I’m come from the Gen X generation. When I graduated from High School the internet did not exist and while there were car phones, cell phones also did not exist. I didn’t grow up with these things.
On the farm where I lived from 4th grade to my sophomore year of HS and after a short stint in Seattle (2 years) I spent my senior year at this same farm. I explain to people we were wedged somewhere between Ethan/Dimock/Parkston and Milltown. It really was the middle of nowhere.
I know isolation. I have lived by myself in my home for 18 years and before that I lived for about 7 years by myself in various apartments. During the summer living on the farm the only time I got in a car or pickup was to go to church on Sunday. EVERY SUNDAY. I mostly spent my summers cleaning hog barns, doing chores, walking beans (SUCKS!) and bailing hay. But when I wasn’t working I went on hours long hikes with my various dogs exploring the prairie. I found old cars, old farmstead cellars, beaver dams and even explored a homestead house. Besides my dogs, and my brother, I mostly talked to myself and took in a great appreciation for nature and a great dislike for dumb farm animals.
I can count on a couple of fingers the things I have been missing because of Covid. Live music (I really missed Levitt this summer) eating out and traveling. Other than that I really haven’t experienced despair because of Covid.
But I think the isolation has been making people crazy. Just look at the state our country is in. We have a president who refuses to concede (though he lost the popular and electoral count and no amount of fraud could overturn this election) that is, if it even existed. We have a governor who doesn’t believe in science and goes along with the insanity. We have an AG who drove off of the road and killed a man and still walks free. We have local officials who don’t understand leadership and to top it all off this week a CEO of a major healthcare institution writing poems about Covid and how he won’t wear a mask while the 50,000 workers he manage languish in his institutions.
I call it Covid Madness.
While I have only been on this earth a little under a half century, I have never seen so much denial, craziness and despair. NEVER.
Does it worry me? No. Because I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel and only the truth will save us.
But we have to continue to fight for those things that are important to us. Our health and wellbeing, our families and the ones we love, our livelihoods, justice, open government and most of all good craft beer.
So if you have the day off today, like I do, I implore you to turn off your phone, the internet and the TV and make a list of all the things that are important to you. Also make a second list of all the wonderful and positive things you are going to do when we come out of this pandemic.
Don’t become a victim of Covid Madness. We got this, but it is going to take a little effort and having common sense and peace of mind. Also, if you go shopping today, where a dang mask!