Tom Keane

What if the lockdown is worse than the disease?

Past disruptions have meant vicious long-term consequences for schoolchildren and the unemployed.

"You’re putting profits before people!” That’s the cry of outrage we hear from those who push back against efforts to reopen the economy, restart schools, and get people back to work.

But this isn’t about money and greed. It’s about people. Yes, the lockdown has saved lives. But in so doing it’s damaged and may eventually take many others. Perhaps the right way to think about our response to the pandemic is that we chose the lives of some people over others, and in so doing, we very well may have calculated wrong.

The harm to children is obvious. Schools across the United States shut in mid-March and never reopened. Our substitute was online education. As I expect just about every parent and guardian now agrees, it’s an ineffective alternative. Indeed, for the youngest, online learning is essentially impossible; they simply don’t have the intellectual tools to be able to engage with teachers through a computer. (Conflict alert: I work for an early-education nonprofit.)

The result has been a missed semester. The damage from skipping a third of a year’s education is likely impossible to fix, especially for those in elementary grades or preschool. Learning for young children is different from adults — the brains of the young are uniquely plastic, absorbing new ideas in succession. But the research is clear that when young children miss even brief windows of learning, it can’t be made up. As the years wear on, we will see a generation of children permanently stunted in their intellectual growth. The Brookings Institution estimates that the school closures so far will cost the affected children $2.5 trillion in lost earnings over their lifetimes. Brooking compares the lost semester of 2020 to gaps in schooling during World War II, saying that those gaps “still had negative impact on former students’ lives some 40 years later.”

oreover, the fallout from missed schooling will land hardest on those from the most difficult circumstances. Wealthier parents have more resources to try to make up some of their children’s loss during the shutdown. Poorer parents are far less able to do so, meaning that one other result from the “pause” (the euphemism used by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo) will be widening inequality, largely along economic and racial lines.

It’s not only intellectual growth and equity that will be lost. Schooling — and the independence from home that it brings — is critical for social and emotional growth. Teenagers and college students are missing activities such as dances, sports, and dating. These are not trivial extras; they are core to a child transitioning to adulthood. So too are friendships and romances without parents’ watchful eyes. Instead, teens and college students are stuck at home, subject to the authority of mom and dad, babied once again. This pause, too, will echo through their lives.

Also feeling pain are the millions of unemployed. The unemployed are not, generally, telecommuting white-collar workers. Rather, they are those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder — blue-collar and service workers — as well as recent graduates new to the workforce and unable to secure jobs. The pain they feel is not only financial, but emotional.

Many of them will face permanent damage from our deliberate economic self-immolation. Some of that damage will be to their careers. Jobs — just like learning — tend to build on one another. The waiter becomes the manager becomes the restaurant owner. The lockdown has interrupted that progression; The Economist predicts the unemployed will face “a lost decade.”

Some of that damage will manifest itself in folks’ physical and mental health. Numerous studies find that unemployment leads to higher mortality (from suicide, stress, and other causes). One, from 2003, found that death rates for the unemployed rose from 5.36 percent to 7.83 percent in the 10 to 17 years following their initial job loss. If applied to the 33 million Americans who had lost their jobs through April due to the lockdown, that means an extra 815,000 deaths — far more than will likely be killed by COVID-19.

I suspect that, long after the pandemic is over, social scientists and economists will be analyzing the multiple unintended consequences of our Draconian response to it. The young and the unemployed will be first on their lists, but there will be others, too: Entrepreneurs whose dreams have been dashed, those not suffering from coronavirus who are afraid to go to a doctor or hospital, the isolated and alone falling into depression and addiction, those trapped in abusive households.

People speak of a second or third wave of infection from the virus — and the instinct from politicians and public health authorities will be to have yet another round of lockdowns. But the point of flattening the curve, as population health expert Drew Harris has said, wasn’t to reduce the number of total cases (no matter what the curve, we’ll have the same “number of new cases over time,” he says). Rather, it was to make sure health care systems weren’t overwhelmed.

We’ve done that. And having done that, this fall schools need to reopen, jobs need to return, and we need to move toward some semblance of an open society. The disease will continue to ravage us, and the losses will be visceral and terrifying. But delaying our return to normalcy will make the costs even worse.

This column first appeared on-line in the Boston Globe Magazine on May 27, 2020 and appears in print in the May 31, 2020 issue.

The thrill of city living is gone

Maybe a takeaway from the coronavirus is that the suburbs really are better.

One possible lesson from the coronavirus pandemic: Maybe the suburbs really are better.

I live in downtown Boston, in a too-small place for too much money. But the argument I always made to myself was that it was worth it. There was the energy and intellectual ferment of folks packed together. There were culture, sporting events, and nightlife right outside the door. Instead of chain restaurants, we had cool little bistros and chef-driven haunts, the better to stretch the palate.

Well, that’s all gone.

The building I’m in used to have amenities like a workout room and roof deck. They’re now shuttered because of stay-at-home orders imposed to stem the spread of COVID-19. Increasingly, that’s true for parks and other recreational areas. Walking outside is discouraged anyway, and if you do, the state has ordered you to wear a mask.

Meanwhile, my friends in the suburbs find the pandemic quite a different existence. For one, most have yards and decks. They can lie in the sun, throw a ball to one another, and pretty much live out their lives normally. Sidewalks are generally uncrowded; social distancing is relatively easy. And, of course, given that a dollar spent on a suburban home buys two to three times the space as in a city, suburbanites have room to roam. (The median price per square foot in Boston is $758, according to real-estate website Zillow; for the rest of the state it’s just $269.) They don’t have to work from home at their kitchen tables; instead they can simply turn the extra bedroom into a home office.

In addition, and perhaps most important, people in the ‘burbs aren’t running the same health risks as those in the city. Pandemics spread when people are near one another. Sure, I’m behind the four walls of my apartment, but going outside for groceries means riding the elevator with other residents, walking through a crowded lobby, and making my way down narrow sidewalks.

In the suburbs, folks just get in their cars. Perhaps suburban grocery stores are as dangerous as Boston’s, but the trip there is a lot less risky.

Someday, of course, the lockdown will end and we’ll eventually be able to venture out of our homes. But even so, the city will probably be the last to loosen its strictures; the governor is looking at reopening in mid-May or June while Boston Mayor Martin Walsh is talking summer or fall. And when that happens, strong remnants of social distancing will remain. No more crowded bars, restaurants, or food halls. Hanging out in coffee shops will be discouraged. Full stands at Fenway and the Garden may never return. All of this will remain in place until the disease is genuinely conquered, either through herd immunity or a vaccine.

