Tuesday, March 24, 2020

We did it before – we'll do it again!

For almost all of us, dealing with the Coronavirus is an unpleasant experience. Its disrupting our lives and causing much panic and uneasiness.

With God’s help (and a lot of hand washing), the tragic deaths will be minimized.

But eventually, the crisis will be over. Although life will never be quite the same, things will get back to normal. Sometime in the future, we’ll be looking back and remembering exactly how it affected us and our families. And wondering how we got through it.

If you’re old enough, you know what I mean. We’ve lived through a few of these things.

The best example, of course, was 9/11. 

I remember exactly what I was doing when I first heard that a plane had struck the World Trade Center. I was sitting at work, listening to the radio (WRMR 850, the Big Band station) when it was first announced via a very low-key interruption of the music.

At the time, I thought that it was just a Cessna or other small plane that knocked over a radio tower. When the second plane hit, we knew something big was going on. Turning on a TV at work in our customer lounge confirmed it and we finally realized just how big an event it was.

A few hours into the mayhem, just before we were all sent home, I thought I’d better call my parents. The funny thing was, they didn’t have their TV on and were blissfully unaware of what was going on. When I told them what was happening, they weren’t particularly upset – probably because as members of the Greatest Generation, they had lived through a variety of crises (the Depression, World War II, etc.) already.

A few years later, we had the big blackout of 2003. I was at work, about 15 minutes away from going home, when the lights went out and everything went dead. I remember driving down Clifton Boulevard in Cleveland, with all the traffic lights out, and the stores with their doors open so they could get some light into their buildings. The feeling at the time was very similar to 9/11 and we wondered if terrorists were involved. It was hot and uncomfortable too, to add to the uneasiness.

There were other memorable disasters local to Ohio, such as the July 4, 1969 storm, and the Blizzard of 1978. I’ll never forget those either.

The funniest national 'big event' was the Y2K Bug – the fear that all hell was going to break loose when the computer clocks (and our coffee makers, VCRs, etc.) switched over to the year 2000. Nobody knew what was going to happen.

Again, I know exactly where I was at when it all went down at midnight on New Year's Eve 1999: the Jackalope Restaurant in Lorain. 

And that’s what was so funny. Nothing happened. Except that my bill for the night's dinner and entertainment was much more than I expected, and I was briefly in danger of starting a new career as a dish washer.

Anyway, the good news is that we always get through these things. That's the American way. And we all laugh about it later.

I'm counting on it, and looking forward to it.



5 comments:

  1. Exactly the right tone, Dan; thank you!

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  2. I wasn't worried about the 1999 Y2K panic, and I never believed the 2003 Blackout was related to terrorists. I was a senior in high school during the Blizzard of '77 and my car got stuck in a snow bank on the way to school, but I wasn't worked up about it. I (We) were quite used to copious amounts of snow. The only time I was truly frightened was during the 9/11 crisis. The Covid-19 panic? I'm not worried a bit. I'm far more concerned with the long-term economic fall-out than the effects of the virus.

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  3. I agree with you, Lisa. I'm not too concerned about getting the virus but I'm taking steps to make sure I don't get any family members sick. But at my 'Essential' place of employment, there are people that are totally freaked out about the virus and I have to see it from their point of view.

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  4. If you have ever seen a loved one on a ventilator and you have imagined yourself on one, it's easy to be worried and scared. Maybe everyone SHOULD be in order for everyone to take it seriously. Too many that I know of are thinking they are "clean" and don't go to places where they think are a lot of low income people (like dollar stores) yet they are still visiting others.......

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  5. Excellent point. And in the two days since my 3/25 comment above, I've gotten more concerned and even a little scared. I'm still taking all the extreme precautions that I've been doing all along, but I'm more worried now, especially about infecting family.

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