Bill's Covid Journal #3
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Title
Bill's Covid Journal #3
Description
[Email #3 written to friends during the pandemic by Bill Hogan]
Fri 2020-04-10 12:51 AM
Signs of Our Times – Week Four in Isolation
Let the record show that in the fourth week of the Covid -19 lockdown in St. Catharines the various governments have shut down all construction sites, barred in-store customers at hardware stores (but you can line up outside and place an order) closed off all city parks and blockaded the cemeteries. Let the record also show that Pauline has run out of cat video sites and moved onto kitten videos.
As this noose of closings tightens and tightens, it's inevitable the loss of civil liberties comes into play. There are problems, but nothing has really fussed me so far except the cemetery rule. It's cruel. Sure, no funeral gatherings, but a couple visiting a grave site getting run off? It's just coincidence, but our son Edward's birth date is April 20 and we usually visited his grave and gave the plot a good spring clean-up, adding new flowers. I guess not, this year. Twenty-three years ago, now, more years than he lived.
As well as civil liberties being hijacked, I'm just a touch bothered by a couple of things. The busses now have signs on them, "Essential Travel Only" as if anyone in this city would voluntarily get on a bus if they didn't need to. Stop with this rude signage!. I also feel sorry for the many regular customers of my local Tim Horton's who don't own cars and are not allowed to walk up to the drive-thru window. This is a poor area with low quality apartment blocks so there's lots without cars. Whatever.
There's been some great comments online on this stay-at-home stuff. Pauline was cracked up by Sharon's take on it. She says this situation is turning us into dogs; we're constantly roaming around looking for food, watching for any motion outside the front window, being told no if we get too close to strangers and getting really excited about a car ride. Rollo suggests that if you have a glass of wine in each hand you can't touch your face. My sister Karen said that today she ventured into that great forgotten place--OUTSIDE!
Oh, I've been corrected on a few items. Private Eyes was closed some time ago before the Coronavirus came, I just hadn't noticed. Maddie is ten not nine, as she strongly let me know; it was two months ago, Grandpa. Lindsay does not use Zoom, but a more sophisticated more secure cousin for her work at The Global Fund. She was just trying to dumb it down for me. And two people laughed at "The Hemingway" and suggested something like Old Order Amish would be closer.
And if I'm doing mea culpas I might add I stole that line about "the cheap price of gas and nowhere to go" from Martha and I ran with a riff from Brad on Michelle's early morning Zoom conference calls without footnoting that either. I've felt guilty for a week.
Well the first two weeks of isolation I sorted through 5,000 photos, throwing 4,000 out, and putting the rest into albums. Want to know what this family was doing in the summer of '69? There's an album for that. Now Pauline says I have to go through and identify everyone. Eeeeuw! Really? Maybe next year.
Last week I went through boxes of memorabilia, filing things properly. I'll share some of the interesting items in later ramblings, but one item tickled me. I was once editor of Canada's oldest weekly (Permit # 1), the Lindsay Watchman-Warder. Then, after marriage, I worked as the political/municipal reporter for the Etobicoke weekly. Since my regular copy ran a week after events, I also became a "stringer" for The Toronto Telegram, a Toronto daily, if there was an important Etobicoke story. I've got all these pay stubs and I just love the wages--"Four stories, June 1970, $28." (I did make page 2 once, for $25, though.) Mama don't let your sons grow up to be news guys.
It wasn't the wages that got me out of a career in newspapers, however. Council wanted to put an incinerator in Etobicoke and every NIMBY kook fought it. (My favorite quote was "Put it in the Mayor's back yard!"). I wrote and rewrote and re-rewrote The Great Etobicoke Incinerator Story 48 times. I still have nightmares about it. End of THAT career.
I've included with this blog, I guess you'd call it, some pictures of the signs from around my block--Timmies, the local hardware store, the Avondale, Confederation Park (where the rabbits are, kids) and the nearby bus stop. Yes, signs of our times.
Before I close, I'd like to mention how this plague has really sharpened our priorities. Forget the Trump impeachment, forget Trudeau's political fumbles, forget the terrible new Tim Horton's lids. We all now concentrate on the really important things, like keeping safe and keeping loved ones safer. As the Premier of Nova Scotia said, "Stay the blazes home".