Still, after COVID-19 is but a memory, the fear will probably remain. We’ve learned a big lesson from the coronavirus: Pandemics are real, and they can happen to us. Doubtless, another one looms. We don’t know when, but the epidemiologists who have been warning us for years will now be taken seriously.

It’s too bad. Over the last decade, Boston and other urban areas have seen a resurgence in their populations as people moved in, seeking the excitement only a city can provide. Boston, for instance, built entire new neighborhoods — such as the Seaport District or the revitalized Fenway — adding more than 75,000 residents over the last 10 years. Does that continue? I doubt it. The thrill of city living is gone, perhaps never to return. Couple that with our newfound fear of crowds, and I expect we’ll soon see urbanites heading out to the suburbs they once disdained.

This column first appeared in the Boston Globe on May 4, 2020.

How could my wife have Alzheimer’s? She was only 56.

She was the wittiest, smartest, and most talkative person I had ever met. And now all of that was fading away.

It’s a Sunday morning and my wife and I are arguing about the previous night’s dinner party.

“No one would let me talk,” Laurie says.

“What do you mean? Of course they let you talk.”

“No. They’re all just talking constantly and I never get a chance to say anything.”

“But Laurie, that’s what happens at dinner parties. You’ve got eight people fueled by a lot of alcohol and they all are clamoring for the floor. That’s just the way it is.”

“I didn’t get to speak. I hated it. Why won’t they let me speak?”

I’m puzzled. Laurie was always the life of any get-together: raucous, loud, leading the room from one topic to the next. What was going on?

At another dinner party a few weeks later, I notice Laurie sitting back, silent. “Hey Laurie,” I say in a loud voice. “Anything you’d like to add?” The room quiets and everyone looks at her.

“No,” she says, and sips from her glass of wine.

The next morning we’re arguing again. “No one,” she says, “would let me speak.”

____________

I’m sitting in the living room in 2011, reading.

“He’s coming over with the stuff to do the thing,” Laurie says.

It takes me a moment to realize she’s speaking to me. “What?”

“He’s coming over with the stuff to do the thing.”

“What stuff? What thing? And who is he?”

She glares at me. “You know.” The words are accusatory and full of weight.

I wonder if I am becoming that stereotypical husband who ignores his spouse, just responding “Uh-huh, uh-huh.”

“I’m sorry. I must not have been paying attention. Who’s coming over?”

She turns and walks out of the room.

____________

We’ve flown to Washington to visit our oldest daughter, Lauren, at college. We get together for drinks with one of my brothers. “She’s doing the thing pretty soon,” Laurie says.

“What?” my brother asks. “Laurie, seriously, we need to find out what’s going on with your speech. Something’s up.”

Laurie looks shocked, and says, “What do you mean?”

“Your speech, the way you talk. I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

She laughs. “Oh, that’s nothing. It’s the beer.”

When Laurie gets up to go to the restroom, I say to my brother, “You’ve been noticing it?”

"Everyone’s been noticing it,” he says.

“I thought it was just me.”

____________

Worried, I reach out to Laurie’s primary care physician, asking her to refer Laurie for tests. She talks to Laurie, who eventually agrees.

When we meet with a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital to find out the results, he says Laurie has “primary progressive aphasia of the logopenic variant.”

"What’s that mean?” I ask.

“It’s aphasia” — an inability to communicate — “and it’s specifically word-related. That’s the ‘logo’ part. Laurie’s having trouble finding words. That’s our primary diagnosis.”

Then he says, “And it’s progressive.”

“Progressive?” I ask.

“Meaning it’s going to get worse.”

I’m bewildered and want to know what caused it. Did she have a stroke? Heavy metals, pesticides? He says probably not, but can run more tests to check.

“Well, I think we need to,” I say. “Right, Laurie?” She nods.

“This is just crazy,” I say. “She’s only 56.”

We stand up and the neurologist asks me to stay behind for some paperwork. As Laurie waits outside, he says, “I didn’t want to say it in front of her, but in all likelihood what she has is younger-onset Alzheimer’s. It just started in a unique part of her brain — the left rear lobe — but like all Alzheimer’s, it eventually will spread throughout the entire brain.”

“You need to prepare yourself,” he adds.

Alzheimer’s? I thought that only happened to people in their 80s and 90s. “But she’s only 56,” I repeat. “She’s got her MBA in finance.”

____________

Laurie and I had first met at a punk-rock club in Washington, where I’d moved for work in 1982 after graduating from law school. I was there with friends when she walked in, 5 foot 11, tan, wearing a black miniskirt. I spent the evening glancing her way, occasionally approaching but then backing off, certain she was out of my league. Toward midnight, I finally went up to her and managed to say “Hello.”

Giving me a withering look, she said, “Well, it took you long enough.”

I was smitten.

She would turn out to be the wittiest, smartest, and most talkative person I had ever met. And now all of that was fading away.

____________

We’re at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, walking into a small conference room to meet with a neurological researcher. Months earlier, Laurie had agreed to be part of his study testing whether a combination of certain dyes in the bloodstream and positron electron tomography imaging could pick up the presence of abnormal amyloid proteins in her brain. This is a marker of Alzheimer’s disease, usually only found in an autopsy.

The researcher is hoping his technique can detect Alzheimer’s before death. We’re hoping he’ll tell us her increasingly apparent aphasia is caused by something else.

We sit down. He picks up a piece of paper, looks at it, and then looks at us. He starts to cry.

____________

Laurie is standing in the middle of our living room, sobbing. I go to her and hold her. I don’t need to ask what’s wrong; I know. We just stand there, hugging.

A few days later, I look in the medicine cabinet at Laurie’s medications, Aricept and Namenda, representing the only two types of Alzheimer’s-related drugs on the market. Neither stops the disease, let alone cures it, but they’re thought to help improve cognition. The containers seem full. Too full.

“Laurie,” I ask, “Have you been taking your pills?”

“No,” she says. “I don’t need them.”

“Yes, you do,” I say. “You need them for your Alzheimer’s.”

“I don’t have Alzheimer’s,” she says.

____________

Laurie comes out the front door along with our youngest daughter, Bryn, to see the new Honda CR-V I’m driving.

“I want to try it,” Laurie says. Bryn and I exchange looks. It’s 2015 and I haven’t let Laurie drive for months, finding one excuse or another. But I reluctantly say OK, and we climb into the car, me in the front passenger seat, Bryn in back. I suggest we go to get lunch at one of our regular places, an easy drive on mostly back roads.

