2024 marks the 5th anniversary of the website launch of RDEnochs DESIGN. A lot has happened since then. And it’s been much too long since I added an entry to my website blog…August 30, 2021, to be exact. Although I continued to be productive designing wine labels, film posters, logos, and COVID PSA posters, I sorely neglected my blog page during the pandemic.

The World Health Organization officially declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Before launching RDEnochs DESIGN on August 14, 2019, I had just finished designing logos and business cards for Holen Horse & Homestay and Treads & Threads Productions Inc. (logo was also used on the germainesalsberg.com website). So, the timing of this global health emergency was not conducive to starting up a freelance graphic design business. Self-quarantining and getting vaccinated became top priorities and it felt like we had plunged into an era of sickness and despair not unlike the 1918 influenza pandemic.

But the pandemic years were productive years for me. My motto: Keep calm and stay creative. I collaborated with dancers Artis Smith and Germaine Salsberg (a connection that dates back over 45 years) to design postcard mailers for their “Choreographers and Composers Collaborate” concert presented by the Department of Kinesiology, the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College, and Treads and Threads Productions.

I did not let the pandemic curb my creative endeavors. Technology and remote access made corresponding and connecting with clients, family, and friends the new normal. During that time, Lake Anna Winery in Virginia commissioned me to design four wine labels.

I created many COVID PSAs and posted them on social media along with some new film poster designs.

I also participated in three annual CUIMC Fine Art Exhibitions at Columbia, the last one being virtual due to increased risks of social gatherings. I showcased several of my poster designs.

Our lives were not untouched by the pandemic no matter how careful we were about masking up. I designed an 80th birthday invitation for Bonita’s sister, Ellen Ruth, in March of 2022. We had flown to Nebraska to attend the party, but the pandemic had other plans for us. The day after our arrival, both of us tested positive for COVID and we spent our entire time in Nebraska quarantining in a Kearney motel until we could fly back to NYC. It was a blessing that we only had mild cases but such a big disappointment that we missed Ellen Ruth’s milestone celebration and the chance to visit other family and friends.

While I was busy designing a logo for my 50th Kearney High School class reunion in 2022, the Kearney Public Schools Foundation contacted me to design the group’s 150th anniversary logo to be used for social media and other promotions.

I had several photo submissions published in the West Side Rag enewsletter (including pandemic pop-up haircut services in Riverside Park, the effects of the Canadian wildfires as seen from Riverside Park, and a giant snowman dominating Central Park). The Rag also published my written contribution about an encounter with actress Ruth Gordon on the streets of NYC (refer to my last blog dated August 30, 2021, “Close Encounter of the Celebrity Kind,” https://www.rdenochsdesign.com/blog/2021/3/31/close-encounter-of-the-celebrity-kind)

Even while New York City was facing the grim reality of sheltering in place and masking up, I designed posters for two iconic structures celebrating milestone anniversaries on the Upper West Side: the Dublin House Irish Pub on West 79th Street, which celebrated its centennial, and the Art Deco Metro Theater at 100th Street and Broadway, which turned 90 years old in 2023.

The pandemic was already winding down by the time Bonita and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary in September of 2023 with a return trip to Firenze, Italy, where we had been married in 1993. I designed anniversary T-shirts for the occasion and created some posters to celebrate on social media.

When death struck close to home (unrelated to COVID-19) I designed memorial tributes for family members Andrea (Eaton) Schau and Gary Eaton.

As I reflect on the last few years of the COVID pandemic, I can’t help but look back at growing up in the 50s and 60s when being vaccinated for polio and smallpox was the mainstream concern. Who can forget ingesting the polio sugar cubes at our local schools or getting the smallpox shot that left an indelible scar on our upper arms?

Turning 70 in October of 2023 also brought back memories of growing up on a farm in the rural hills of Nebraska where life seemed so simple and carefree. Funny how milestone birthdays tend to flood our minds with reflections of childhood. I could not have imagined then turning 70 years old. And I certainly would not have guessed I’d be masking up on Amtrak and heading for Niagara Falls in 2023 where wife Bonita and son Evan helped me start the celebration of my big birthday.

I was very lucky to grow up with both sets of grandparents in my life. On weekend nights when my parents went out dancing at Priel’s Hall in Overton or other dance halls in Miller or Sumner, my siblings and I would stay with Grandma and Grandpa Enochs, who lived just across the creek (we pronounced it “crick”) from our farm. Other social outings for my parents included card parties at the homes of neighbors and friends where they played pinochle for hours.

For our weekend stays with Grandma and Grandpa Enochs, the Saturday night lineup of TV programming included “Bonanza,” “Leave It to Beaver,” “The Lawrence Welk Show,” and “Gunsmoke.” On Sunday nights “The Ed Sullivan Show” was a stable.

We watched these shows with all the lights turned off in their living room, except for the light emanating from the Davy Crockett lamp that sat on top of the black and white TV set. The ceramic base of the lamp was a figure of Davy Crockett holding a rifle and wearing a coon-skinned hat, a tree trunk carved with Davy Crockett’s name, a bear standing beside the tree trunk, and an inscription on the back saying it was manufactured in 1955 by Premco in Chicago, Illinois. A scene of Davy hunting was painted on the lamp shade. That lamp was a constant reminder of watching Walt Disney’s “Davy Crockett,” starring Fess Parker in the title role, and ultimately seeing the big screen version, “Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier,” edited into a theatrical film from the first three TV episodes (originally filmed in color).

Thinking about the good old days brings back other vivid memories. I can still recall the smell of tobacco after supper as my Grandpa Enochs relaxed in the blue velvet easy chair next to the matching living room couch and watched TV while taking a few tokes on his carved wooden pipe. There was an upright free-standing ash tray next to his chair upon which his pipe and a tin of tobacco would rest. Weekends with my grandparents also included games of Pitch, dominoes, and Chinese checkers, which Grandma Maggie loved to play. All games were played on their round oak table with claw feet. After games and TV, we had chocolate ice cream with some home-baked cake before bedtime.

As I celebrate my business website with this fifth anniversary edition of my blog, I acknowledge that 2024 has already been a year of reflection for me (a series of life ‘retroflections,’ if you will, spanning from my youth through the COVID years). But it has also been filled with a growing resolve for pushing onward and upward. Again, a lot has transpired since my last blog entry in August of 2021, as I celebrated my 45th anniversary of living in NYC and welcomed the newly elected 46th president of the United States. In fact, by the luck of the draw, I was summoned to report to grand jury duty on October 5, 2022, and following several extensions, will not finish my service until October 17, 2024. Over two years of civic duty! Maybe by then I will be able to resume a more normal life if that is even possible. Perhaps the pandemic has forever altered our way of life and our way of thinking. But the glow of that Davy Crockett lamp from my youth will always remind me that out of the darkness a ray of light will show the path. Even in the darkest of times a light at the end of the tunnel will offer new hope and resiliency.

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”

— Archbishop Desmond Tutu