I have a daily reminder of it as it totally upended and changed our lives. We were fortunate to not have lost anyone to that insidious disease, but our post-COVID life is very different. It messed with my head in a big way. One thing's for sure, we will not be wanting for cleaning supplies, paper products, and toiletries as I now keep LOTS of that on hand. As for teachers... a friend of mine, a high school art teacher, was sharing tales of how to teach art classes remotely without being able to get them supplies for projects. Fortunately, social media teacher groups were all over each other providing suggestions. "Let's see... gather your dirty laundry. Arrange it to make a portrait with it." My favorite though, was doing an interview with a random object found at home. She got that idea from an app called "Everything is Alive". You should try to get a picture and you and your granddaughter with that piece of art before they "pave paradise [and put up a parking lot]".
That's an excellent idea. I need to get her from her house to here (an hour's distance) but I remember that weekend so well. We also made little hearts that we put in the windows thanking people.
You could be a real wise-ass and get a customized frame from, like, Etsy "COVID Memories" (Or some snarky age appropriate dark humor. I mean, G-ma is a bit snarky.)
We have not even started to understand how that time affected us individually and collectively. Just as we have not understood so many other events and times. It will play out in our psychology and physiology and science and medicine will study us someday. They will find us quite interesting I think.
Thank you Susan. I still have a box of masks in the closet by the front door and some food put by in the pantry.
My hope, of course, is that the pandemic built resiliency but I can tell you from observations on a college campus that that is not the case across the board.
Resiliency, like anxiety, is a response to trauma. It is just a response we think is positive. And I have the same hope, and from my own experience teaching graduate students, I would agree.
I am so startled by the amnesia. Even more than by the denial.
And speaking of denial, as I watch the sequential choruses of right-wingers repeating mantras, like "the wave" going around a stadium and then fading, I was horribly struck by the "No one took into consideration the educational costs of shutting the schools!" wave. Did they pay no attention to public discourse and debate at the time? Do they think it was somehow "fake"? Or did they just forget it, like the corpse trailers in Central Park, let alone mass graves in Italy?
I remember a LOT of debate, on my own campus and elsewhere. This was a big damn deal to do this. The alternative was to expose one another and hope for the best, so I believe this was the difficult and right decision, closing down.
The further amnesia is that the schools closed (as did the rest of the nation) on the afternoon of March 13, 2020. That was under the convicted felon's administration. As a school principal, I remember well that 3-hour Friday afternoon staff meeting in which we teamed together (all in the same room - yikes!) to develop 2 weeks of lesson plans for each classroom on Zoom. We hoped we would return right after the nation figured it out in 2 weeks. We did not reopen until the following fall. I am not sure how Biden keeps getting blamed for that. Once Biden came into office, we finally had direction for vaccine manufacturing en masse, organizing vaccine distribution, getting PPE, and getting the supply chain rolling again. That is the only way the dying and the destruction of families finally waned.
I do not envy you your role during that time. I was frantically trying to put my entire semester's worth of classes online but that was a fairly easy lift considering I only had my students to consider -- far less students than did you.
Still, a daunting task for any and all educators who (in my opinion) rely heavily on direct relationships as high leverage currency to get the best learning outcomes for students. We did it and got through it, but it was a huge learning curve, not only for the students, but also for the adults. I never want us to be under unintelligent and impotent leadership during a national crisis again! It was so frightening and disorienting for far too long. Bravo to you, Susan, and to all of us who made it work for our students and families!
To add insult to injury many districts then, and still now, have anti-vaxxers on school boards. They are public health contrarians and have no shame. Their ignorance is a factor in causing more suffering and not advocating for the common good!
I wonder if there are any long term positive effects on students from the pandemic? There was worry that kids got behind. And maybe kids got more reliant on social media for connection. Your grandkids were lucky to have you and you were lucky to have them (& your son).
