The COVID Lockdowns: A Remembrance

     In the summer of 2020, when the entire nation seemed to have gone mad with fear of the COVID virus, some Long Island retailers gave only lip service to the draconian lockdowns, masking dictates, and “social distancing” requirements. They published the “rules,” but put little or no effort into imposing them on their customers. Those were the ones I patronized. Yet it was all too obvious that most Long Islanders had been cowed by the bellowings from Fauci and the politicians who saw in his pronouncements an opportunity to increase their power over us.

     Masking was ubiquitous. People avoided coming close to one another. The floors of supermarkets were festooned with markings about social distancing. Some put up signs making the aisles into “one-way streets.” It was beyond depressing.

     Medical and quasi-medical establishments were under brutal regimes, as their licensing could be pulled for failing to enforce the lockdowns. My local optometrist had to conduct her examinations on masked patients, and without coming near them. My dentist was almost unable to function. The massage chain I patronized shut down completely.

     But I do remember one bright spot. It occurred in a Walgreen’s pharmacy / general store. I was there to collect a prescription: blood pressure medications. On my way to the pharmacist’s counter I spied a young woman accompanied by three small children. The young woman was shopping as casually as anyone I’d ever seen. Her kids followed her quietly, exhibiting perfect public behavior rarely seen in toddlers today. And none of the four were masked.

     The young woman smiled when she noticed me looking at her and her children, for I was unmasked as well. We greeted one another and exchanged some small talk as the children clustered around us. Her English was excellent. It developed that she was a widow, a recent immigrant from Eastern Europe who’d just been granted resident alien status.

     Of course the conversation eventually came to the pandemic and the lockdowns. I complimented her on not giving in to the fear campaign. It made her eyes brighten. She smiled and nodded.

     “They did this sort of thing to us in my native country,” she said. “Arbitrary rules, pulled out of the air. There wasn’t even an excuse for it, much of the time.”

     “It gladdened me to see another person who won’t bend to the madness,” I said.

     Her smile acquired a tinge of pride. “I didn’t come here to put up with more of that nonsense,” she said. “I came here to be an American.”

     It kept a smile on my face the whole day.