Hunkering. Adapting. Wondering. Philosophizing. C’mon Man.

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April 23rd, 2020

We’re all hunkering down. If you’re not, you should be! (Click on any image to enlarge)

Merriam Webster (the dictionary people) define the word “hunker” as seen to the right. For some evolutionary reason, we all seem to have adapted the word to mean more of a mentality thing than a physical act. I don’t think too many of us are literally crouched down or just squatting on the floor. I mean, maybe on a really bad day, but not as a daily routine. We instead see “hunkering down” as a way to get through this. We conserve. We cook. We clean. We wear our masks and gloves. That’s hunkering in the 2020 Covid 19 vernacular.

(This paragraph is an edit. I just proofed this blog and read it from top to bottom and I realize now, way more than I did as I wrote it, how dark and depressing it is in a few spots. That tells me a lot about my mental state and where I am with all this. I’d love nothing more than for this blog to be 2,500 words of mirth, wit, and comedy. I’m sorry it’s not. It’s just what’s on my mind. Like a TV show, if it’s not what you want to experience you should change the channel.)

I’ve been reflecting on all of this a lot lately. It’s not getting better. I caution you to not believe those who say the worst is behind us. They typically have ulterior motives, or hidden agendas, or they just don’t want to face it. Open the economy up? Sounds like flipping a switch but it’s not. It’s people. It’s lives. Yes, the economic impact of this virus is real and very damaging. Many small businesses will never reopen. I get that. It impacts us, as well. Woodbury is full of small independent restaurants and businesses. I feel it. I feel for everyone. But what is the price you’ll pay in trade for human lives? Let’s open those casinos. Start the baseball season. Hit the beach. Why isn’t the mall open? Can’t the NBA and NHL just start their playoffs so we can all go jam into an arena? As of right now, as I write this, the US is at nearly 49,000 deaths, and that number is short of reality. Many people die at home and are never counted. This has all happened in basically a month. It’s staggering to me how nonchalant or oblivious some people can be. I don’t need to write about this. You all know it. We all know it. It’s the new reality. C’mon man…

This is going to go on for a while, and I’m more and more pessimistic about those things that used to be essential for me (aka sports) happening again anytime soon. I believe we are all in for a long hiatus, and it will be a slog. I also believe we may never go back to what we thought was normal. Can you even fathom the thought of being in a stadium or arena right now? Standing in line at the TSA checkpoint in a crowded airport? Sitting in a movie theater with someone coughing on your neck from the row behind you? Riding the subway or a bus, holding that pole or strap? Even dialing up an Uber for a ride across town? C’mon man. I can’t see any of that in the near future. But what do I know…

I wrote a blog on March 12 entitled “This Is Not A Good Time” to basically announce my understanding of what this virus really had in store for us, and my belief that continuing to author this as a light-hearted goofball of a blog seemed wrong, at the time. I stopped writing this for weeks. But I missed it.

To be clear, I may have spent 12 years in private catholic schools, but those instructors (especially the Jesuits at St. Louis U. High) taught us to be analytical and to understand and believe in science. I believe the real scientists and doctors. That’s who I listen to. It was all becoming crystal clear to me on March 12, but I knew basically nothing compared to what we’re all going through now.

We had just gotten back from our trip to Florida. We played with Bella and Stassi (the Twincesses) in Orlando for a few days. We went to Fort Myers and Bradenton to watch two Spring Training games, surrounded elbow-to-elbow by many thousands of other baseball fans who were doing the same in the warm Florida sunshine, with our biggest concern being how much sun block we had on. We flew home knowing about this virus thing, but not understanding it.

Just a couple of days after we left Spring Training in Florida, the teams instituted a policy to keep their players from interacting with fans. No more standing at the railing to sign autographs, take selfies, or shake hands. It was shock at the time. Just days later, it was all over. Everything was shut down. We went from the greatest sports nation in the world to a total void. And that was more than a month ago. It seems like a year.