That was such a horrible and lonely time for us. We had no "bubble" and when we saw anyone it was outside and at a distance, or masked, which happened rarely. It was especially hard to not be able to see my grown-up kids. It's time for me to get rid of some of the reminders of that horrible time that are still around, too.
I'm hoping it did build resiliency but though I've done scant study on this, I wonder if a person had to have some measure of resilience to start with.
And for all of us but notably the most obviously reliant on others-- the young, the substantially old, the disabled-- the resiliency of their systems was critical. And not necessarily present.
Beyond even incapacity or neglect, I have always been worried about domestic violence, and about what those isolated confines facilitated.
There was a very temporary low murmur of taking-notice that the standards relative to which children would "get behind" were socially constructed and perhaps might not be viewed as absolute, but that's another forgotten thing. :(
For me it is deeply personal. My wife lost her cousin and his wife early on to COVID. During "The Great Epidemic" that followed WW1 my Mom was left orphaned as she lost her parents to that dreadful germ. I am left with the notion that ignorance is the one germ we can't seem to eradicate. Maybe you can cut out that patch of pavement to preserve like a dinosaur footprint so future generations will know that once their was a "Camelot" that we can rename "Carealot"?
It is good activity - taking stock in our progression post pandemic as well as maybe some areas we still need to work on. I, too, had a grandchild in school - KINDERGARTEN - during the pandemic. I came close to losing my mind. I wanted to throw the Chromebook in the street and have someone drive over it. If the unit itself was working was working, one of the programs wasn't, be it the language arts or math program. I still doubt the value of online kindergarten. But, we persevered. And yes, the teachers had it much worse. Anna's worked out of the backroom in the library. She also had never taught someone to write who was left handed... and halfway through the year admitted it to me. She said she was learning from me. I am right-handed, but have 2 sisters and my mother who were left -handed, so I had 2 people to call and beg for help.
That Trump allowed millions of people to die in this country can not be glossed over. If it weren't for pandemic planning by the CDC, there would have been more deaths. AND, no Trump had nothing to do with it. Oh, wow, he authorized ramp up of masks. I made over 2,000 masks before they were available for essential workers in stores and businesses. No, I do not want accolades. It kept me busy when I was so stressed out I couldn't sleep. I was lucky that friends - some in-person and some via Facebook donated fabric, elastic and thread to my campaign. I told them that real masks were coming, like those in the medical facilities. I feel that there should have been criminal charges regarding the number of people who contracted it in eldercare facilities. I lost a good friend because of the lack of support in the early days. She had a medical issue and had to be in the hospital, this is where she contracted it and died hooked up to one of those horrible ventilator machines.
I went to Manchester, CT, yesterday where the traveling Wall of Healing for those who died in Vietnam. I wonder if something like this could be created for those who died of Covid.
Lovely story, Susan. I have several friends who were elementary teachers during that time. They also went in the back yard and screamed, then returned to the screens to teach.
This reminded me of how isolating COVID was. I was fortunate to have my best friend living nearby, we walked almost every morning by 7. ( we bought lights for our heads for mornings when the sun rose later). We stayed a safe distance apart, one of us walked in the street. There was little traffic, morning rush was nonexistent. These walks kept me sane. Back then, I was working at home, my friend — in mask— went to work at a health care agency. We got through it— and lucky to have stayed healthy to this day.
We found ourselves gravitating to the two local university campuses for walks, both with great landscaping that was maintained throughout the shut down. A bit post apocalyptic looking but peaceful.
That is too funny; I like you more every day! I can't imagine the 'hoot' you are face to face. Thanks, so I am going to assume from now on that if an anagram ends in FG, I'll know what it is? Can I ask what TFG is, as I've seen that among several commenters. And please, remain crude. It fits the crazy thing that is our world today.
Well, I don't know if I'm a hoot face-to-face. My online self is edited, and I just came from an office where it was a congenial visit and I cussed three times. I've stopped apologizing.
