The Way We Were… The Way We’ll Never Be Again!
My Top 3 Remembering the Way it Was Before COVID-19
Remember when it was a kid’s dream to go to Fenway or Wrigley Field.
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The Way We Were… The Way We’ll Never Be Again!
Remember when it was a kid’s dream to get out of the classroom for the summer. Springtime turned our minds to summer camp or sporting events like baseball, rugby, or football.
Or heroes such as Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Israel Folau, Renaldo, or David Beckham, who played in 15 or 30-second videos hoping to prompt us to buy a ticket to attend an event.
Will we fall in line for tickets to a game or match at a world-renowned stadium again anytime soon? Will we have to stagger the lines and sit four or five seats apart? Could UFC, boxing, concerts, plays, and operas be something we only watch on TV or on the internet?
What was once seen as antisocial is now seen as smart socializing. Stand back and converse, no handshake, no hug, no kiss. What’s wrong with you? We don’t hug strangers anymore.
My first choice is Heartbreak by David August.
This chilling story begins with the grandfather’s answer to Tommy’s question about taking a walk. Let’s listen in.
“Well, back in the first pandemic, the idea was that it could hang in the air from people breathing it out. So if there was some wind, then you could walk a good distance behind them and the wind would blow it away before you stepped through the cloud of their exhalation.”
The grandfather’s chronicles take us back to a time before the coronavirus and how it changed everything, including baseball. It even changed the little things like taking a walk.
Read it all here:
My next choice is one by the Medium master storytellers himself, none other than Dean Middleburgh. Yes, I know I have pointed out one of his stories before, so those who have read Broken Arrow know precisely why I often choose his stories.
This time, his story, The Day the World Changed, starts out.
“It was just like any other day in September. Nothing was out of place. The weather in the UK was on the turn, and the summer had upped and packed its bags and headed south. Children sulked to school as their parents sighed with relief, looking forward to some respite.”
Those of us that were of age that day will never forget where we were or what we were doing. And we know immediately what he is referring to even before he gets to the event itself. It’s a common occurrence. We remember with extreme clarity our surroundings when tragedy strikes.
Those of us quite a bit older will remember with certainty what we had for breakfast the day John Kennedy was shot or where we were standing as we watched it play out on the news for the first time.
Go back a bit further to the “Day the Music Died” February 3rd, 1959. That day a plane carrying JP Richardson, aka, “The Big Bopper,” Ritchie Valens, and Buddy Holly crashed, and thus, it was immortalized in Don McLean’s song, “American Pie”. He was a paperboy at 13 years of age that day.
According to Psychology Today, it is not just tragedies but anything that sparks our emotions vividly. “A normal function of emotion is to enhance memory in order to improve recall of experiences that have importance or relevance for our survival.”
In fact, Clifford Nass, a professor at Stanford, told the NY Times, “This is a general tendency for everyone. Some people do have a more positive outlook, but almost everyone remembers negative things more strongly and in more detail.”
Therefore, it would seem that many of us will remember too much of the first months of 2020.
Those moments will likely point to a loss of naivety or innocence. Although there probably was no polaroid moment that depicts the pandemic for all of us, nothing like the news capsule of Jackie draping her body across the President. Nor was there a plane crash or morbid song like “Four Dead in Ohio” (Has it really been fifty years?) to imprint a picture of the pandemic in our minds.
That feeling of isolation and fear will doubtless leave us all with a forever scar stamped across our minds of the way it used to be. It will be like that tattoo of Jenny that will be there forever even though she walked away after only a few months.
As Dean relates, “September 11th, 2001 was unlike any other day in living memory. The world had changed, and nothing would be the same again…9/11 defined a generation.”
Will the coronavirus crisis forever scar our memories?
Read Dean’s impressions here:
Indeed, what will a COVID-19 free society look like?
Steve LeVine, an at-large Editor with Gen, supposes in his commentary The Harsh Future of American Cities that, “The hope in U.S. cities is that Covid-19 and the economic downturn will end with another delirious release — a rash of buying by exultant consumers, a new economic boom, and a return to work.”
But “American cities and towns seem likely to see profound scars of both the pandemic and the depression-like recession.”
The author remonstrates, “One conspicuous fallout is a potentially final blow to Main Street — the future likelihood that, when you walk or drive down your favorite roads, many of the shops and restaurants you love won’t reopen.”
Could life after the pandemic feature an upswing in the use of Uber, DoorDash, and other restaurants that offer delivery? Will we use these more to deliver our meals rather than chance dining out and mingling with people we aren’t sure are cured. It would seem to make sense, particularly if there is a second-wave as many are predicting.
Could a silver lining to the pandemic be a return of corporate assets to the US? But the dark cloud over anything foreign, including immigrants, could foster more hatred, restrictions, and fewer workers to fill those returning jobs.
Will the “We are all in this together” attitude expand and grow? We can only hope. Bad times typically bring about new industries, but reduced immigration could hinder their growth without workers.
How your city will look post-pandemic could very well depend on the economy and the willingness of its citizens to work together.
Read Steve LeVine’s The Harsh Future of American Cities here:
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About Me
Stephen Dalton is a retired US Army First Sergeant with a degree in journalism from the University of Maryland and a Certified US English Chicago Manual of Style Editor. He is a freelance journalist currently living in the Philippines.
You can see his portfolio here. Email [email protected]
