Friday, March 13, 2020

There are dates that will live on in infamy and for me this will be one of those dates.  I am a language arts teacher and each day I write the date on the board for my students to see.  On this day, I have written “Friday, March 13, 2020” on my whiteboard.  I am not an overly superstitious person, but there is an extra tingle when I finish writing it.  

We are finishing up Elie Wiesel’s Night. The book is a one hundred plus page romp through the horrors of the Hollcaust written by someone who survived Auschwitz.  In 1986, Elie won the Nobel Peace Prize for this book that reminds us of the horrors inflicted on others.  On my desk is a book one of my fellow teachers has lent me.  It is the book that was handed to the people entering the concentration camp.  There are over twenty names written on the inside cover of the former owners.  I do not wish to think about that too deeply, but it is right there in plain sight as a constant reminder. 

It is raining, but that’s what it does in Oregon during March.  Rain.   Students are restless as it is Friday and the weekend is coming.  One more week and we will be on spring break.  It is hard to tell who is looking forward to it more, the students or the teachers. Seven days of sleeping in and waking when I want to, sound too good to be true. 

Pandemic is a word I am still trying to wrap my mind around as I listen to some of the discussion in the classroom.  COVID19?   Is that one of those code words I had when I was in the military?

“Roger, this is COVID19 coming in for a landing.” The voice sounds tinny.

“We got your clearance, COVID on Runway #2.” I speak into the hand-held radio.  

But suddenly I am in front of the class.  “Don’t forget your essays on Night are due next Tuesday.” 

There is the groan from the students that makes this job so worthwhile.

An announcement is heard over the intercom, “We are dismissing early today.  Please have all cadets report to their buses.” 

As a military model school we refer to our students as cadets. Even as we follow the military model, they are still high school kids who have enrolled here, because they are in need of a little extra something to get them to graduation.  Often for many, they might be the first person in the family to receive a high school diploma. 

The yellow buses were all lined up in the parking lot.

Why were the cadets being sent home an hour early?  What is the imminent threat we are facing?  Is this the end of the world?  

“Yaaahoo!” Was the general cry that went up as soon as the buses pulled away and we were left with an empty school.

Gathered in the teacher’s lounge, we try to figure out what is going on. The principal walks in appearing bewildered and bedazzled. In a low voice he says, “According to the buzz from Salem, we will be out until after Spring Break.  Just stay available.”

I went to my classroom, gathered up my things and erased “Friday, March 13, 2020 off my board before walking out.  There was a weight that would not go away.  It was like a weight you feel when you say good-bye to someone for the last time.  Surely this thing would go away.  Surely this was just a temporary thing.  

I got into my car, turned the key in the ignition and drove out of the parking lot without looking back.  

I woke up the next morning.  The sun was out and the rain had stopped at least for a few hours, but there was an eerie feeling that would not go away.  The streets were empty of either pedestrians or any vehicles.  Did the Body Snatchers finally come true?

Pandemic?  COVID 19?  What the heck was going on? Deserted streets and public places were closing up after a thorough cleaning.

Stay put.  Wear a mask.  Wash your hands.  Use sanitizer and keep six feet away from other people.  People were dying.  Did we suddenly go into a vortex and come out in 1918 all over again?  Isolation is creepy.  

Spring Break came and went.

I began to struggle with keeping track of the days.

Monday was like Tuesday and Tuesday was like Saturday and so on.  

April turned into June and June into November.  

Meanwhile the news kept reporting on the number of people suffering from COVID, those needing ventilators just to keep breathing and the number of people who just gave up, because breathing became much too difficult.

I was classified as high risk.  I was over sixty years old with a diagnosed heart condition and type two diabetes.  

March 13, 2020.

The school year ended with graduating seniors in masks waving at friends and relatives as they were driven down the street.  Social distancing?  

I saw a baseball game on television.  I love baseball, always have, but in the stands were cutout fans.  Cut out fans?  The line had been crossed.  Just leaving the house to visit a friend was a big deal for me, but watching this game where the fans were fake.  I was waiting for the director to yell, “Cut!” 

He hit a home run.  No fans cheered and I could hear his feet strike each of the four bases.  This was not baseball.  This was not the game I had grown to love.  No hot dogs.  No beer.

What day was it?  World Series?  Stands were filled with teddy bears.  Big old Teddy Bears.  

Birthday?  September?  Football?  Was this some kind of joke? 

Distance learning with Zoom.

Zoom. 

Keep yourself on mute.  

Zoom was the answer.  

So was Tik-Tak.

People bored out of their skulls were doing their best to entertain the world by putting their best efforts on a social network to show off their talent.  Whatever it might be.  America has talent, some was good, some was awful, but boredom does something to our brains.  It’s a chemical change or something like that.  Suddenly watching cats doing what cats do has become the latest rave on social media.  

What about our favorite musical acts?  No big venues, just some very talented people on social media singing about the ruination of our society or some anthem about what we will do when we can finally hug again.  

Tears would flow freely from my eyes as I saw little ones put their hands on the glass at grandma’s house while grandma stood on the other side dying from COVID and seeing her grandchildren for one last time. 

People filling the emergency rooms left to die where they lay.  

Listening to those who said this whole thing was Bill Gates’ fault.  Or China.

Defying the social distancing and then hearing about a Superspreader.

What day is it?  

Thank God, it’s almost the weekend.  

