CIVILITY AND SOME STUPIDITY IN THE AGE OF CORONA

Our society, the last few weeks , to me, seems to have an eerie similarity to the days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on our Country.

People actually seem to be civil toward each other, good deeds are obvious everywhere and people actually seem to be caring about their neighbors. You can actually be slow to proceed at a green light without the car behind you leaning on their horn.Civility. Why can't we be like this everyday? Even when we aren't facing a pandemic.

W have an elderly family friend who lives alone and she was unable to find toilet paper last week. Me and Mom dropped an eight pack off to her  home. We told her we didn't want any potential exposure so we would leave it on her back porch. She called later to ask how much we wanted and we told her nothing. You would think we gave her a winning Lotto ticket.

I think it made us both feel good. Our friend in knowing that someone she could count on actually was thinking about her and us knowing we did something good, even as small of a gesture as it was.

As the old saying goes, no good deed goes unnoticed, we have received much more back this week than any toilet paper could cost. Neighbors have plenty of free time now and the homemade soups, baked goods, potato salad and much more has been making it's way to our doorstep.  The deliveries are usually prefaced with a phone call asking if we are home and can they leave something for us on the porch.

The doorbell rang the night before Saint Patrick's Day. It was a neighbor who had to cancel her weekend St. Patrick Day party and she showed up with a full corned beef and some vegetables she couldn't use. Mom cooked it and we packaged up Corned beef and cabbage, potatoes and carrots dinners for several other elderly people who were home with the restaurants closed. They were all packaged up and set on  the back porch for pickup. We maintained our social distance,

Today, another neighbor came over to get some of the Irish Bread we baked this weekend, she was carrying Banana bread and a container of potato salad she made for us. We will be baking more, but our grocery delivery with buttermilk won't come until Friday (sorry)

Although the pandemic may be the worst thing many of us will probably experience during our lifetimes it seems to be bringing out the best in many people. I wish, and hope, we can smarten up and continue the civility after this is done.

I only wish that the people that are supposed to be our so called "leaders" would forget the political sniping and start leading by example. That goes for everyone, from our President on down , including our 2 US Senators. There will be plenty of time when all is said and done to figure out who, if anyone, dropped the ball on a situation that no one could have predicted 12 months ago.

 I do have to say though that Governor Lamont appears to be showing some leadership and pulling State resources together and playing very little politics with this disaster. I think Governor Lamont would be well served to continue on the course he has set and resist allowing anyone to hijack his press conferences for their own political gain as was done last week by Senators Blumenthal and Murphy . We all are well aware of their disdain for President Trump, in the meantime people are dying and many more will potentially die while they further their political hatred.

And this pandemic also highlights the stupidity of many people also. I am sure we all, or at least most of us with any common sense, were appalled by the news coverage of "spring breakers" swarming the beaches in Florida, some how figuring they were immune because they were in College and partying. Also the ignorance of Florida's Governor, who waited almost a week before taking action to stop the reckless behavior by closing the beaches.

Most likely out of fear of offending business owners who receive substantial financial benefit from the drunken spring break revelers in their bars and clubs Unfortunately, many of those college partiers are now testing positive and suffering from the Corona virus.

I think another example of Corona stupidity is the testing and reporting of Corona cases in the news. The number of infections reported and the hospitalizations reported are partially due to the low number of initial test results and now that it has been ramped up and more results are received daily the numbers seem to double and triple almost daily. I think those infections were there all along, they are just getting identified and reported on a more timely basis .

TO BE CONTINUED...