I stepped out of 2020 like a man crawling out of a car wreck. And yet, I have much to be grateful for, not least that I have work and a family to keep me going.

Olmedini however reached his 80th birthday last week living on his own in city housing, blind and out of work. Hard as I try, I cannot imagine how he endures. But endure he does. I visited with him and brought a little gift along, a “Pyro Wallet” I remembered he was looking for last year at MagiFest. Just for laughs.

These days, he rarely ventures outside the walls of his apartment anymore and hasn’t had a haircut since March. Together we walked the streets of El Barrio, which has been hit hard by the pandemic with its attending health crisis and economic downturn. Even unable to see the hardship with his own eyes, Olmedini felt it in the air and we cut the walk short and headed back home. It was good to catch up with him. More than ever, when I left him I thought of Don Quixote, 'el caballero de la triste figura’.