers needed, or proper support from superiors. This is also fueled when they feel they do not have the proper protective material and are forced to go in harm’s way relentlessly when they fear for their own survival. On April 3, Oklahoma showed 10.6 percent of its confirmed cases were health care workers.
Situationally produced and yet self-imposed is the stress of sleeping in their cars in their hospital parking lot because they do not want to bring potential illness and death home to their families. This can result in the development of PTSD, depression and other psychiatric disorders.
In a medical scenario where our heroes ran toward the danger and healing is supposed to take place that sounds extremely abrupt. But in many of our hospitals that were overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients presenting repeated unmanageable stressors, that is exactly what was happening.
Often nurses and doctors in COVID-19 hotspots made life and death choices, deciding who was to live and who was to die because of a limited number of ventilators and limited ability to intubate. And there was the randomness of patients dying right in front of them as these patients first entered the hospital.
We must be honest. Nurses and doctors are human and cannot escape that negative impact. People who signed up to work around the sick also take great pride in learning all the ways to be healers.
To suddenly be immersed in the onslaught of hourly and daily negative scenario can have a permanently deleterious effect on the human psyche. It remains to be seen if overwhelming the individual at a high morbidity level has a lasting effect. We know brainwave activity that negativity establishes can create specific pathways in the brain that were not there before.
How do we know what effect this has on these brave people’s body and spirit when these pathways are never compensated for? These individuals may have anxiety and depression from these days forward.
The wild card in all of this are brave medical health professionals who contracted COVID-19 themselves, while trying their best to help others. Hundreds have died around the world. Yes, they signed up for this profession, but not to suffer the same as their patients.
Another stressor is some hospitals, such as the University of Oklahoma Medical Center, are cutting pay and hours because of the strict emphasis on COVID-19 leaving them cash poor.
“A grateful nation will likely create a fund offering therapy and treatment for front line medical professionals who have health problems traceable to saving lives similar to the federal World Trade Center Health Program,” Oklahoman Kara De La Pena, APRN, said. “Considering for many of us who took on preventable risks, the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 will be held up as a model for providing us medical treatment. That program is funded through 2090 now.”
The seniors saved and whole world thank our heroes and seek restorative insight into the medical outcomes thrust upon the healers who fight to keep people alive.

A Covid-19 variant that appears more contagious than the earliest strain of the virus is increasingly circulating in the U.S. But is the mutation something to fear?
Only if you’re unvaccinated, say experts at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.
“Viruses mutate to survive,” said OMRF immunologist Eliza Chakravarty, M.D. “Becoming more transmissible is helpful from an evolutionary perspective. But with vaccines, we can mount a defense we didn’t have last year.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has classified the delta variant, first identified in India, as a “variant of concern.” The CDC gave the mutation that now accounts for more than 20% of new infections in the U.S. the designation based on growing evidence that the variant spreads more easily and causes more severe cases of Covid-19 when compared to other variants.
The variant’s prevalence has more than doubled in recent weeks. What started as a seemingly small percentage of cases doesn’t mean small danger for a virus that has claimed more than 600,000 lives in the U.S., said OMRF physician-scientist Hal Scofield, M.D.
“The delta variant appears prime to become the dominant coronavirus strain in the U.S., as it is now in the United Kingdom and India,” said Scofield, noting that the variant is striking teens and young adults with increasing speed. “For communities with low levels of vaccination in Oklahoma, this could mean serious trouble come fall.”
There is good news for the fully vaccinated, Scofield said. In a study published in May, researchers in the U.K. found that a two-dose regimen of the Pfizer vaccine was 88% effective against symptomatic Covid-19 from the delta variant. CDC officials anticipate similar results for Moderna’s vaccine. And the effectiveness of Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose shot appears only slightly lowered — 60%, vs. the 66% seen in clinical trials — against the variant.
Despite this, in the same U.K. study, scientists found that one dose of the Pfizer vaccine is just 33% effective against the virus.
“It’s a reminder of how critical full vaccination is,” said Chakravarty. “If you are unvaccinated and waiting to see whether there will be a spike in cases before getting your shot, or if you’ve delayed in getting your second dose, the time to act is now.”
Although infections of Covid-19 are rare in fully vaccinated people, Scofield said that testing should remain top of mind to track the progression of the delta variant in the state.
“If you’re vaccinated, we’re on the cusp of returning to regular life,” said Scofield. “But if you’re sick with symptoms such as coughing, fever and difficulty breathing, you still need a Covid test.”