At the first stop sign, I remind her to take a right. She immediately starts to go left. “No!” I say sharply, “The other right!”

She takes the next turn without appearing to think. She seems to be doing fine, and I begin to relax. A quarter mile later, at a light, she asks “Where?”

I point to the left, and she turns that way. At the restaurant, she cruises toward a parking spot right in front. I realize she’s about to hit a car to our left. I reach across and pull the steering wheel down so we swerve right, saying “Laurie, stop. Stop!” She does.

“Let me park it,” I say. She gets out, and I get in.

After lunch, I drive home. Bryn and I have a few minutes alone.

“That was awful,” she says. “She shouldn’t be driving.”

Later, Laurie tells me that “it’s the new car. I was fine with the old one.”

____________

Laurie walks into the apartment, her face ashen. “Is everything OK? Did you get the money?” I ask. She bursts into tears. “It’s not working.”

I stand up, go to her, and hug her. “It’s no big deal. Let’s go down and take a look. Maybe the ATM’s just broken.”

We go across the street. I watch as she puts her card in and types her password. The screen reads “incorrect password.” She tries again and the error message flashes once more. “What’s your password?” I ask.

“Umm.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s our anniversary,” I say. “Try typing that in.” The numbers she presses are nothing close to our anniversary.

“Laurie,” I say, my voice rising. “Pay attention. That’s not your password.” I catch myself and try to cool down. I ask her to let me help, and type in the password. A few seconds later she has $60 in her purse.

____________

I’m sitting in our bedroom and I hear the click of a door shutting. I get up and look around. “Laurie?” There’s no answer. I walk outside to the hallway. No sign of her. I take the elevator to the lobby and see the doorman. “Have you seen Laurie?”

“Not this morning,” he says. I run up the stairs and find her between the second and third floors. “What are you doing here?”

She looks at me, bewildered.

____________

She got her MBA in finance in 1986, shortly after we got married. An ardent feminist, she kept her own name and we gave our children both of our surnames. She wrote, acted in local plays, ran film groups, and threw herself headlong into our children’s lives.

I sit and contemplate how much Laurie has lost. She can no longer write. She can’t even sign her own name. The television’s remote control mystifies her. When we go out for dinner, she can’t read the menu. She no longer showers, seemingly afraid of the water. She wears the same clothes, day after day. Her hair has grown ragged and when the telephone rings, she simply looks at it.

I understood the word “progressive” when her neurologist first diagnosed it. But I realize I never really absorbed it, fooling myself into thinking that however she was would remain the same way. When I’d notice some new diminishment, I’d just reorder my thinking, believing that this was now the new normal.

I now understand none of that’s true. I’ve lost her. And she’ll never come back.

____________

I’m nervous. For months, Lauren, Bryn, and I have been talking about a next step for Laurie. I travel a lot for work; I can’t care for her at home anymore. We’re worried about her wandering. After touring places, we settle on Avita of Needham, a memory care facility. Today, June 29, 2016, is the day she is supposed to move.

But Laurie seems completely unaware.

A care manager we hired to help us is at the apartment. “Laurie,” she says, “Tom needs to go on a long business trip. He’s going to be gone for a while.”

Laurie looks terrified. “Do you feel afraid to be alone?” she asks. Laurie nods.

The care manager continues. “I know a place that’s safe and fun and where you get to play brain games. Doesn’t that sound good?” Laurie nods again. “Would you like to visit with me?” Laurie nods a third time.

We go to the car and after a short drive are walking through the front door of Avita. The executive director greets us. Everything has been carefully staged. She and others gather around Laurie, hugging her and talking and leading her down a corridor and past a locked door. She doesn’t turn around to look at me.

That night in bed I realize she’ll never sleep next to me again. Despair washes over me.

____________

I call frequently to find out how she’s doing, but I don’t visit. The idea is to give her time to adjust, to become acclimated.

After two weeks, I finally come in to see her. I’m waiting for the questions — “Where have you been?” “Why am I here?” “Can I go home now?” — and rehearsing my answer — “This is your home now.” I’m preparing for the tears and anger.

There’s none of that. We visit, have a cup of coffee. I talk; she listens. I walk her back to her room, she sits in a chair, and I leave.

This really is her home now.

____________

Nine months later, Laurie and I are sitting in the living room at Avita. “My mother died yesterday,” I tell her. They had been close. Laurie turned to my mom when the children were first born and she felt out of her depth, wondering how she would ever manage motherhood.

Laurie just looks at me and stares.

____________

It’s been a year and a half, and Avita’s executive director tells me Laurie needs more care than the facility can provide. I am not surprised.

When Laurie first entered, she could manage most everything, only needing some persuasion to take her medication or brush her teeth. Now she’s largely incontinent, increasingly needs help eating, and is unsteady on her feet.

Laurie gets in the car with Bryn and me for another ride to another new home, the Hebrew SeniorLife facility in Roslindale. Where Avita felt homey and calm, HSL — as excellent as it turns out to be — has a more frenetic, institutional feel. We take an elevator to the fourth floor and find her room. She’s placid and uncomplaining, seemingly oblivious to her change of circumstances.

A few weeks later, I sit down with HSL’s medical team to review her case.

“Except for Alzheimer’s, she’s probably healthier than most of us,” the nurse manager says.

It’s true. She takes no medication except for those connected to Alzheimer’s. Yet even though the rest of the folks on her floor are older than her by a generation or more, cognitively she’s one of the worst off. For the most part, they can still speak, tell stories, play bingo and trivia, talk about the football game on TV. Laurie, once so vital, can’t do any of those things.

____________

Lauren, Bryn, and I sit in Hebrew SeniorLife’s family dining room in 2018. We’ve picked up subs for lunch and gather around a table, feeding Laurie her lunch. She looks at us, her face brightening. “Who am I?” asks Lauren. Laurie gives no response. “Am I Salem?” That’s one of our cats. “Am I Bryn?”

“B-b-b,” Laurie says.

We’re familiar faces. But does she know why? Does she know I’m her husband? That Lauren and Bryn are her children? I don’t think so.

____________

Three or four times a week, I have lunch with Laurie. I sit next to her and cut up her food, navigating forks and spoons to her mouth, trying not to spill her soup. After the kind of “open your mouth” urging I once gave the kids, she’ll take a bite and chew.

Meat loaf is today’s offering. Laurie takes a bite or two but I notice she’s not really chewing. Instead, she tucks the food away in her cheek. I offer some cranberry juice, usually a favorite, but she swallows only a little.

I look at her closely. Her hair is almost entirely black. Her face is remarkably unlined. I stroke her hair and she pays me no mind, never glancing my way. She’s here, I think, but not really here at all.