Have a happy Easter.
Bill
Fri 2020-04-10 12:51 AM
Signs of Our Times – Week Four in Isolation
Let the record show that in the fourth week of the Covid -19 lockdown in St. Catharines the various governments have shut down all construction sites, barred in-store customers at hardware stores (but you can line up outside and place an order) closed off all city parks and blockaded the cemeteries. Let the record also show that Pauline has run out of cat video sites and moved onto kitten videos.
As this noose of closings tightens and tightens, it's inevitable the loss of civil liberties comes into play. There are problems, but nothing has really fussed me so far except the cemetery rule. It's cruel. Sure, no funeral gatherings, but a couple visiting a grave site getting run off? It's just coincidence, but our son Edward's birth date is April 20 and we usually visited his grave and gave the plot a good spring clean-up, adding new flowers. I guess not, this year. Twenty-three years ago, now, more years than he lived.
As well as civil liberties being hijacked, I'm just a touch bothered by a couple of things. The busses now have signs on them, "Essential Travel Only" as if anyone in this city would voluntarily get on a bus if they didn't need to. Stop with this rude signage!. I also feel sorry for the many regular customers of my local Tim Horton's who don't own cars and are not allowed to walk up to the drive-thru window. This is a poor area with low quality apartment blocks so there's lots without cars. Whatever.
There's been some great comments online on this stay-at-home stuff. Pauline was cracked up by Sharon's take on it. She says this situation is turning us into dogs; we're constantly roaming around looking for food, watching for any motion outside the front window, being told no if we get too close to strangers and getting really excited about a car ride. Rollo suggests that if you have a glass of wine in each hand you can't touch your face. My sister Karen said that today she ventured into that great forgotten place--OUTSIDE!
Oh, I've been corrected on a few items. Private Eyes was closed some time ago before the Coronavirus came, I just hadn't noticed. Maddie is ten not nine, as she strongly let me know; it was two months ago, Grandpa. Lindsay does not use Zoom, but a more sophisticated more secure cousin for her work at The Global Fund. She was just trying to dumb it down for me. And two people laughed at "The Hemingway" and suggested something like Old Order Amish would be closer.
And if I'm doing mea culpas I might add I stole that line about "the cheap price of gas and nowhere to go" from Martha and I ran with a riff from Brad on Michelle's early morning Zoom conference calls without footnoting that either. I've felt guilty for a week.
Well the first two weeks of isolation I sorted through 5,000 photos, throwing 4,000 out, and putting the rest into albums. Want to know what this family was doing in the summer of '69? There's an album for that. Now Pauline says I have to go through and identify everyone. Eeeeuw! Really? Maybe next year.
Last week I went through boxes of memorabilia, filing things properly. I'll share some of the interesting items in later ramblings, but one item tickled me. I was once editor of Canada's oldest weekly (Permit # 1), the Lindsay Watchman-Warder. Then, after marriage, I worked as the political/municipal reporter for the Etobicoke weekly. Since my regular copy ran a week after events, I also became a "stringer" for The Toronto Telegram, a Toronto daily, if there was an important Etobicoke story. I've got all these pay stubs and I just love the wages--"Four stories, June 1970, $28." (I did make page 2 once, for $25, though.) Mama don't let your sons grow up to be news guys.
It wasn't the wages that got me out of a career in newspapers, however. Council wanted to put an incinerator in Etobicoke and every NIMBY kook fought it. (My favorite quote was "Put it in the Mayor's back yard!"). I wrote and rewrote and re-rewrote The Great Etobicoke Incinerator Story 48 times. I still have nightmares about it. End of THAT career.
I've included with this blog, I guess you'd call it, some pictures of the signs from around my block--Timmies, the local hardware store, the Avondale, Confederation Park (where the rabbits are, kids) and the nearby bus stop. Yes, signs of our times.
Before I close, I'd like to mention how this plague has really sharpened our priorities. Forget the Trump impeachment, forget Trudeau's political fumbles, forget the terrible new Tim Horton's lids. We all now concentrate on the really important things, like keeping safe and keeping loved ones safer. As the Premier of Nova Scotia said, "Stay the blazes home".
Have a happy Easter.
Bill
Creator
Bill Hogan
Date
April 10, 2020
Spatial Coverage
St. Catharines
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