Life Returns After Covid-19

I couldn’t help but smile this past weekend when I saw the ballfields busy next to our studios.  I went over to watch and nearly got clocked by a ball that cleared the fence.  It came hurtling at me as I was attempting to get a picture.  There were several balls scattered among the cars in the parking lot.  Check your glass coverage!

Maybe we aren’t yet back to “normal” but at least in Idaho most of the rhythms of life returned months ago.  Stage four?  It has to be the most ignored edict other than hands free cell phone use.

The other day I was telling a story on-air and it made me think about our recent lockdown duties.

When the country entered World War Two, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, government began rationing many basic goods.  This foisted on a public after a decade of depression and deprivation and denial and, yet.  People, for the most part, got behind the effort.  Because they had a stake.  Family members were off to war.

My dad and my Uncle Louie were too young to serve as the fighting started.  They found work serving “pop” to rail workers.  They also liked sweet drinks.  Including Kool-Aid.  So, they took my grandmother’s monthly allotment of sugar.  And mixed it with berries.  Then decided to hide the jug as they believed they wouldn’t be on the suspect list.  They were wrong.  They got a whipping.

A couple of months passed and they remembered where they stashed the jug.  They drank it.  The mixture had fermented.  They staggered home.  They got another whipping.

The story always brought laughs at family reunions but it also took place during a time like nothing we’ve endured.  For a decade, nobody had money for travel beyond their own homes.  Then for three and a half years they were confined because of war.  Both parents told me stories of blackout curtains, even though they lived nowhere near a coast.  If anyone drove at night there were special headlight coverings.  Spare parts were almost impossible.  You ate fresh fruits and vegetables in summer and in winter whatever the women had canned.

There is so much more but please contrast with today.  Most people still had cell phones and 500 TV options during the pandemic.  I think the old timers were tougher.