____________

I’m out of town for a family wedding, having brunch with Lauren.

“Something’s changed with your mom,” I say. I describe how her eating has become more tentative. “Plus, she’s losing weight.”

“Should I come up to Boston?” Lauren lives and works in New York City.

“Probably not,” I say, not wanting her to take an unneeded vacation day. “Let’s see what the doctor says.”

The next day I’m back in Boston. Bryn and I walk into the dining room at Hebrew SeniorLife, ready to have lunch with Laurie. We scan the room and can’t find her. I see her aide. “Where is she?” I ask.

“We couldn’t get her out of bed today,” the aide says.

Bryn and I go to see her. Laurie glances at Bryn and smiles with what might be some recognition. Otherwise, she seems only semiconscious. When the doctor comes, he tells me she’s not taking in any liquids.

"What does that mean?” I ask.

“Seven to ten days,” he says.

I feel like I’ve been hit in the gut.

He says they could give her fluids intravenously, or put a tube down her throat to feed her. Years earlier, the girls and I had talked about such a moment. Back then we had decided we wouldn’t take any extraordinary measures. That decision, once abstract, now seems almost unconscionable. How can I let her die?

There are tears in my eyes now and I say, “No, I don’t think we should do anything. Just keep her comfortable.”

I call Lauren and tell her she should plan to come up in a few days. The next day Laurie seems fine, resting easily, but the following morning her breathing is labored.

It’s been seven years since Laurie was diagnosed, almost three years since she went to Avita and 14 months since she was admitted to Hebrew SeniorLife. Day after day, the disease progressed almost imperceptibly. But now it’s moving too fast.

The charge nurse warns me Lauren should come. Now.

____________

“Alzheimer’s proceeds slowly, almost invisibly, on its destructive course. It’s like the transition from summer to fall,” I say, looking out at familiar faces at Boston’s Old South Church. “The green leaves turn red or yellow or orange, but we never actually see them change. It’s just that, one day they’re green and suddenly, they’re not.”

“But while leaves turn color over a brief period of time, Alzheimer’s takes years. And that amount of time, those long, long years, sometimes makes it hard to remember the days when the leaves were green, hard to remember the woman we all knew.”

My voice breaks. It’s true. The last seven years have been so overwhelming that I find myself hard-pressed to remember what came before. What was life like before neurologists and researchers and memory care facilities, before halting speech and blank stares?

I sift through photos. The two of us walking in a field. Laurie beaming at our wedding. Her driving a car, sunglasses on, turning with a slight smile for the camera. Catching up with her best friend from childhood. A family Christmas card. She and Bryn mugging for the camera. Lauren’s high school graduation. These are the memories that I want to hold on to, the days when her mind sparkled, her smile was bright, and the future beckoned.

This column first appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine  on January 7, 2020 and was published in the print version of  the Magazine on January 12, 2020.

A Nobel Love Story

As he walked into his lab at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, filled with cheering staffers and supporters, Bill Kaelin’s thoughts weren’t on the molecular biology of cancer.

Lying in bed, Bill Kaelin saw it was 6:00 a.m., well past the time the Nobel Prize Committee makes its calls to winners. He thought: Oh well, I guess I didn’t get it. No big deal.

The phone rang. He looked at the clock. It was 4:40 a.m. He wondered. Was I dreaming then or am I dreaming now?

Sometime later, as he walked into his lab at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, filled with cheering staffers and supporters, his thoughts weren’t on the molecular biology of cancer. They were instead about love. Love lost. Love found.

Bill was a resident at Johns Hopkins when he spotted Carolyn Scerbo at the faculty pool and thought to himself: That’s the woman I’m going to marry. He did, and they ended up in Boston. He started working as a researcher in the lab of David Livingston at Dana-Farber. Her career was meteoric. A surgeon, at just age 34 she was named founding director of the Comprehensive Breast Health Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Living, as they did, in Boston’s Back Bay, raising two children, and pursuing work each found deeply meaningful, life seemed idyllic.

And then — the irony lost on no one — in 2003 Carolyn diagnosed herself with breast cancer. It was a shock, but “deep down both of us thought she was going to be a survivor,” Bill says. “And she did survive.” The chemotherapy had an unexpected side effect, however: It numbed Carolyn’s hands, leaving her unable to continue as a surgeon. “She didn’t wallow in self-pity,” Bill recalls. “She just decided to direct her energies elsewhere.” She threw herself into becoming a patient advocate, writing two books to help others who found themselves in her situation: “Living Through Breast Cancer" and “The Breast Cancer Survivor’s Fitness Plan.”

“We got to a pretty good life after breast cancer,” Bill says.

But then, in 2010, came a second diagnosis: Carolyn had brain cancer — glioblastoma multiforme, the same cancer that killed Senators Ted Kennedy and John McCain.

Bill got into cancer research, he says, because “I saw too many people suffer.” But “until it happens to a loved one, until you feel it in your soul, you don't fully understand how this disease affects you, turning your world upside down.”

“My entire family had to grow up. Having gone through the scare in 2003 helped us in 2010. We had more coping skills, greater resilience.” Carolyn had the first of two brain surgeries and had to teach herself how to walk again. “I knew and she knew that the textbook prognosis was dismal, but we took comfort that she was at a great place getting state-of-the-art therapy.” They took comfort as well in simple routine: having a care plan and executing it faithfully.

Then too, Bill acknowledges, part of coping was simple denial. "We’d say her case was ‘exceptional,' that she’s younger, she’s had more extensive DNA testing,” he said He remembers them talking about the someday-movie of her life, documenting her hoped-for recovery. “She was going to be played by Julia Roberts.” And him? “Pee-wee Herman,” he offers up with a laugh.

Meanwhile, his own work in cancer research proceeded apace. “The lab became a place to retreat and to recharge.” The ordeal with cancer, he says, “can be very depressing, but you don’t have any choice. You do the best you can.”

In 2014, there was a relapse and a second surgery. Carolyn died in 2015.

Bill threw himself into work and into remembering. And then one day, about two years after Carolyn’s death, he asked someone out on a date. He had a personal epiphany: “I realized it was the first time in years that I allowed myself to look forward in time rather than backward in time.”

Perhaps, he thinks, dwelling on the past was a way to avoid Carolyn’s death. “There was this irrational sense that if you kept looking backward, maybe you haven’t lost this person.”

Still, he thought he would never be able to love again. “The analogy I use,” he says, “is that when I had my second child, I could not imagine that I could love someone as much as my first. But of course, love is not a zero-sum game.”