At first, after getting back home, I was resistant to the concept of wearing a mask or gloves. Maybe you can relate to that. Part of it was just self-consciousness. I felt stupid wearing that stuff. Part of it was a natural reaction of “let’s not overreact” to something that might blow over any day. Something that would go down in history as another one of those “remember when everything was going to change because of (insert epidemic or pandemic name here)? Or even technological panics. Remember Y2K and how that was going to end the world? We’ve become numb to these alerts. Once one Category 5 hurricane comes ashore and quickly loses steam, not creating the cataclysm the experts warned us about, the next one gets a shrug. And people die. We’re numb. C’mon man. Sometimes I think we’re not just numb, we’re actually numbskulls

Barbara was very stern with me. She needed to be. I’m definitely “high risk” with this thing and the more we hear the more we understand just how difficult it is to avoid. Staying at home and having no interaction with other humans is really the only way to effectively combat it. But I couldn’t stand to see her have to “suit up” and go to the store or run all the errands. That led to me finally getting over my aversion to wearing the protective stuff. Now, I go to the store and actually get angry at the morons strolling around with no masks on, as if they’re bullet-proof and the whole thing doesn’t exist. They’re also likely to be the ones that stand right behind you in line, or elbow you out of the way to touch four different cucumbers before taking one. Must be a connection there, huh. C’mon man! Meanwhile, we’ve crossed the 48,000 death mark as a country. Those aren’t numbers. Those are fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers. Neighbors, co-workers, and friends.

I hear some public figures (especially the mayor of Las Vegas) attempt to spin this as a purely economic thing. Apparently they haven’t lost a friend or loved one yet. If they have, or if they’ve even known someone who went through it and barely survived (like I do – my friend Bobby Bennett who wrote about it in detail on his website) and they still think it’s fine to open the doors and let droves of unprotected people come in to act like nothing’s wrong and it’s all back to normal, well… I’m at a loss. Do they have a heart?  This thing may pass, but it sure won’t if stuff like that happens. We’re not there yet. We have a long way to go. If you don’t think so, C’mon man.

Yeah, I get stir crazy. I miss sports. I watch replays of games from years ago. I go a little more nuts every day. Barbara and I do the best we can. We share the chores and work as a team. We “suit up” before even getting the mail. We rely on Amazon and other delivery services a lot, but we take care to put on gloves when retrieving the packages from the porch. There’s no telling who touched or coughed on those boxes just an hour earlier. We protect each other. We look out for each other. We go for long walks when the weather is nice, and each day we do that we see more and more people understanding and practicing the protocol. Give space on the sidewalk. Make sure to wave and say hello. We all need that. We see the painted stones that neighborhood children have decorated and placed in the grass, and the messages they write in chalk on their driveways. We try not to eat too much, but that’s a challenge. Food is comfort. Hence the 3-mile brisk walks each day.

We love on our fuzzy black boyz, Boofus and Buster, and make sure they know how much we care about them. Extra treats don’t hurt. We crave comedy. We need to laugh. I do my part to get a giggle out of Barbara on an hourly basis.

‘I didn’t think I needed a mask” said TC Bear. C’mon man.

Today, at my desk I caught myself maneuvering a small TC Bear bobblehead, given to me by our friend Erica, and a small carved wooden baseball guy that my former player/manager, the great Bob Hughes, once presented to me. It’s a little version of me, wearing a Sauget Wizards uniform with number 7 on the back. That’s the number I wore as a Wizard, because Neil Fiala, the lone former big leaguer we had on the team, wanted number 5. That’s a baseball “pecking order” thing. Seniority matters and is respected. As you can see, TC Bear has his little arms outstretched, as he is attempting to explain to little wooden Wizard Bob why he didn’t wear a mask to the store. Little wooden Wizard Bob is unimpressed and looking stern. In the background, Minny and Paul are still shaking hands across the Mississippi like they have been since 1961. They didn’t know about social distancing back then. They didn’t know about it two months ago. Well, they really don’t even know about it now. They’re bobbleheads. I hope TC Bear got the message from little wooden Wizard Bob, who certainly looks like he just said “C’mon man.”

And now I’m back to writing this blog every Thursday. I need it. I’m writing a lot for the new book, as well, but this feels more like a conversation with friends. We’re all socially distancing, but we don’t have to be distant.

I haven’t cooked this much over a five-week span in my entire life. Nor have we run the dishwasher this much. When you cook and eat at home, you use dishes, silverware, pots, and pans. A lot of them. Who knew? We seem to fill the washer every two days. And apparently we eat a lot of cheese. We seem to need to clean the cheese grater every single day. Sometimes twice.

