Epidemics from the Past

Back when we had the Food Circle

Watched a PBS show about polio this week...it took 60 years for them to harness that virus. Kids every summer were restricted in play and full of fear (probably the parents were more scared) because it was crippling and a killer. Adults got it too, but kids were very susceptible. Swimming pools were key to transmission. Sixty years, but then it was eradicated. People my age remember the shots and then the sugar cubes. And then we had HIV, too, I remember that horror quite clearly. Reagan wouldn't deal with it, and it was blamed on Haitians and gay people. We've come a little way since then, as a society. Not far enough.

This is not my first quarantine. When I was 5, I got scarlet fever (on Thanksgiving, which ruined turkey for years...) and had to be hospitalized. That is a strep, not a virus, but it had a deadly power and could lead to rheumatic fever and heart damage. Now I realize no one else in my family got it, though as I recall they all had to take penicillin, but I guess, looking back, I had a serious case. I remember watching out the window as my two sisters played on big rocks in the park...I know I thought I was the one who liked playing on big rocks the best and it was just unfair. I know I did not think I could die of it; it was just painful and inconvenient and NOT FAIR.

Back when you could touch

I remember getting shots in my rear a few times a day, probably four, since they had to wake me up at night. I would hold onto the bars of the bed and scream...hey, I was five, and I'm sure it was my first time alone like that. The thing that popped into my mind today was that all the presents I got, the stuffed animals and the adult-sized high heels and the dime I got from a neighbor, whatever else I got...it all had to be thrown away when I got out of the hospital. Waah.

I do feel like crying and maybe even screaming quietly today. This missing Opening Day is JUST NOT FAIR. It's always such a gratifying explosion of affection and anticipation and yes, sales, on the first Saturday in April. I told myself to just go down to Farmers' and get a few things and it would feel better, but I am not going to do that. I already feel sad and resentful and some other irrational emotions about seeing photos of the West Block without us.

I guess a tiny part of me is glad some other people can sell things...I know everyone needs the income and fresh local produce is what keeps us all healthy and living the good life here. Still, the photos I saw didn't look much like fun for anyone there. It's cold and rainy and they have to do weird extreme things to stay apart and safe. I am glad they are taking it seriously. I am actually glad it isn't me down there, despite my other feelings. I hope they succeed in saving their businesses and their market.

I always go sell on the cold and rainy Saturdays, but it is hard. You need the popup and the weights, you need the extra clothes and your feet are cold all day and you can't warm up even when you eat three meals, and of course those Opening Day meals are so wonderful after months without them. It seems like a long day but I am always a little nostalgic packing up even on a marginal day, and I miss my routine and my work. I miss my people.

So the Opening Day we do get will be great...we can look forward to it happening eventually. My fear is that it will not be May, though, since we have all been so good at staying home, our curve is flat and extends into July. But I am guessing that once the amount of cases goes into decline, and people figure out all the ways to deal with it, and we maybe have something definitive to really protect us, then maybe life will resume. Of course all the events of June are gone now, all the reasons we would have the great tourism and families gathering for weddings and graduation, well, we won't have those. Maybe some new celebrations. July could be fun...August could be fantastic.

So we're having a more robust online set of options, and Saturday Market is nearing the fruition of a big database improvement campaign, paid for by the great year we had in 2019, so we'll have a page for each of us with photos and contact info and people will even be able to find our spots on a map each week, so when it is in place we'll be enhanced. Should be quite soon, except for the site map.

We need to get some advocacy for the USPS, since for me, mail order will be much easier with that home pickup service I just tried out this week. It's easy and while not cheap, it takes away a lot of my arguments against remote selling. I've got packing materials and my stuff is easy to mail. So as soon as people feel safer, that will be a good option, but of course we are having a few problems with the priorities of the federal government. Maybe we'll get a state PO structure. Pony Express can come back. Horses are out of work too. No hurry to get things delivered.

I've been trying to get motivated to work, but keep going to cooking and reading, that's just the way it is going. I'm trying to be kind to myself. One half day of printing was plenty, and I took some photos of my new bags. I got my starts in the ground. My neighbors are not paying any attention to safe practices on one side, even though all the other neighbors on the block are old enough to be high risk. These young people are just foolish and partiers and now they are standing out as dangerous to all of us, so I don't even like working on that side of the house. Where my berry patches are. I guess I might be doing some washing of the berries this year, when they are ripe.

I glare at them when I'm out there and they come and go. Maybe they have jobs (a couple of them might) and maybe they're doing their best, and I was young once so I can kind of imagine having a casual take on all this, but I feel endangered. So I'm inside. Looking out. I had actually forgotten about the scarlet fever time until today, but since I was so young, that is pretty firmly embedded in my memory. Vivid. I even think the little boy who was in there at the same time is someone I later had as a boyfriend in school, though we were not able to prove that.

I wonder how my family felt about it. Did it seem like I might die? Even my parents couldn't visit me, I think...maybe my Mom did, I don't remember. I know those stuffed animals were important. I got out a little stuffed bear from my son's old ones that I've saved, and I'll put it in the window, and I cuddle it a bit. I made a basket with a pillow for the cat my son was going to bring me, that now he can't, and I put the bear in it and pat him on the head. I'm not getting wacky, you are.

It's just weird times, and I guess we have to get used to it. I feel like I did when it was so smoky here two years back...all of a sudden I went from having my longterm survival all dialed in to having no plan for it at all. Outdoor retail depends on a healthy outdoors.

But I got a great phone call from someone intending to nurture community and there was a t-shirt project discussed...so I remembered that work will happen, that we will make normalcy reappear. Once we do get out, there will be a creativity explosion and that is happening now on the internet.

Long, long ago I decided as a self-employed person that the money will flow, and the first rule of that was to trust that the money will flow. It just will. Work will reward us with more work. It might look a little different and require a few more skills, but work and money will flow.

Trust is hard, but I had good nurses in 1955 and I am guessing they are even more skilled now. Even if I screamed, they decided to keep me alive so I could get out there to play on those rocks. I think just maybe I did get a chance to when my next sister was born in 1956. I think I remember that.

And thank goodness, we have nurses. We have doctors, and we have friends, and we have a very strong community. I got several porch deliveries (thank you so much!) and I might suit up and make a couple myself. Kind of waiting for a sunny day when I won't be able to stay in. Today, I can do it.

Today, I can do this.