As he spoke in his lab after being awarded the Nobel, Bill said, “You know, my number one prize in life was my beloved Carolyn, who was my partner and best friend in life.” But he also spoke about the future. I’ve learned, he said, “that maybe I can smile again and laugh again and maybe even find love again.”

I think many of us have this image of Nobel laureates as uber-humans, far different from the rest of us, brainiacs unaffected by the vicissitudes of normal human life. Hardly. Nobel Prize laureates or not, we all live much the same lives: supporting our families; doing our bit to contribute to the world; loving, laughing, and crying through the years.

Kaelin formally receives the Nobel Prize on Tuesday (December 10).

This column first appeared in the Boston Globe on December 9, 2019.

Governor Baker, lift the ban so adults can vape

Mountain climbing is dangerous. Skiing is dangerous. But the long arm of the law doesn’t reach out and say folks can’t climb or ski. There’s a basic logic to this: If you know the risks, and you’re still willing to take your chances, you should be allowed to do what you want. It’s your life, after all.

So why doesn’t this logic apply to vaping?

Two weeks ago, Governor Charlie Baker pushed through a ban on vaping. Although it applies only to those who sell e-cigarette supplies, and it’s for only four months, the net effect for most who vape is that they can no longer engage in the practice. Some are heading to New Hampshire for their supplies, and others might turn to the black market. But for the rest, vaping is no longer an option.

At the time of the ban, there was a near panic over a spate of lung-related illnesses and deaths, all of which seemed to be tied to vaping. Doctors and public health professionals had no idea what was going on and Baker’s ban was borne out of this confusion. The argument was that a ban was warranted because, in fact, no one knew what the risks were.

Fair enough. But the Internet and social media are wonderful things and the fact is that today pretty much everyone — and most certainly vapers — is aware of these once-unknown risks. The news of those illnesses and deaths have been trumpeted everywhere. So does the ban still make sense? If folks want to vape — knowing, as they now do, that they might face imminent hospitalization — shouldn’t they be allowed to do so?

It’s their lives, after all.

I go back and forth on this one, in part because it’s more complicated than just knowingly taking a risk.

For one, it’s an addictive risk. Most vapers use the devices to inhale nicotine, and sometimes at levels far greater than cigarettes. There’s a widespread belief among vapers that vaping doesn’t have the same risks as cigarettes, in large part because they don’t have cigarette cancer-causing tars and other harsh ingredients. But nicotine itself is dangerous, capable of causing much harm, including adverse effects on “the heart, reproductive system, lung, kidney, etc. (as well as) carcinogenic potential,” according to the National Institutes of Health.

Granted, even with potentially addictive substances, we usually let adults make their own decisions. But in the case of vaping, manufacturers — Juul is the prime example — targeted their products to kids, with child-friendly flavors such as mint, mango, and fruit. And those kids, almost by definition, are unable to make reasoned, mature decisions about what risks they should and shouldn’t take. Yet an addictive habit picked up as a teen is extraordinarily hard to shake as an adult. Juul was going as young as it could so it might create a life-long consumer — and that’s appalling.

Still, if we could keep e-cigarettes out of the hands of kids, one could make the case that we should allow adults to vape if they wish. We do so with conventional cigarettes, coupling their sales with grim warnings on every pack. That, it seems, is the direction that Governor Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island went. After Baker put in place his ban, she followed with one of her own, but one that was more narrowly drawn, targeting the flavored e-cigs that most seemed to appeal to kids. Her approach seems to be the more reasoned.

I’m no fan of the industry. I’ve never smoked or vaped. But an essential tenet of freedom is the right to take risks. We don’t have the right to impose those risks on others (hence, bans on smoking in bars or restaurants), but adults — presumably capable of making reasoned choices for themselves — should have the right to impose those risks on themselves. The public health community was delighted when Baker imposed his ban, and I understand why — they see all issues like this through the lens of morbidity and mortality.

But if adults want to vape — and they do so knowing not only the long-term risks but also the potential short-term issues — they should be able to do so. Baker should issue a new ban, one more narrowly tailored to protect kids, and let adults do what they want.

This column first appeared in the Boston Globe on October 7, 2019.

Thank Ayanna Pressley and Donald Trump for a crowded city council race

Suddenly, everybody wants to be a city councilor.

This September, 15 candidates will be on the ballot for the four available at-large seats. Two years ago, according to Boston’s elections department, there were only eight. Two years before that, there were only five. On top of that, another 29 candidates (including incumbents) are running for the nine district seats.

Why the sudden interest? Why aspire to work for a legislative body so many deride as “powerless, ineffective?”

Two words: Ayanna Pressley.

That’s a cynical take on the matter, although there’s probably something to it. Becoming a city councilor has often been seen as either a sinecure or perhaps a jumping-off point to something greater. Usually, “greater” meant mayor. Sometimes it meant clerk of courts or registrar of deeds which — with all due respect — is really not “greater” at all.

Yet councilors rarely made the jump to Congress (I should know; as a one-time city councilor I made a futile attempt myself). With Pressley’s unexpectedly successful campaign, however, there’s now new hope for political wannabes. Imagine: Get elected city councilor and in a few short years, you too might be a member of “the Squad,” a national figure, and the president’s foil.

But there is more than ambition at play, I think.

There was an era in American politics, beginning with John F. Kennedy’s election in 1960, where government was seen as a noble calling. “Ask not what your country can do for you,” he said at his inauguration, “Ask what you can do for your country.” Kennedy created the Peace Corps, he constantly spoke of the worthiness of working for the government (“The success of this government, and thus the success of our nation, depends in the last analysis upon the quality of our career services,” he said in 1962), and he inspired a generation to get involved.

For many complicated reasons the enthusiasm of that era died. Wars and scandals destroyed the luster of public service. Conservative politicians would often identify government — and by extension, those who worked in it — as an enemy. Business, and especially high tech, started to seem like a more effective (and financially lucrative) way to make a difference. People grew jaded, thinking there was no real difference between Democrats and Republicans. Government seemed meaningless, passé.

And then along came Donald Trump to inspire us once again.

Granted, Trump isn’t inspiring in the way of Kennedy. He’s more like a Bizarro Superman version of the late president, a mirror image. Trump’s fomenting tweets, outlandish behavior, and often cruel policies are clearly not intended to get people more engaged, but that’s been their impact. Post the 2016 election, people finally figured out that politics really did matter. Protests — the Women’s March and Day Without Immigrants — led to increased activism, which led to a host of new faces running in the congressional midterms.