Last night I whipped up a creation of sliced and cubed chicken, seasoned, browned, and then cooked in soy sauce before placing it on a bed of chicken fried rice. Thumbs up from Barbara and my own bad self. Tonight, more chicken but this time the breast will be blackened and baked before adorning a Caesar Salad. We do mix in tacos and hamburgers, as well. Or a stir fry every now and then. And plenty of pasta. Grilled cheese sandwiches and PB & Js are staples for lunch. Also lots of pears, apples, and bananas; two of which go really great with peanut butter. Hint: It’s not the pears, I don’t think. Never tried that. But peanut butter and banana sandwiches rock, as do slices of apple smeared with peanut butter as a fine alternative to caramel. We put together a terrific Chef Salad a couple of night’s ago. Home run. I like to make my own Ranch dressing with the packets of Hidden Valley powder you mix with buttermilk and mayo. Way, way, way, WAY better than the bottled stuff. I guess I’m not the only one. In the last two trips to the store I’ve struck out. They have toilet paper now, and paper towels, but no Ranch mix. C’mon man.

Next Tuesday is Barbara’s birthday. I have some fun surprises for her, all of which I think she’ll really like, but the Filet Mignon steaks I’m going to grill have already been announced and are eagerly anticipated. For the record, I marinate my steaks in the Allegro brand marinade. Primo. This is not a paid endorsement. We just love the stuff.

We haven’t been to the dry cleaner since this started. It’s not open anyway, but there’s no need for dress shirts (for me) or suits (for Barbara) when you work at home and can’t go out to eat. I now consider the act of putting on jeans to be somewhat formal, when I need to change out of my sweats. My sweat pants have been in a constant rotation. And with both of us home, I’m doing the laundry every other day. It’s like we have five kids. And yes, I’m wearing jeans and a t-shirt right now. Very formal, indeed.

There was a lag between the time the virus hit and the time TV advertisers could adjust their commercials. It’s not that easy to reshoot and rewrite those things, and many of the ad buys are booked well in advance. Now, a vast majority of the ads are related to Covid-19. When an older ad pops up, and beer-drinking groups of young hip beautiful people are hugging and kissing in a crowded bar, I shake my head and wonder if we’ll ever see or do that again. Seems so reckless, in retrospect.

We’re doing our best to be optimistic and positive. We have a lot to be thankful for. We’re in good shape in every way. We take it seriously and desperately miss our friends from the old neighborhood. Seems like ancient history to recall when, just a couple of months ago, we’d get a text saying “A bunch of us are meeting at O’Malley’s Pub at seven. Come join us!” Wouldn’t we love to…

I’ve had one haircut since this started and Barbara gave it to me. I’ve trimmed my facial hair once a week, but if had I not done that I’d look like Grizzly Adams by now. Hockey players grow playoff beards. Maybe I should just give in and have a Covid-19 beard. Nope. Not gonna happen. Last night over dinner Barbara looked at me and said “I’ve never liked beards.” The trimmer comes back out after I finish this.

Next Tuesday was my planned departure day for nearly a month on Kauai, to cat-sit for my sister Mary. We cancelled those plans a month ago. This past week, my SIUE roomies Lance and Oscar and I finally admitted we needed to pull the plug on the San Diego and LA trip we had booked for late August. We’re working on alternative plans now. The guys might just come up here for a few days in August. Maybe we’ll drive up to a lake resort or the North Shore of Lake Superior.

On the travel note, a huge BRAVO! to Delta Airlines. No fees, no questions, no hassles. Cancel any trip and the entire fare is instantly credited to your Sky Miles account as an “E-Credit” you can use for future travel. And they’ve made all E-Credits now good for two full years instead of one. They also have extended everyone’s Sky Miles Medallion status for an extra year, since basically no one can fly enough to reach the same level again before the end of 2020. Even if I don’t fly again this year, I’ll be a Diamond Medallion member all the way through 2021, with tons of E-Credits to get me back in the air then. Thank you, Delta!

Time to wrap this up. I apologize if I got too worked up and pontificated a bit too much this time. I don’t take this thing lightly, and since Barbara and I are of the same frame of mind with it, and don’t socialize with anyone else, we talk about it a lot. And worry about it a lot. And we worry about our families, and our friends. Be safe out there. Wash your hands, of course, but put that mask on. Just put it on. I mean it.

It would help if you could click on the “Like” button at the top, unless of course you really did not like this blog. Either way I understand, but more likes are better for drawing new eyes to this.

I’ll see you next week. Barbara’s birthday should give me some material that’s far more fun to write about. Adios amigos!

Bob Wilber, at your service and really pretty handsome when wearing a mask. No? C’mon man!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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