The Good Old Days

The Good Old Days            

                Preparing to enter work, I tied my face mask on, positioning it to avoid fogging my glasses, picked up my lunch box and headed into the building. In the lobby, I was directed to stand on a star where I was scanned to make sure my temperature wasn’t too high. Passing that test, I was allowed to enter the plant.

                The company has always been strict when it comes to safety. You have to wear steel toed shoes and safety glasses are a necessity. Gloves are also required for the workers. So when the state mandated masks for employees, we never flinched. The temperature scans fell in right behind the masks. (Would this be next? “Ok, everyone line up to get your GPS tracker. It will only hurt a little bit.)

                There have been a lot of changes in the last month or two. I think that the biggest thing people miss is socializing. It is tough staying at home. We miss being able to talk with someone face to face, being able to hug a friend or loved one and not having to worry about any consequences.

                I just heard about a study, (I don’t know who did it or even if it’s true or not, but I tend to imagine it is.) saying that a lot of senior citizens have been going to the grocery stores a couple times a week,  even though they didn’t need any groceries. It was mostly for the human contact, seeing other people. It doesn’t matter whether you know them or not, it’s other human beings!

                There are plenty of things I miss. Remember how nice it was to sit down at a table and have a waiter take your order, place it in front of you and ask if there was anything else you’d like? How about getting a haircut, I never thought I’d miss those! Being able to leave the house on a whim, not planning or calling ahead before you leave. Going somewhere without worrying if the place is open or not, those were the days!

                I really miss sitting down with Ann Marie and playing a couple games of Scrabble. Drinking a cup of coffee together and talking about the day. Sitting outside together under the tree or watching television together…in the same house!

                One of the things we both miss is visiting bookstores and libraries. The day the libraries closed is burned in my brain. We had gone to see if our favorite vegetable stand had reopened yet and on the way back, decided to check our e-mails. We pulled into a library and the parking lot was empty. A notice was posted on the door saying all the libraries in the commonwealth were closed as of March 13^th. Friday the 13^th! We drove to a couple different libraries and they all were closed. That was the day the “virus” hit home. Not long afterwards, the stores all shut down. Our supply of paper reading materials was shut off!

                   I'm really looking forward to being able to go inside bookstores again. To roam through the shelves, scan the titles, pulling out books that look interesting and paging through them. To be able to feel the texture of the pages, thick, thin, slick or rough is something I hold dear.  Reading a paragraph or two before deciding if it should come home with me or if it should be returned to the shelf, it’s part of the bookstore experience. I know we will have to wear our masks to enter the stores. That won’t be a problem! If they really want me to, I’ll even wear gloves. (Preferably cotton ones)

                So many of the stores we frequent are smaller shops and I worry about their surviving this nasty time in our history. The public doesn’t have as much spare cash as they did a few months ago, their unessential spending will have decreased a bit. (Some of us consider books an essential need, they are vital to life!) The shops have bills which need paid, rents which need taken care of. I hope and pray that bookstores won’t become a thing of the past.  I worry about this! The thought of it sends chills down my spine.  I don’t want to do my book buying on-line! To me, so much of the experience of buying a book is tactile, smelling, feeling and paging through them prior to buying. There is also the contact with the booksellers! Discussing authors, recent reads, new books, scuttlebutt about the book industry, they are my friends and I’d miss seeing them. Bookstores are community meeting places, places where ideas and stories are passed around.

                Yes, a lot of things have changed and will be changing. Hopefully we will all be able to deal with them and to change along with them.

                I can’t help but wonder, how is it possible that “The Good Old Days” were only a couple months ago?

                                                                                                                (5.2.2020)