Still, what do national politics have to do with local? How does outrage with Trump translate into more people running for the Boston City Council?

Because, as Tip O’Neill opined, “All politics is local.” Many of the issues that folks most care about are in fact best addressed by cities and towns: schools, public safety, transportation, housing affordability, the built and unbuilt environment (buildings and parklands), trash and snow removal, and so on. Even the economy: city and regional economies all thrive or fail based on all of these issues as well as local factors such as attitudes toward business development, and rules and regulations.

Hence the spate of interest in becoming a city councilor. Sure, maybe the City Council is mostly powerless and ineffectual. But at a minimum it’s a bully platform. And my guess is that, after the November elections have ended, we’re going to see a City Council more invigorated, more engaged, and more demanding than it’s been for decades.

Thanks, Donald. You’re making public service cool once again.

This column was first published by the Boston Globe on August 8, 2019.

Laurie K Farrell: Remembrance

March 19 was simply the worst day of my life.

July 21, 1984 was one of the best. That was the day Laurie and I married.

A few weeks after that, however, we had a pretty bad day. That’s when Laurie looked at me and said, “We need cats.”

Cats? No, no cats. I grew up in a household of dogs. We didn’t have cats. I’m not saying we hated cats, but they were like alien creatures. Some people have dogs. Some people have cats. We were dog people. I was a dog person.

“We’re not getting cats,” I said. I mean, I had known Laurie grew up with cats, and I forgave her for that. We had talked about many things in the run-up to our marriage – toilet seat up or down (answer: down), who cleans what (answer: hire a cleaner). But we had never talked about cats. We were not getting cats.

A few days later we were at a house in Georgetown – a section of Washington, DC – looking at a box filled with squirming little kittens. “Cute, “ I said, “but we’re not getting cats.”

A week later, we had two cats.

We called one Mike – full-name, Mikhail Gorbachev, so I guess you can tell that at least I got to name one of the cats. The other one Laurie named Pittywitz – an old Farrell family cat name or, as we called her, Pudding.

Many, many years later, Pudding got diabetes, so twice a day, every day, for several years, I would be the one injecting her with insulin so she might stay alive.

Marriage, I guess, is like that.

Many years after we first got the cats, we also got a dog and we became a household with cats and a dog. The divide between dog people and cat people was no more.

Marriage can be like that too.

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There are so many things to remember about a person, so many things to miss.

I miss our nicknames. When we first started dating, Laurie simply referred to me as “Boston.” Not “Tom.” Just “Boston.” She was living in DC, I was here in the Back Bay. She’d call on the phone. “Hey, Boston, how ya doing?” she’d ask.

Later, we began to call each other “PAL.” It was an acronym that stood for Person I Love. I know, you’d think the acronym should therefore be PIL but Laurie fancied herself a girl from the south and so we pronounced it, “Person Ah Love.” PAL.

I had another nickname for Laurie: IBW. It stood for “incredibly beautiful woman.” And she was: beautiful, sexy, loving. She was way out of my league but for some reason she dated me and married me.

I miss that Laurie.

I miss Laurie’s obsession with salted sunflower seeds. She would have a bag next to her as she’d read or watch TV, cracking them between her teeth and depositing the shells in a close-by bowl. And she was fussy about them. “David’s” was her preferred brand; “Planters” was OK too. Others, she wouldn’t touch. Once, trying to broaden her horizons, I got her an assortment of flavored seeds – BBQ, ranch, sweet & spicy. She wouldn’t touch them. Salted only, thank you.

I miss her love of growing things. Not only pansies, the spring flower that gave her enormous delight with its wild variety of colors. But she also loved to grow herbs of all sorts – basil, thyme, rosemary. Here’s the problem though. She grew them on our deck in the city which backed onto an alley through which passed all manner of traffic, from cars to garbage trucks. It was not, shall we say, the most sanitary of places. So sometimes if she wasn’t paying attention, I took the cuttings she offered but substituted the same herbs from the local Star Market.

I miss her love of family. When her father, Hal, suffered an aneurysm while living in Las Vegas, she dropped everything and flew to his side, eventually bringing him back to Boston to live out his final years.

I miss her love of theater. She acted in plays while in high school and college. As Lauren mentioned, she encouraged her and Bryn to pursue theater as well. Laurie joined the board of the Boston Children’s Theater and  – more importantly – showed up for almost every show, eager to support her children on stage. At one point, Laurie too got back on-stage, taking a leading role in a comedy called “Noises Off.” We returned the favor, going to watch her even though, somewhat unkindly, we behind her back called it “Noises Awful.”

I miss her strong and certain will. Laurie was a feminist. As we were thinking about marriage, she told me in no uncertain terms that she intended to keep her own name. And when we had children, that name also became their last name. And she raised those children as feminists too – not in any overtly political sort of way, but rather by simply teaching them to be their own people, independent and free-thinking.

I miss her amazing laugh, her easy outgoing attitude, and her prodigious memory for new names and new faces. I would hold fundraisers and I’d have her by my side, a human contacts app, telling me the names of the people coming in.

I miss how much she cared for people and empathized with them. I especially miss her deep devotion to our children. She passed her finest qualities on to them.

Judy Witthohn, a friend of ours from our first few years in DC is with us today from Denver. She wrote me these words of remembrance right after Laurie died: “Laurie captivated a room without even knowing it,” Judy wrote. “Decisive, smart, self-assured, she knew what she wanted and what she did not.”

Yep, that was Laurie. And I miss her.

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Alzheimer’s is a strange disease. It proceeds slowly, almost invisibly, on its destructive course. It’s a bit like the transition from summer to fall. The green leaves change to red or yellow or orange, but we never actually see them change. It’s just that, one day they’re  green and suddenly, they’re not.

So too Alzheimer’s. It officially begins with a diagnosis: primary progressive aphasia of the logopenic variation. Then there comes a day when the person you love can no longer hold a conversation. Sometime later, you realize she doesn’t know how to turn channels on a TV. Sometime after that, pen and paper become foreign objects. One day you visit and she looks at you without knowing who you are.

Leaves turn color over a brief period of time. But Alzheimer’s takes years. Laurie was diagnosed seven years ago, but looking back, we know it affected her well before then. She was, in a sense, not herself for a third of our marriage, for more than a third of Lauren and Bryn’s lives. And that amount of time, those long, long years, sometimes makes it hard to remember the days when the leaves were green, hard to remember the woman we all knew.

So, thank you, Tim, Patty, Marcia, Gill, Pamela, Lauren, and Bryn – thank you for helping us to remember the leaves of green. Thanks to Old South Church, senior minister Nancy Taylor, and minister of music Mitch Crawford for giving us space to be together. Thanks to Kate Keane for what will be – soon – her beautiful singing. And thanks to all of you, gathered here. Thank you for your memories, thank you for your stories, thank you for your support.

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Even in the midst of Laurie’s disease, even as we were  losing the person we loved, some essence remained. Serena Heartz is here today. Her father Ed passed away just a few months ago while at Hebrew Senior Life. “I wish that I knew Laurie back when,” she wrote me, “but I will remember her dancing in the hallway, popping into my father's room for a surprise visit, and radiating happiness.”

Yep, that was Laurie. Radiating happiness. I miss her happiness.

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Here’s another thing about Alzheimer’s. Because it happens so slowly, because it happens so gradually, there never seems to be a right time to say goodbye. I mean, one day you could have this big, emotional, heart-wrenching moment, and then the next day you wake up and go, “Oh, you’re still here.”

And then, when the person really is lost to you, you realize the time for goodbyes is lost as well.

So, let us say goodbye.

Goodbye, Laurie. I wish you were here to experience so many millions of marvelous moments. I wish you were here to see the extraordinary adults your children have become. I wish this disease had never happened to you. I wish this disease had never happened to us. But, to quote a wise, old sage, “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for us to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” After the service, by the way, feel free to ask Lauren and Bryn who that wise old sage was. They know.

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

That’s our challenge. We could mourn and hide away, I guess, lost in grief, but I hope not. Rather, let us love, care, work, dance and sing. I’m not going to urge on you the cliché, “Live every day as if it’s your last” because I really don’t think it makes any sense. I mean, if we really lived every day as if it’s the last, we’d never, say, save any money. We’d never show up at our jobs.

But I do urge this: Give each day your fullest measure of joy, purpose, ambition and thought. Radiate happiness. In that way, we honor, remember and are Laurie Farrell: daughter, wife, mother, sister, friend.

Thank you.

Delivered at Laurie's Memorial Service at Old South Church on April 6, 2019

Laurie K Farrell: Obituary

Laurie Farrell, a woman who lit up a room when she entered, died far too early on March 19 from complications of younger-onset Alzheimer’s Disease.

Born in Washington, DC, on May 2, 1955, Laurie was adopted at birth by Hal and Willa Dean Farrell. She grew up in the Virginia suburbs, went to Thomas Jefferson High School, attended Ferrum College and was graduated in 1978 from Old Dominion University. She was tall, elegant, beautiful, ethical, confident, kind, witty, and smart-mouthed. The last of those qualities was exemplified by her first meeting with one Tom Keane in 1982 at the 930 Club, a DC punk-rock club.

Tom, out with a group of friends, had spent the evening eyeing Laurie, occasionally approaching but then timidly backing off, certain she was out of his league. Towards midnight, though, he mustered up some (liquid) courage and finally spoke to her.

“Hello,” he said. Not, admittedly, the world’s best pick-up line.

She turned, glared at him, and said, “Well, it took you long enough.”

Tom was smitten.

They were married July 21, 1984. Shortly thereafter, Laurie attended graduate school, getting her MBA in 1987 from George Washington University. She and Tom lived on Capitol Hill, moving to Massachusetts in 1989. The first of their two children, Lauren Keane-Farrell, was born a year later and the second, Bryn Keane-Farrell, a year after that.

Laurie had always thought motherhood would never be for her. She couldn’t have been more wrong. She and Tom settled in Boston’s Back Bay and through word and deed she gifted her children the same extraordinary qualities that defined her own personality. She supported Tom through his adventures, including a stint as a Boston City Councilor, and embarked on adventures of her own, including acting in local theater and serving on the board of the Boston Children’s Theater. She loved people, gardening, and animals – especially cats. Hers was a rich and active life.

Until in 2012, that is, when – only in her mid-50s – Laurie was diagnosed with younger-onset Alzheimer’s. The disease moved slowly but inexorably, robbing her first of speech and then her other faculties. In June 2016 she moved to Avita of Needham, a memory care facility and, after her condition further deteriorated, to Hebrew Senior Life in Roslindale. It was there where she finally passed away.

Even living with Alzheimer’s, Laurie was unfailingly pleasant and kind, engaging her caregivers and visitors with gentle smiles and silly faces. Yet this disease robs much of a person’s essence, and her family and friends prefer to remember Laurie as the vital and strong woman who brought so much joy to their lives. Laurie is pre-deceased by her parents and, aside from her husband and children, is survived by her brother, Tim, his wife, Benita, and innumerable relatives, in-laws, and friends who were privileged to have known her.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, April 6, 2019 at 11:00 am at Old South Church on Copley Square in Boston’s Back Bay. The family is particularly grateful to those caregivers who treated Laurie with enormous compassion and respect during the last months of her life and in lieu of flowers asks that donations be made to Hebrew Senior Life – a caregiving and research institution – either on its website or at 1200 Center St., Roslindale, MA 02131.

The College Cheating Scam Was Pointless

The most ironic thing about "Operation Varsity Blues" — the college cheating scandal that has mercifully pushed Bob Kraft out of the headlines — is that it was pointless. At least for well-off whites, the data are quite clear: It doesn’t matter whether you go to an elite college or not. What matters is how well you do at the college you attend.

It’s a dirty secret that the Ivies and their ilk would rather not trumpet. And it probably comes as a surprise to suburban high-school juniors and seniors who’ve spent their scholastic careers panicking over grades and desperately plumping up their resumes with all manner of sports and clubs.

But it’s true.

To be sure, graduates of, say, Harvard tend to earn more than their peers who attended other, lesser-known schools. But that’s not because a Harvard education is so fantastic. Rather, it reflects the fact that Harvard admits students who have performed at the top of their class. They’re smarter, harder-working, more driven and more talented than their fellow students. It should be no surprise that after college they go on to do great — or at least, lucrative -- things. But Harvard’s impact on their life is actually pretty small.

Within education circles, this is pretty well known. Way back in 1999, economists Stacy Berg Dale and Alan Krueger looked at the impact of elite versus non-elite colleges on life outcomes. Assume, for example, there are two similar students, both with good grades and SAT scores of 1500. One goes to an Ivy; the other goes to a decent but decidedly not elite school. The result? “[S]tudents who attended more selective colleges do not earn more than other students who were accepted and rejected by comparable schools but attended less selective colleges,” concluded Dale and Kreuger.