I knew your serious side first, from reading your columns in the New Haven Register, as all your subjects are things I am very interested in. Please know that I was not implying that you are a comedian; you just have a way of quickly and cleverly getting to the point, which I appreciate greatly. I love that you are frank and open about yourself. There are so few 'real' people nowadays, it seems.
I don't take it as a slam to be called a comedian. That's pretty cool. I know that people laugh when I say some things and that isn't always an intention on my part.
During the pandemic, my husband worked as a contact tracer of people who'd tested positive for Covid. He did tracing for the Delaware Dept of Health. He and his team worked in four hour shifts seven days a week morning till night including all holidays because there were so many people ill with the disease. He spoke with people in every age group, ethnicity, profession, even people in the hospital collecting information about the illness, their contacts, etc. As opposed to the morons today who get bent out of shape each time they are told that there is another vaccine available and it's suggested they take it, back then people were happy to just talk to someone who was collecting data so that the states could respond more effectively to what was happening. Even people who were contacted on Xmas day and New Years Day didn't complain. It was a mentally taxing job especially when he'd have a call talking to each member of a family -- kids, parents, grandparents in various stages of illness hoping they wouldn't have to be hospitalized or end up dying from the illness.
Keep your street reminder if only via a foto. Too many people have forgotten what that time was like and how many people died before the vaccines came along that prevented people from becoming so terribly ill that they were hospitalized and died from Covid.
I have a daily reminder of it as it totally upended and changed our lives. We were fortunate to not have lost anyone to that insidious disease, but our post-COVID life is very different. It messed with my head in a big way. One thing's for sure, we will not be wanting for cleaning supplies, paper products, and toiletries as I now keep LOTS of that on hand. As for teachers... a friend of mine, a high school art teacher, was sharing tales of how to teach art classes remotely without being able to get them supplies for projects. Fortunately, social media teacher groups were all over each other providing suggestions. "Let's see... gather your dirty laundry. Arrange it to make a portrait with it." My favorite though, was doing an interview with a random object found at home. She got that idea from an app called "Everything is Alive". You should try to get a picture and you and your granddaughter with that piece of art before they "pave paradise [and put up a parking lot]".
That's an excellent idea. I need to get her from her house to here (an hour's distance) but I remember that weekend so well. We also made little hearts that we put in the windows thanking people.
You could be a real wise-ass and get a customized frame from, like, Etsy "COVID Memories" (Or some snarky age appropriate dark humor. I mean, G-ma is a bit snarky.)
We have not even started to understand how that time affected us individually and collectively. Just as we have not understood so many other events and times. It will play out in our psychology and physiology and science and medicine will study us someday. They will find us quite interesting I think.
Thank you Susan. I still have a box of masks in the closet by the front door and some food put by in the pantry.
My hope, of course, is that the pandemic built resiliency but I can tell you from observations on a college campus that that is not the case across the board.
Resiliency, like anxiety, is a response to trauma. It is just a response we think is positive. And I have the same hope, and from my own experience teaching graduate students, I would agree.
What a righteous story. Thank you!
I am so startled by the amnesia. Even more than by the denial.
And speaking of denial, as I watch the sequential choruses of right-wingers repeating mantras, like "the wave" going around a stadium and then fading, I was horribly struck by the "No one took into consideration the educational costs of shutting the schools!" wave. Did they pay no attention to public discourse and debate at the time? Do they think it was somehow "fake"? Or did they just forget it, like the corpse trailers in Central Park, let alone mass graves in Italy?
I remember a LOT of debate, on my own campus and elsewhere. This was a big damn deal to do this. The alternative was to expose one another and hope for the best, so I believe this was the difficult and right decision, closing down.
