Four years ago, as Covid-19 strangled all of our ‘business as usual’ notions, there still seems a national PTSD.   We all have our stories.

I decided to use my time ‘in quarantine’ 2020-21 to sort through and label over 20,000 photos then-and-still stored on my computer.  Most photos were unlabeled.   (Most were digital, and I hadn’t noted in some cases, who or what they showed.  The digital ones were date-stamped, of course, so I could identify most.)

It was a lot of work, but I got the file essentially up to date…through 2019.  But I continued to take pictures, and fell into the same old habits of not finishing the task of labeling.

This past Wednesday I started again.  This time it was easier, and the first day I did 2020, the first year of the Pandemic, and at this writing I’m through mid-2021.  In this post I want to briefly translate my first 12 months in the Pandemic, through the photos I reviewed, and perhaps jog you to do something similar from your own perspective.

We’ve all lived through an immensely significant time in our history,  with lessons hopefully learned from this awful experience.  We’re not out of the now-four-year-war….

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I archive all of my posts, which are all word-searchable.  The first post I did on Covid-19 was dated March 6, 2020, and can be read here.

What follows is completely jogged by my own personal photos. and speaks for itself.  Everyone has differing memories of course.  Maybe something I write will jog something in you.

Here goes:

By March, 2020, it had become undeniable that something very unpleasant was evolving in our world.  My first personal memory – my personal first notice – was the news of the Nursing Home deaths in Washington state.  My total ‘normal’ daily world was upended almost overnight.  At first,  there was no public alarm.  The first reports were perhaps two cases in Minnesota.  It turned out one of these was from a nearby suburb, but of course this wasn’t mentioned at the time.  But concern began to increase.

March 15 I went to church as usual, and ushered  It was a rather sparsely attended service.  At the end of Mass, the Priest announced that there would be no more Masses open to the public.  At the back of the church I took a photo of assorted disinfecting items.  At the time, no one knew exactly what we were dealing with.  But we were rapidly coming to know it was deadly.  Places like Italy and suburban New York City were harbingers.

I had planned a breakfast meeting with a friend on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17.  We were to meet at  a pancake house, which was supposed to be open.  My friend drove by and found that they wouldn’t be open for breakfast.  So the ‘official’ start of the Pandemic for me was St. Patrick’s Day.

March 20 was when ‘normal’ ended for everyone in Minnesota, and we weren’t alone.

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I am a creature of habit, which created the necessity of adjusting to a new reality.  I began a daily practice of taking a photo or two of some evidence of life as it was evolving.

April 7 I photographed a chalked message on the sidewalk of my walking route: “Smile.  We Will Get Through this Together.”  It was a nice touch.  But even walkers were sparse, and most were masked, and gave lots of space.

April 22, I saw the first leaves of spring – a bush – and I took a photo of it.  It’s in the photo file.

April 23, a young woman friend of the family turned 21, and the family celebration was outside with lots of social distancing.  It was a unique gathering, which became common.  In this time frame I recall seeing a Memorial Service on a lawn for someone who had died.  I had begun a practice of one or two brief solitary drives each day to dull cabin fever.

By May 2, I knew my 80th birthday on May 4 would be a private affair, and I took a picture of the street sign at 80th Street South in the adjacent suburb of Cottage Grove.   A resident nearby was clearly suspicious of why I was taking the picture.  “I’m turning 80” was satisfactory for him, I guess.

Schools were closed, and on May 9 a local Middle School where my daughter is Principal had a Drive-by, where school staff waved to the students and parents driving by – sort of a parade.  Now, there is a Covid generation of kids, and the process of recovery is slow.  But it would have been insane to keep the schools open back then.

I did one screen shot of the first zoom meeting I was part of.  Another big adjustment.

By Mid-May, 2020, I had completely abandoned my outdoor walks.  Even walkers, even social distance, seemed not enough for some walkers I met.  It was a paranoid time.  I began doing ‘sanity drives’ a couple of times a day: just nearby places I’d not seen, no more than a few miles.  I got to know places like Newport, Grey Cloud Island, old Cottage Grove, and the like.  All solitary visits in a car.  Often I’d stop to get takeout coffee at my Caribou Coffee – there was no indoor seating, takeout only.

The evening of May 29, my friends restaurant, Gandhi Mahal, was burned to the ground in south Minneapolis, one of the last acts of violence in the wake of the May 25 murder of George Floyd.  To this day, the block on which the restaurant had stood has not been rebuilt, except the U.S. Post Office.  The Surveillance Camera was burned along with the building, and no one has been arrested.  Four years later, there remain significant residual effects of that awful week.  This was face-mask time, so perpetrators of this wanton violence were most likely masked, and only have their conscience as punishment.

June 3, 2020: the school year had been totally upset all Spring.  My daughter is Principal of a large Middle School, and I saw this in her office when I stopped in for a brief visit.  I gathered most school management was by laptop….

June 7, grandson Parker graduated from high school.  It was a most unusual graduation – students made appointments to come, one at a time, to receive their diploma.  On the 12th, grandson Ben turned 15.  There were occasional other similar events, all outdoors.

August 12 I took a screen shot on the television of the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris candidacy for President.

September 19 I saw a sign at Basilica announcing that people could come to Mass, but needed to pre-register.  I gather one per pew was normal density, possible exception: couples.  Few attended, I think.  The church ventilation system had been upgraded, and a new on-line televised Mass initiated, which continues to this day.

October 2, I took a screen shot of the President being taken by helicopter to Walter Reed Hospital for treatment of Covid; October 6, another screen shot of the defiant President back at the White House.  All stops had been pulled to save his life, I gathered.  (For the rest of us, see February 4, below).

November 7, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were elected.  Another screen shot.

January 6, 2021, I took 32 screen shots of the riot at the U.S. Capitol – the first at 2 pm. the last at 3:07 p.m. Central Time.  I watched the entire spectacle in stunned silence.

January 17, I took a screen shot of heavy security gathering at the Minnesota State Capitol in the event of some demonstration there.  I don’t think a lot transpired, but there was fear of violence.

January 19, a screen shot that Covid-19 had tallied 400K deaths, and 24.2 M cases (400,000 and 24.2 million).

January 20 screen shots of the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as President and Vuce-President of the United States.

I got my first vaccine, February 4, 2021.  The clinic was very well organized.   Since, have had 6 rounds, and am pending a 7th soon.  I was pretty diligent with masking through the first year; and some habits, like social-distancing in lines, are positive residual habits.

February 9, the 2nd impeachment of the past president began.

February 27, 2021: back in restaurant.  Life returning to normal, but lots of after-effects.

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April 6, 2024: To date, we’ve avoided the virus, without becoming hermits, but we’ve been careful. The disease to now has taken over 1,000,000 American lives….

I tend to be an optimist.  I think enough of us have possibly learned a thing or two from the catastrophe which we experienced four years ago.  A primary re-learning for myself is that every single one of us on the globe is an interdependent part of a massive community.  We can’t survive by our own individual wits.  It is too easy to get careless, to not learn from mistakes, to pretend we can do this on our own.  I wish us well.

POSTNOTE: Reflections after Easter post, here.  Today is the local Senate District Democratic Convention.  I’m a delegate, and will write about that later.

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