Pandemic Eve, One Year Later

One year ago on a Friday afternoon the word came down from above that we should be prepared to telework if we could.

President Trump had just declared a national emergency related to the pandemic.

On Sunday, we got the work email that said “stay home.”

We should have known.

Everyone got it wrong. Whether it was the run on toilet paper (no pun intended) or the wear a mask/don’t wear a mask messages we were getting at the beginning, everyone, scientists, politicians, the media…especially the media…got it wrong.

I’m not going to rehash all of that here. We’ll be hearing the “experts” talk about this for years.

I’m just looking back on the year thinking about all that we lost and wondering how much of it was really necessary? Did we have to destroy our economy, send our kids into depression, and watch our loved ones being laid to rest via Zoom?

I’m not so sure.

For me, I lost my weekend job at the amusement park. In the long run that helped me decide to delay the retirement. That all turned out for the best when the cancer diagnosis came along.

We lost in person church. We’ve kept up online and have actually social distanced leading the worship a

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couple of times. It’s hard to pass the peace over the internet.

My college (now university) went from our wonderful on campus reunion weekend to a virtual reunion. I loved preparing for the virtual choir as we sang our class hymn. And we loved seeing people who may not have been able to make it back to campus.

We lost theatre. I closed down a show in late February. It was the last show that the theater where I’m Managing Director put on in the space where we’d been for 56 years. In September, we lost that space. Our choice, yes, but pandemic-induced.

More than 500,000 people have died with COVID-related deaths. I’m still skeptical about COVID being the primary cause if nothing else was going on.

Don’t @ me Karen.

I mean, you at least have to account for the 11,000 or so that Andrew Cuomo, and other Democrat governors, helped hasten off to glory by sending them to nursing homes.

I have never said that the virus is not serious. It most certainly is.

But the response has been mismanaged and we have been manipulated.

I don’t have that many years left. I really couldn’t afford to waste the last one.

Don’t get me wrong. I made the best of it with some personal goals and projects.

I adapted. We all did.

But it’s time to open up.

Be careful. Wear your masks. Get your vaccine. Wash your hands.

But let’s get back to living.

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