There are, of course, historically significant dates you’ve lived through that stick with you…11/22/1963, 7/20/1969, 5/04/1970 and 9/11/2001 are the ones that immediately come to mind. Then there is Friday, 3/20/2020.

The news reports had been loaded with stories about the Corona Virus, having lived through Swine Flu and the “flesh eating disease” early on, I though it just another story to bring eyes and ears to the media, in school I would refer to it sarcastically as “the budweiser virus” [how very wrong was I?]. I believe it was 3/13/2020 where it was declared a national emergency and on 3/15 at least in NYC things began to shut down. It went a little slower in CT by a few days. Both Sue and I were called to attend faculty meetings where it we were told that they were not sure what was going to happen. Sue was told to bring her chromebook home “just in case”. I was told, sitting in an auditorium with zero protections, that Dr. Cheeseman (the clueless Supt of the Diocese of Bridgeport, remember I was working there part time since 2014 after retiring from public school teaching in 2012) didn’t see the need to close, even as the public schools were talking about a two week precautionary closure. I did mention, at that point to the principal that she could count me out and I would not be coming in if they didn’t close (I had the luxury that no one else there had). So home we went…and then both of us received texts and calls later that night informing us that the Gov. had decided that schools and all non essential services would close for two weeks….two weeks….well, we know how that went…

What we know in retrospect is that pretty much no one knew anything about how bad it would get, how to prevent it “Social Distancing” was added to the lexicon almost immediately. Learned, scientific leaders were giving advice about sanitizing, washing, and keeping apart. The clown leading the nation was minimizing it as the death count continued to rise and, as continues to be his habit, spent most of his time name calling those who were thoughtful and trying to help while suggesting that clorox ingestion would cure all. All the while telling the nation daily that it was going to simply “go away”. While this was happening, a doctor friend of mine told me to get to his office and they could spare ONE mask for me as he was certain it would at least help if I did have to go out. (Masks were impossible to get even the surgical disposable he gave me as the medical folks were in dire need).

We stayed home, taught remotely as the week passed, then the second week, then the month, then the next month then it became clear there would be no reopening that school year. I went out to shop once each week, at 6 AM, and moved quickly before there were many people there, (forget Instacart/Grocery delivery during that time, it was impossible). We lost more and more people, including my friend Silvio who passed on Easter Sunday 2020…it was not until the summer that it seemed to be a bit more manageable (albeit still scary and still not wanting to be inside with more than your “pod”). The fall would bring varied hybrid openings of schools (All Saints went back to full on in person session, again admin not really caring for anything more than their tuition fees, though any parent who wanted to keep their kid home was allowed creating the most ineffective hybrid teaching arrangement for those kids)

Eventually in January of 2021 Sue and I received our first doses of what, for us, has proven to be a very effective vaccine (going to get yet another booster in a week per CDC reco for us “old folks”, since it has worked, why not!!) and while it is now part of life, it is not the same incredibly scary cloud it was on 3/20/2020

As an aside, I’ll close this piece with a bit of humor….When the news broke, that is referenced in the screen shot below, it was 7:30 pm, Total Wine closed at 8 pm, I jumped our of my chair, hit the car and drove directly to Total Wine….of course, I should have thought ahead, there was no way in CT especially in Fairfield County the land of the WASP, that they would ever have considered the liquor stores “non essential”…however it was worth making sure…