Wouldn’t It Be Nice… New normal
Dear Fred, Hello again future reporter Fred as you compile the 100th anniversary coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic for The Star News in the year 2120.
Did you get a chance to research Fred Rogers, the person who I have named you after? If you get a chance, look up his testimony to Congress from 1969 when they tried to cut funding in half for PBS, it is pretty awesome.
As you can see I am continuing to feed you “slice of life” material your editor wants for the centennial package on the impact COVID-19 had for those who experienced it first hand. I hope it is a good package and that your editor gives you enough space and time to make it into an award-winning piece. I am doing my part, you will have to pick up the slack there, Fred.
That said, a reader noted that my column last week ended rather abruptly. This was because during layout the last sentence got cut off. It was supposed to have ended on a patriotic and uplifting note with the visual image of the two small American flags on my desk standing upright and unbowed despite the crisis. Yeah, I know it is a little late to bring it up now, but I don’t like leaving things hanging out there.
While the national and international rates of those infected continues to grow, so far we have not had any positive tests of people in Taylor County at least as of earlier this week. This is good news and slowing the spread is showing that social distancing and the governor’s Safer at Home order is working. With any luck we will be out of the woods before summer.
The bummer is that the normal school and community events that would have kept everyone hopping this time of year have largely been canceled or postponed to some date. Granted, future reporter Fred, you have the advantage on us by being able to flip ahead in the bound volumes of The Star News and check out how the story ends.
For our part, we need to continue to keep a bright outlook.
Short-term discomfort is nothing new for people who live in places where the weather hates us as much as it does in northern Wisconsin. It probably says something troubling about our collective mental state that those of us who call Wisconsin home would just as soon not live anywhere else, even if we are kept inside by rain, snow, sleet, hail, mosquitoes and plagues of biting black flies and that is just a typical Tuesday We make up for it when the maple sap flows sweetly in spring, when the clear water burbles in brooks and out of wells, and in the heady smell of hops added at the precise time of the boil to make a perfect batch of beer.
These are the types of things that make it worth living in Wisconsin and these are the type of things that the minor inconvenience of a Safer at Home order can’t take away from us.
There are few things more crystal clear and beautiful than the blue sky following a horrific storm. It is as if the sky has been scrubbed clean and there is a fresh palette upon which to paint.
The current COVID-19 crisis is a storm. But instead of risking getting blown away in the wind or worrying about the amount of snow-load on our roofs, we stay inside and distance ourselves from out neighbors to allow our medical system to keep up.
Like all storms, this will blow over and we will emerge from our shelters amazed once again by the splendor of God’s creation and with a renewed sense of purpose.
Life goes on and so must we all.
Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News.