Indeed, having attended one of those elite institutions, I found the actual education was often lacking. Well-paid celebrity professors delivered lectures in large halls while barely compensated teaching assistants did the actual teaching. Meanwhile, smaller schools of lesser renown trumpet the quality of their education: better teacher-student ratios, personalized attention, counseling and career assistance. Perhaps they do so because that becomes their selling point. The elites — valued merely because they are elite — don’t have to try so hard.

Moreover, the list of those who have done well yet attended less-known schools is long. Oprah Winfrey went to Tennessee State University. Joe Biden went to the University of Delaware while Elizabeth Warren went to the University of Houston. Google co-founder Sergey Brin got his B.S. from the University of Maryland. Billionaire investor Warren Buffet was graduated from University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Heck — the number of folks who did well despite being college dropouts is itself striking, including Bill Gates (Harvard) Mark Zuckerberg (Harvard again), Steve Jobs (Reed College), Michael Dell (University of Texas at Austin) and Boston’s own John Henry (Victor Valley College and the University of California).

There are, however, exceptions to Dale and Kruger’s findings that underscore the awfulness of the college cheating scandal. It turns out that the eliteness of a college does, in fact, matter for certain subgroups, such as minority students and those who come from poorer backgrounds. That’s not because the education at the elite schools is superior. Rather, by mixing with other well-connected students, those from disadvantaged backgrounds are exposed to more career opportunities and to extensive alumni networks.

In addition, there’s also evidence that an elite college can benefit women’s earnings. Again, though, it’s not because of the excellence of the education. Instead, apparently, women who attend more elite colleges tend to get more advanced degrees, marry later, and stay in the workforce longer.

But none of these exceptions apply to the well-off folks embroiled in the cheating scandal.

Perhaps Felicity Huffman, Lori Loughlin and the many others caught in the fed’s dragnet don’t read economists and actually thought their kids needed to go to an elite school in order to succeed. Or perhaps their concerns were less about their kids and more about themselves — they wanted bragging rights. Either way, by undeservedly getting their children into elite colleges, the cheaters ended up bumping others — namely, those from needier backgrounds — who might genuinely have benefited from that experience.

And then, of course, there’s the whole jail thing. The wealthy and entitled, it turns out, don’t always make the best decisions.

This column was first published by Cognoscenti on March 15, 2019.

Employers can make Boston traffic more bearable with one simple change

Forget new highways, high-tech street lights, and even gondolas. There are much easier ways to reduce our epic congestion.

It’s 5 p.m. on a January weekday and I’m on Interstate 395 South in Washington, D.C. Traffic is heavy but flowing smoothly and I think, “Why can’t Boston roads be like this?” Then I realize: Oh yeah, the government’s shut down. And in a flash, I have a brilliant idea for solving Boston’s notorious jams: Let’s have a recession!

Just kidding.

Still, you may remember that, in the midst of the Great Recession, commutes around these parts were a lot easier than they are today. Why? Because with Boston’s unemployment popping to a high of 8.4 percent in September 2009, a lot of folks weren’t on the road during rush hour.

Today it’s a different story. Unemployment in the metro area is down to a scant 2.4 percent. If you’re driving on Interstate 93 or the Massachusetts Turnpike or any other major artery, you’ve seen the impact: Traffic is terrible. In 2018, Boston drivers spent an average of 164 hours in rush-hour congestion — the worst in the nation, says transportation analytics firm INRIX.

That’s the downside of a booming economy.

And the cure? Some are pushing for new roads, high-tech fixes like “smart lights,” or even gondolas. But Boston’s experience with the Great Recession and D.C.’s own shutdown suggest a simpler approach: Why not decrease demand?

Consider this: Although D.C.’s clogged highways improved during the shutdown, it’s not as if no one was going to work. The federal government employs about 361,000 people in the D.C. area, just under 11 percent of the area’s workforce. The shutdown was partial, however — 75 percent of the government remained open — and of those agencies that were shuttered, at least half of their workers still had to come in. That suggests the number of commuters around D.C. probably dropped by less than 5 percent. Yet the traffic jams were over!

What gives?

Folks who study traffic jams (for a living, that is; not just gazing out their car windows in fury) say that roadways have a kind of tipping point. They are built to handle a certain number of vehicles — say, 5,000 an hour. Just a slight increase over that number, however, and things get dicey. Minor matters such as drivers switching lanes or slowing for an exit have a ripple effect, causing the starts and stops that make a commute intolerable. That’s the point made to me by Chris Dempsey, director of advocacy group Transportation for Massachusetts. Congestion, he says, is non-linear: the rule of thumb is that a 5 percent cut in traffic means a 20 percent drop in congestion. And the logical conclusion from that is that just a small reduction in vehicles on the road can make for big improvements.

Which is exactly what I saw in D.C. during the government shutdown.

Dempsey’s group has been advocating for off-peak toll discounts. The idea is to charge less during non-rush hours, hoping that some non-commuters — such as commercial traffic — would take the bait and travel at a different time. It seems like a no-brainer, right? Except that some object. Budget folks fear the state would lose toll revenues. Others fear discounts are just a clever ruse to introduce congestion pricing — charging folks more to travel at peak times. And of course, it doesn’t make I-93 any better since those folks — lucky them! — don’t pay tolls at all.

Still, before we build another new road, can’t we at least try it out?

Toll discounts aren’t the only way to change behavior, however. Employers might allow staff to come in and leave at non-rush hour times, perhaps providing them with incentives such as cut-rate parking. Or employers might make it easier to telecommute. If a quarter of companies could stagger schedules so their workers could work from home just one day a week, we might see commute times drop by 5 percent. We could be back to the good old days of the Great Recession (without the job losses, of course).

Obviously, telecommuting doesn’t work for everybody. Customer-facing employees working in retail or food service have to show up. But for those who work desk jobs, it’s sometimes hard to figure out why we’re in the office at all. Improvements in electronic communications proceed apace. Everyone has high-speed Internet, meetings are held with Google Hangouts or Zoom web conferencing, and all the data we need can be stored in the cloud, available from anywhere. Telecommuting is on the rise, with about 5.2 percent of workers nationally doing so in 2017 — a 115 percent increase in 10 years. Massachusetts, at 4.7 percent, is below average, despite an economy built on telecommuting-friendly industries such as financial services and technology . Other states — Colorado at 7 percent or New Hampshire at 6.1 percent — are well ahead of us.

The point is this: Tough commutes are ultimately our fault. Rather than looking to the government for big, novel, or capital-intensive solutions, we could likely solve the problem by simply cutting rush-hour traffic by about 5 percent. And it shouldn’t be all that hard to do.

This column was published in the print edition of Boston Globe Magazine on February 24, 2019.