The further amnesia is that the schools closed (as did the rest of the nation) on the afternoon of March 13, 2020. That was under the convicted felon's administration. As a school principal, I remember well that 3-hour Friday afternoon staff meeting in which we teamed together (all in the same room - yikes!) to develop 2 weeks of lesson plans for each classroom on Zoom. We hoped we would return right after the nation figured it out in 2 weeks. We did not reopen until the following fall. I am not sure how Biden keeps getting blamed for that. Once Biden came into office, we finally had direction for vaccine manufacturing en masse, organizing vaccine distribution, getting PPE, and getting the supply chain rolling again. That is the only way the dying and the destruction of families finally waned.
I do not envy you your role during that time. I was frantically trying to put my entire semester's worth of classes online but that was a fairly easy lift considering I only had my students to consider -- far less students than did you.
Still, a daunting task for any and all educators who (in my opinion) rely heavily on direct relationships as high leverage currency to get the best learning outcomes for students. We did it and got through it, but it was a huge learning curve, not only for the students, but also for the adults. I never want us to be under unintelligent and impotent leadership during a national crisis again! It was so frightening and disorienting for far too long. Bravo to you, Susan, and to all of us who made it work for our students and families!
To add insult to injury many districts then, and still now, have anti-vaxxers on school boards. They are public health contrarians and have no shame. Their ignorance is a factor in causing more suffering and not advocating for the common good!
I wonder if there are any long term positive effects on students from the pandemic? There was worry that kids got behind. And maybe kids got more reliant on social media for connection. Your grandkids were lucky to have you and you were lucky to have them (& your son).
That was such a horrible and lonely time for us. We had no "bubble" and when we saw anyone it was outside and at a distance, or masked, which happened rarely. It was especially hard to not be able to see my grown-up kids. It's time for me to get rid of some of the reminders of that horrible time that are still around, too.
I'm hoping it did build resiliency but though I've done scant study on this, I wonder if a person had to have some measure of resilience to start with.
And for all of us but notably the most obviously reliant on others-- the young, the substantially old, the disabled-- the resiliency of their systems was critical. And not necessarily present.
Beyond even incapacity or neglect, I have always been worried about domestic violence, and about what those isolated confines facilitated.
There was a very temporary low murmur of taking-notice that the standards relative to which children would "get behind" were socially constructed and perhaps might not be viewed as absolute, but that's another forgotten thing. :(
For me it is deeply personal. My wife lost her cousin and his wife early on to COVID. During "The Great Epidemic" that followed WW1 my Mom was left orphaned as she lost her parents to that dreadful germ. I am left with the notion that ignorance is the one germ we can't seem to eradicate. Maybe you can cut out that patch of pavement to preserve like a dinosaur footprint so future generations will know that once their was a "Camelot" that we can rename "Carealot"?
I am so sorry.
Or simply recreate it once the paving is complete, with your more mature girl artist.
It is good activity - taking stock in our progression post pandemic as well as maybe some areas we still need to work on. I, too, had a grandchild in school - KINDERGARTEN - during the pandemic. I came close to losing my mind. I wanted to throw the Chromebook in the street and have someone drive over it. If the unit itself was working was working, one of the programs wasn't, be it the language arts or math program. I still doubt the value of online kindergarten. But, we persevered. And yes, the teachers had it much worse. Anna's worked out of the backroom in the library. She also had never taught someone to write who was left handed... and halfway through the year admitted it to me. She said she was learning from me. I am right-handed, but have 2 sisters and my mother who were left -handed, so I had 2 people to call and beg for help.
That Trump allowed millions of people to die in this country can not be glossed over. If it weren't for pandemic planning by the CDC, there would have been more deaths. AND, no Trump had nothing to do with it. Oh, wow, he authorized ramp up of masks. I made over 2,000 masks before they were available for essential workers in stores and businesses. No, I do not want accolades. It kept me busy when I was so stressed out I couldn't sleep. I was lucky that friends - some in-person and some via Facebook donated fabric, elastic and thread to my campaign. I told them that real masks were coming, like those in the medical facilities. I feel that there should have been criminal charges regarding the number of people who contracted it in eldercare facilities. I lost a good friend because of the lack of support in the early days. She had a medical issue and had to be in the hospital, this is where she contracted it and died hooked up to one of those horrible ventilator machines.
