Thursday, April 2, 2020 at 10:03 AM
Streator City Park
Streator, Illinois
"Sunshine makes the best disinfectant".
I heard Ronald Reagan say that sentiment. He said many similar sayings.
"Trust but verify", he said when talking about nuclear arms treaties with
the Soviet Union. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” he ordered.
The Berlin Wall fell. I've seen chunks of the
wall on display by the Armory in Syracuse and celebrated in the garden at the
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. "Ronald Reagan gave me my
freedom", said an electrician from East Germany who talked to me as we
studied the rubble brought from Germany. The broken concrete tower had streaks
of spray paint.
I wasn’t a Reganite in the Eighties and yet,
most of my college friends were staunchly for Ronald and the conservative
movement. Rick subscribed to National Review, and I read the weekly from cover
to cover. He grilled me for comprehension while we smoked cigars, my own
personal William F. Buckley Junior.
Jim argued with me over pitchers of beer at Dooly’s
in East Lansing, saying that the Keynesian multiplier had nothing over the
power of the Laffer Curve. He stubbed out his cigarette in an ash tray. We
could still smoke indoors in the early Eighties. “See those ashes. That’s your
Keynesian multiplier!”
Steve bought me button down shirts and I paid
him back later. He didn’t want me to go to sorority formals dressed poorly. He
lent me his car for dates, even to drive to class. He talked about how his
parents made over one hundred thousand a year and invested it well. He showed me
how. I never followed his lessons.
Zac lived in a high-rise apartment near Oak
Street Beach in Chicago. I came down by car, by bus or by train any time I
wanted. We were the same size, so I wore his cashmere blazer around town and
borrowed his button downs. I pretended to be rich and people believed me. He
picked up the bills with the corporate American Express card, saying, “Zac it!”
It was okay if we were talking business. And business was good in the Eighties.
Fast forward, and four decades have passed. I'm
looking at the sunshine falling on the grass of Streator City Park, casting
shadows of the stout oak trees left by the founders of the park in 1868, after
the Civil War. Colonel Ralph Plumb stands as a statue, welcoming visitors. No
need to be socially distant from a statue, so give Ralph a hug and wipe him
down with a spritz of Clorox.
Today’s sunshine has given me delusional hope
Covid-19 will spread more slowly when the weather grows warmer. The virus
doesn't like heat because heat can melt its fatty sheath. SARS receded and went
quiet with the approach of summer. The Spanish Flu of 1919 took a summer break
only to come back more intensely and deadly by fall. We might have a vaccine
and a stock of health care supplies after a summer? We would use the break
wisely.
I dared to go on a business trip to Toronto
while SARS was active in the city. My company, TI Automotive, paid my airfare
and hotel bills. I stayed for a week and the streets were filled with people
and the restaurants stayed open. I enjoyed doing simple work at the factory in
Bramalea, outside Toronto. I drove out in the mornings from a downtown hotel
built into an Armory from the early days of the city. I shopped at St. Lawrence
Market, a structure with roots in 1845. Not once did I see a sign that people
were suffering, taking ill from a killer disease.
I flew home. I drove back from the airport. I
went to work. I had no fever, no shakes, no sign of illness. I drove out to
Waterford to pick up my daughter for our usual weekend fun. We never had to
plan for our Saturdays. We knew all the local parks, the ones with lakes and
beaches. Borders Books and Music awaited with more books that we could read in
a lifetime. We could always see a movie a second or a third time.
One could come up with a thousand examples of
how much her Grandma Julie loved my daughter. I put her in her car seat. Her
grandma came out with a small glass of milk and held the glass while my kid
drank it. It was a long time ago. Grandma said something like, "There,
there, drink it down. Those vitamins will protect you from getting sick".
All I could say was thank you. Maybe I could have taken a few days to
Self-quarantine before I came for visitation. I shouldn't have put her through
the worry.
What promotes better social distancing than
sitting in a car, growing hot in the late morning sun? I see neighbors walking
their dogs to the park and waiting as strain shows on their pet's face. I
didn't even roll down the window when a man didn't scoop up his dog's fresh
poop. A second man sitting at the sunny picnic table talks to his phone
meeting. "We're just not sure about travel this year", he says in a
deep voice. That’s why I can hear him through the window glass. Why travel if
one can take a lovely dog for a walk every day at noon? His black Labrador
wears reflective shades and alertly watches passing cars near the post office.
Our founder, Colonel Ralph Plumb
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