My wife is a nurse working out of the house.  On the phone to women who are about to give birth during the Pandemic while I am in the other room teaching class from Zoom.  I am grateful that we are both together and working.  

Our son lives with us and is going to college classes.  He started on campus, but was switched to online courses.  He hates the classes, but I am grateful he is safe at home.  

Streets remain empty, but the wildlife are starting to notice.  Land taken from them in the name of progress has suddenly come back to them and they begin to reclaim what was once theirs.  

Over four hundred thousand people have died from this Pandemic.

Funny how on March 13, it did not seem that dangerous.  The students got on the yellow buses and went home and that was that. We’d get an extra week of vacation, but that was eight months ago.  

Amazon.  Jeff Bezos and his little idea has become the new way we go shopping.  Boxes with smiles on them find their way to our doors daily.  This is how it’s done.  We place an order and a few days later it shows up on our doorsteps with a big old smile on the box.  Once there was a mad rush to buy all that toilet paper as we were getting ready for Toilet Paper Armageddon, but that like Y2K just never quite seemed to come.

Hey, it’s Thursday!

So? 

Grub Hub became our main nutrition supplier as our muffin tops seemed to expand.  We lost sight of our toes.  We ordered pants with expandable waist bands.  

As the holidays drew near, no one really got into the spirit, but the spirits certainly got into us as drinking seemed to lull us into this sense that the ship was still afloat. “God bless us, everyone!”  

Turn on the television and all anyone could talk about was the Fake News and appearing as if this is something new.  When we have lost our perspective, it is easy to lose our bearings as well.  

Is it Wednesday?  Trash goes out on Wednesday, right?  It is raining and cold and I am shivering when I walk in with my soaked bathrobe and slippers.  It’s Tuesday, not Wednesday?  Well, the trash will spend an extra day on the curb.  

We talk on zoom about when we go back to the classroom.

And when will that be?

I have to go to the store tomorrow and pick up a few things. 

Mask, sanitizer, wallet, list.  Wait, I can’t find a matching pair of socks.  I guess two different socks will be fine.  When I get to the store, I notice I am not the only one with a non-matching pair.  There are a couple who don’t even bother with the whole sock thing.  Funny how the things that challenge us have changed. 

I’ve been hearing about a vaccine.  Pfizer?  I got my flu shot back in October, because I am considered high risk, but this COVID thing laughs at this futile attempt to stop it at the gates. 

Hand sanitizer.  

Grab the cart.

Take fogged up glasses off.  

My heart is pounding.  I feel as if I have entered a hostile environment where I am the prey in search of a predator. Look at the herd weaving to stay six feet apart all of them wearing masks. 

Some of the masks have clever designs.

Some are just monochrome.  

I wonder if the person is smiling or not.  

She is not wearing a mask.

He is not wearing the mask properly.

I can no longer remember when I had no concept of such things and now it has become a daily routine.  

I put items in my shopping cart.  My blood pressure rises.  

Once I have all the things on my list, I step into the line that is marked with floor markers six feet apart.  When I get to the register, I see the checkout clerk is behind a maze of plexiglass wearing a mask.  

I am excited when she hands me my receipt and wishes me a “Good day.”

But today will be just like the previous day except I have been here and bought stuff.  

I drive home.  The streets are still pretty empty.

When I wake up the next morning, I check my emails and see nothing.  There are rumors of returning to the classroom soon.

All I can remember is writing “Friday, March 13, 2020” on my whiteboard before my classes filed into the classroom for the day.  I also filled a bucket of hot water with bleach and wiped down all the desks.  At the time, I was just doing my bit to fight the Pandemic.  They tell me that COVID does not live very long on surfaces, but still the thought of it invading my classroom was enough to send a shiver down my spine at the time.  Now several months later, I feel like I have walked into a post-apocalyptic world, wearing a mask and hoping I will make it home alive.  

I also vividly remember erasing “Friday, March 13, 2020” from the board and thinking, “What if I don’t come back after Spring Break?”   It seemed like such a finality to the whole ritual.  Sitting in my chair after checking my emails, I wonder if we will ever return to the normal we had before I erased the date from the whiteboard.  I have heard others speaking of the “new normal” and I’m not so sure that is where I want to go.

I doze off and in the short GIF of a dream, I am writing, “Monday, March 16, 2020” on my whiteboard. It is our next school day as if nothing has happened. 

But once awake, the reality comes screaming at me like a banshee, I am lost in a fog where one day seems like another, all of them lined up like dominoes ready for someone to knock over first to start the chain reaction. 

The real suffering is mental and comes when the daily routine is interrupted by something so unexpected and at the time so insignificant.  

Do you know how unsettling it is to eat dinner at four?  

Do you know how unsettling it is to look out the window and see the empty streets where kids used to ride their bicycles while couples walked down the sidewalks?  

Do you know how unsettling it is going to bed before eight and fight to get to sleep by ten?  

Do you know unsettling it is waking up at four in the morning and knowing that today will be a carbon copy of yesterday and the day before that, etc.

When someone finally writes an account of this lost Pandemic year, what will be the main idea?  Will it be about how easily it is to disrupt the momentum of steady progress we have made in the past few decades or will it be the sempiternal fog that enveloped us all or will it be about half million people we lost to this Pandemic?  Whatever it is, I know one thing for certain, we will never be the same for both good and bad.