by James A. Bacon
On Friday I met a friend for what will likely be my last restaurant meal for a long time. We spent most of the time talking about the COVID-19 virus: its origins, the government’s response, and the response of individual citizens. We chatted with our waiter, who was cheerful and surprisingly upbeat. He assured us that the restaurant had taken unprecedented sanitary precautions. But business was slow, he admitted. Thinking that the young man might not have a job a week from now, I left double the normal tip.
Saturday night, my wife and I dined with four friends, and Sunday night with my sister’s family. On both occasions, we spent most of the time talking about the coronavirus. COVID-19 has become a national obsession without par since 9/11. While the terror attack engendered fear and briefly shut down airline traffic, COVID-19 is more intrusive in our daily lives. After the catastrophe, President Bush urged the country to return to normal — go shopping! Under siege by a virus, public health authorities are telling that life is anything but normal. Do not go shopping! Stay indoors and hunker down.
I meet once a month at a restaurant with a group of men to talk politics and philosophy. Although we convene in a private room, two of my compadres felt discretion was the better part of valor. We canceled the event. Ironically, we had planned to talk about the COVID-19 epidemic. One of our group suggested that we convene remotely using Zoom, sipping wine as we stare at our laptops and PCs. We’ll see how that works out.
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My wife and I participate in a book club. Our event next weekend has been canceled. The hostess suggested that we might… sip wine as we convened by Zoom. (Does anyone see a trend here?) The book, portentously enough, is “Who Says You’re Dead? Medical and Ethical Dilemmas for the Curious and Concerned.” Somehow, I’m guessing that we’ll end up discussing COVID-19 and the ethical imperative of social distancing.
My wife says life seems surreal. I agree. In the face of an invisible threat, our daily routines are changing in ways we’ve never experienced before. At this point in time, all is calm, but there is a feeling of ominousness in the air, of dread at what is soon to come but not quite here. We both have elderly mothers who live alone. We worry about them. Well, we always worry about them, but now we fret more than ever. We worry about a niece who is an emergency room doctor. We worry about a friend who may have to cancel her daughter’s wedding plans. We have stopped worrying about the French river cruise we had scheduled for this summer — we know we won’t go.
And, of course, we worry about toilet paper.
(By the way: Best line of the day from Kerry Dougherty’s column: “It’s not dysentery, folks. It’s a flu-like virus. Gastrointestinal problems are rarely even associated with COVID-19. So why the run on toilet paper?”)
Americans are resilient, and we are adaptable. My sister and brother-in-law are active in St. Stephens Episcopal Church here in Richmond. They told me how the church canceled its normal Sunday services, but thanks to the marvels of live-streaming, beamed sermons, choir singing, and Old and New Testament readings to parishioners. Things will get crazy. Politicians may pander, and bureaucrats may bungle, but we’ll get through this thing.
