Last weekend I picked up a copy of the Portland Tribune with the headline “COVID Silver Linings.” It made me think: Have you found any silver linings? Have I? Here are a few of Portland’s:

California is opening up and we are so ready. Smiles, hugs, and singing feel so good!. But I can’t help asking, as Cole Porter once wrote: “Is it for all time or simply a lark? Is it Granada I see or only Asbury Park?” Whether this is at long last the end or simply a breathing space, I’ll take it for as long as it’s here.

In just two days, on June 15, 2021, things are going to be different, according to the governor of California. Those pesky rules that have kept us apart and hidden our smiles are going to be gone. Well, not all of them, but most of them. Some of them, anyway.