Historic Events

When asked a question like, "if you could live in any time period, when would you choose?" I often say that I admire the World War II era. It was a time when the country and world united against a common evil. I've read many books that take place in this time period, and grew up with a grandmother who told plenty of stories about her life as a teenager growing up during the war.

I was already starting to feel like this is another world war. Last night's presidential address is being described as the most serious in a generation, equivalent to a declaration of war or a terrorist attack. We are all uniting against this enemy virus. We are all going to have to make sacrifices and change our daily lives, maybe for an extended period of time. It's going to impact things for years to come.

People often talk about "Where were you during 9/11," and before that it was "Where were you when JFK was shot?" I lived through 9/11. It happened while I was in college, and totally impacted my life and career trajectory. It's been almost two decades, and even though I didn't personally lose anyone in that tragedy, it has always been very difficult for me to watch video coverage of that day, even read about it, and especially to hear recordings of the victims. I think the new question in the future will be, "How did you get through COVID-19?" I wonder what my reaction will be to the inevitable documentary.

Today was a day of a lot of major closures - school districts, counties, states. Most of these things are closing for 2 weeks to a month. I don't think people are realizing that this is not a two-week thing. It is really going to be months, maybe a year, before I think we'll see anything close to normal. And even then, we'll be on edge for a long time, until we know this virus is truly eradicated. Also, what about supplies? There's food and stuff out there now (what's left of it - seems most supermarkets were decimated today), but what's in the pipeline? Nothing's coming from China, they've been shut down. And with businesses closing domestically, are necessities still being produced? I know people are upset right now because their game was cancelled or they need to change their trip or they don't know if they'll graduate on time... but I think there are some bigger global concerns, and I just hope that as a planet, humanity can get past this and pull itself back together.