It’s New Year’s Eve like no other we have ever experienced. Well, you would have to be 102 years old and then some to connect what the world is going through now with what the world experienced then.
Smithsonian Magazine, highlighting a piece written in the Ohio State Journal on Dec. 21, 1918, said the state’s acting health commissioner had this to say about the “lingering” Spanish flu pandemic: “Beware the mistletoe.” Not only should readers resist the temptation of a holiday kiss, but they shouldn’t even be at a social gathering where it might come up.
“You will show your love for dad and mother, brother, sister and the rest of ’em best this year by sticking to your own home instead of paying annual Christmas visits, holding family reunions, and parties generally.”
That was before there was ever such a thing as the CDC, and such matters as how to cope with the flu were left to states and municipalities. San Francisco, the magazine pointed out, took the flu seriously and had a mandate to wear masks.
Perhaps you are reading this today because your relatives of a hundred years ago took the matter seriously as well and wore masks and socially distanced even if they didn’t have a snappy name for it then.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
So while the year has been one to remember with dread or maybe just to forget, there have been events and outpourings of love and attention mixed in with the lamentable.
Things were cruising along just dandy there for the early part of 2020. And then we all started paying more attention to the map, the one of the states that had cases of the coronavirus. All the states around Arkansas on the map were colored red, meaning those states had detected the coronavirus in at least one person.
And then the case in Pine Bluff happened, and everything in our world changed from that day forwarded. Schools would soon be closed down “temporarily” but they never reopened for that school year.
Businesses had to close their doors. Easter was a livestreamed service with many preachers and soloists and others standing where they normally stand, at the front of the church, but with no one in the pews. Some churches held services in their parking lots, like a daytime drive-in movie.
Then we were all introduced to Zoom or some variation. People who were lucky enough to still have jobs worked from home. We disinfected our counter tops and looked at the mail with a suspect eye, wondering if it was really necessary to leave it outside to rid it of infection.
Masks became a necessity, but they also became political symbols, and they are still that in some circles. If possible, many people, following the science, tried to stay out of risky situations, but while we were told to behave that way, scores if not hundreds and thousands gathered at various events, many not wearing masks or social distancing. And people have now died by the hundreds of thousands, making this outbreak the leading cause of death in America.
As grim, and to some extent unnecessary, as all that was, life in Pine Bluff went on. A casino opened to great anticipation and fanfare. Medical buildings were planned and construction on them started. Several Jefferson County county buildings had groundbreakings, as did the White Hall School District. A new jaw-dropping library opened. Business announced expansions and with them hundreds of new jobs. Main Street, which, just a few short years ago, was blocked off because buildings had fallen and their bricks had scattered across the lanes, has now taken on a positively inviting look with the new streetscape, sidewalks and lights.
So it was definitely a glass half-full, half-empty kind of year. Even the half-empty part had its upside. No one can remember — because it’s never happened — a time when almost every single person in the world experienced the same risks and fears at the same time. That has become a powerful bond, bridging continents and languages.
That condition also let us all know that despite our advancements in medicine and science, an invisible foe can take us down with pretty much the same efficiency as another invisible foe did 102 years ago. It caused us to put a laser focus on the things in life that matter as it reminded us how fragile life is, and it put some sober meaning into the trite phrase that we are all in this together. Certainly, we were and are.
But science is rising up against this new foe, and if we can all hold it together a few more months, while the vaccinations are picking up steam, perhaps by the end of the year, we will be fishing out old masks from the pockets of coats and from under car seats and shaking our heads at what we lived through.
Yes, come on, 2021. The bar for you is pretty low. But surely you can beat 2020.