I went to Manchester, CT, yesterday where the traveling Wall of Healing for those who died in Vietnam. I wonder if something like this could be created for those who died of Covid.
Would that get politicized? You bet, but it does feel as if we need to mark their lives.
Lovely story, Susan. I have several friends who were elementary teachers during that time. They also went in the back yard and screamed, then returned to the screens to teach.
I appreciate them so much. I saw teachers do herculean work with my grandkids.
Beautiful Susan, truly.
Such a great story - staying together and safe during a very tough time! 😄
I was lucky to have them in my bubble.
This reminded me of how isolating COVID was. I was fortunate to have my best friend living nearby, we walked almost every morning by 7. ( we bought lights for our heads for mornings when the sun rose later). We stayed a safe distance apart, one of us walked in the street. There was little traffic, morning rush was nonexistent. These walks kept me sane. Back then, I was working at home, my friend — in mask— went to work at a health care agency. We got through it— and lucky to have stayed healthy to this day.
A friend of mine and I hiked, and explored towns we'd always wanted to see -- again, socially distancing and being careful. THAT kept me sane, too.
We found ourselves gravitating to the two local university campuses for walks, both with great landscaping that was maintained throughout the shut down. A bit post apocalyptic looking but peaceful.
That's how I felt about my own walks through my town. So quiet. So peaceful. So weird.
If searched for enough and hoped for enough,
We will always find
The message in the mess.
Amen. How are you so smart so early in the day?
To quote the great thinker and philosopher Jiminy Cricket,
Encyclopedia!!!!
May I ask what, or who is LFG. Also, several people have referred to TFG, etc. I'm not 'in' on this and am curious. TIA
Let's. Fucking. Go. I'm sorry to be crude.
I'm not sorry to be crude but my contract says I have to apologize when I AM crude.
I'm lying. I don't have a contract.
That is too funny; I like you more every day! I can't imagine the 'hoot' you are face to face. Thanks, so I am going to assume from now on that if an anagram ends in FG, I'll know what it is? Can I ask what TFG is, as I've seen that among several commenters. And please, remain crude. It fits the crazy thing that is our world today.
Well, I don't know if I'm a hoot face-to-face. My online self is edited, and I just came from an office where it was a congenial visit and I cussed three times. I've stopped apologizing.
I knew your serious side first, from reading your columns in the New Haven Register, as all your subjects are things I am very interested in. Please know that I was not implying that you are a comedian; you just have a way of quickly and cleverly getting to the point, which I appreciate greatly. I love that you are frank and open about yourself. There are so few 'real' people nowadays, it seems.
I don't take it as a slam to be called a comedian. That's pretty cool. I know that people laugh when I say some things and that isn't always an intention on my part.
“a neighbor asked if we were allowed to paint on the street.”
If you think you need to have permission to do something, it’s usually a mistake to ask for it.
During the pandemic, my husband worked as a contact tracer of people who'd tested positive for Covid. He did tracing for the Delaware Dept of Health. He and his team worked in four hour shifts seven days a week morning till night including all holidays because there were so many people ill with the disease. He spoke with people in every age group, ethnicity, profession, even people in the hospital collecting information about the illness, their contacts, etc. As opposed to the morons today who get bent out of shape each time they are told that there is another vaccine available and it's suggested they take it, back then people were happy to just talk to someone who was collecting data so that the states could respond more effectively to what was happening. Even people who were contacted on Xmas day and New Years Day didn't complain. It was a mentally taxing job especially when he'd have a call talking to each member of a family -- kids, parents, grandparents in various stages of illness hoping they wouldn't have to be hospitalized or end up dying from the illness.
Keep your street reminder if only via a foto. Too many people have forgotten what that time was like and how many people died before the vaccines came along that prevented people from becoming so terribly ill that they were hospitalized and died from Covid.
I’m glad you have that photo and that memory. ❤️