Trey Kay Published

"Muddling Through" 2020: A Year of Challenge and Adaptation

Sink or Swim
Kevin Koran, Ed Gabriels & Trey Kay after a cold open-water swim.
Richard Appleman
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2020 has required a lot from us all. It’s been a year of challenge and adaptation.

Us & Them host Trey Kay recalls the line in a holiday classic “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” that says, “we’ll have to muddle through somehow.” None of us had any idea how much muddling 2020 would demand. We’ve faced the pandemic and its consequences and a contentious national election that highlight the divisions in our nation. The year presented a series of choices with a clear outcome: sink or swim.

Moving ahead, Trey looks at the adaptations he’s made and which he might adopt long term.

Oh, and spoiler alert: he’s learning to like swimming outside in ice water!

This episode of Us & Them is presented with support from the West Virginia Humanities Council and the CRC Foundation.

Subscribe to Us & Them on Apple Podcasts, NPR One, RadioPublic, Spotify, Stitcher and beyond. You also can listen to Us & Them on WVPB Radio — tune in on the fourth Thursday of every month at 8 p.m., with an encore presentation on the following Saturday at 3 p.m.

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Ed Gabriels
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Trey Kay before swimming in the Hudson River on Christmas Eve 2020. The water temperature was 33.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
Trey-Breaking_Ice-Elizaville-2020.jpeg

Ed Gabriels
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Trey Kay breaking a sheet of ice before swimming in North Lake in Elizaville, NY.

Trey Kay & David Temple on Christmas Eve 2019 performing "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas"