Posted on 02/02/2025 11:15:30 AM PST by DallasBiff
March marks the five-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, a collective trauma that New Englanders faced together. For an upcoming story to mark the anniversary, the Globe is asking readers to share their memories of moments from the pandemic.
Examples: Memories of being sent home from school or work, losing a loved one, new routines you created in isolation, including on Zoom; getting your first vaccine, going back to school or work; seeing someone without a mask for the first time.
Please share photos, videos, social media posts and written recollections of no longer than 100 words.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
We spent a week in New Orleans with our girlfriend. Rented a beautiful VRBO for 50% off the usual rate. We ate, drank, and took in the local color. Everyone said howgrateful they were for us coming.
Hit Bourbon St where the girls collected a massive amount of beads. Back at the VRBO they spent more than one night trying to kill me.
I’ll never forget that week.
L
The mask straps were hell on hearing aids. Even wearing them, I could not understand what anyone was saying because I have to read lips. My wife became my interpreter. At the grocery store, I would answer the checker’s questions because I remembered that they work off a script.
“did you find everything you needed?” Yes.
“Have a good day”. Ok
I just faked it a lot of the time.
I think about the people who looked down on my wife and me for refusing the jab and booster.
Damn, I wish I’d thought of that.
My family father and aunt also got it right after Christmas 2021 and it started out just seeming like they had eaten something that was iffy. We were totally unprepared for Covid seeming like something else.
You wouldn’t happen to live in Ohio, would you?
This is from something I so happened to post earlier today on a different thread before I knew about yours. It captures the memory that is seared into my soul so perfectly. I wish it weren’t so.
_______________________________________
“These things are still raw, the things we mourn to this day–the knowledge that when the cards were down, our institutions, our colleagues, and our friends would abandon reason and principle and the heart of human connection and cast us aside directly.”
https://brownstone.org/articles/hope-and-moral-repair/
Being a retired teacher every morning I would go to Grand nieces home and supervise her learning. The first 6 weeks were packets of materials. It wasn't until Sept that the kids went to school every other day distancing6 feet apart in the classroom
Almost forgot. Buying all Christmas presents at Tractor Supply. It can be done.
Fairly close to the border. At the time we attended church and shopped more in Toledo.
Tractor Supply. I think we bought quite a few there, too, thenm
Oh. I’m nowhere near there. I’m either in central Ohio or the NE quadrant, depending on the day.
The reason I ask, at the risk of sounding as if I wear a huge tinfoil cap, is that I sometimes think Covid is the result of some sort of viral clone, poison or contaminant they release in a crowded place. I was wondering if you so happened to be someplace I was at the same time.
I wish someone with web skills, which is not me, would start a website whereby people could list their whereabouts before they came down with Covid to see if any patterns emerge.
I think about the reports the first year of Covid that our governor loved to tell us about whereby more than one person in a household would come down with a bad, bad case of Covid.
Yet other people residing in the home or who had spent a whole day in the home with the people who got sick had nary a hint of the ‘rona.
I wonder if the two people who got hit hard went to the same place at the same time, like to a grocery store, and walked through an invisible cloud someone just sprayed.
Very well stated. My sentiments exactly.
That would be very interesting. I would like to see that, too.
My great-grandmother died from TB. She was from a fairly well-off family in Berkey, Ohio. I wonder how she came down with it, because the conditions do not seem right. Nor was her family recent immigrants. She had it several years before passing in 1914. Even moved to AZ to try to heal. Maybe she picked it up in Toledo. I need a map from back then, too.
Oh my, your story is one of the worst that I have heard. Words fail me.
Nice rant!
Lot’s worse than mine. The ones that rip my heart out are old people who spent months alone in a home, family was not allowed to see them except maybe through a window, and they died alone. Happened to a LOT of families.
Cannot fathom that.
I had someone confront me regarding my altered mask and it was at a nail salon. She asked me if I had a handicap requiring altering my mask and I said it was none of her business. I wore my altered mask through the pedicure, then after I had paid I gave her the what-for. I can't remember exactly how the conversation went, but I was pissed. I said, "You told me I had to wear a mask. I could have come in her in an eye mask and it would have complied with your ridiculous order." I told her I would never return to that salon again, and I said it loud enough for everyone in the place to hear me. The salon was out of business by the end of 2021.
Then there was the Starbucks experience. I had placed an order through the mobile app and went inside to retrieve it sans mask. There was no one in the store, but the baristas flipped out and cowered like rabbits when they saw me approach their counter. "Do you have a mask????" they shrieked.
I smiled. "No, I do not," I answered.
"Here, I'll give you a mask!"
"Okay." I took the mask from him when he stretched his arm way out to give it to me. At that point, I had to use the restroom. When I came out, I was still holding the mask in my hand and went to approach the counter.
"Ma'am, you have to WEAR the mask while in the store!"
"Oh. I'm sorry; I don't wear masks."
"We cannot serve you unless you wear the mask!"
(Still being super pleasant.) "Oh, that's a shame. Well, since I see you've already made my coffee and I've already paid for it, I'll just take it and leave." They were utterly dumbfounded and I laughed all the way out the door.
I remember one day being told to go home. I asked why and was told that an email had been sent out which I had not seen yet from upper management telling us this was to be for 2 weeks.... 2 weeks.
As I was leaving with my pc and paperwork I caught a glance at some co-workers in another dept we worked with as they were leaving. I have not seen them since as I retired in Nov 2021. I have been in contact with some by text and email.
When I retired I came back to the office to clean out my desk and only saw 1 person in the office who worked in another dept. The rest of the office was empty and stayed that way thru 2024.
Only other people in the building that once had 300 people were those less then 20 people in the Payroll dept. Some were wearing masks and others were not. Those that were not had the covid shot. I wonder who is still alive or having medical issues...
To this day starting in mid 2024 the company is only requiring 3 days in the office.
COVID19 Facts
The virus can travel 6’, it can not travel 6’1” or greater, it can live on all surfaces except anything that comes in the mail from Amazon, it does not live in Target, Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s or any grocery store.
It’s harmless in protests, riots and looting. It is only deadly in bars, restaurants, small businesses, hair salons and it can not live on your food as long as you get it to go.
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