Reflections from an April fool

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S. Eliot’s long depressing poem “The Waste Land” opens with the line, “April is the cruelest month,” supposedly juxtaposing the advent of springtime with the gloom of modern man-unkind.

I would be thrilled to have wakened on April 1 with someone yelling “April Fool! Covid-19 is just a big April Fool! You can go to town and dance all night long with complete strangers now!”

Ain’t gonna happen. The Big Fool in the White House is extending the recommendation that we all hunker down and avoid almost any human interaction outside the house through this month and possibly until June, refuting his foolish desire to get the country raring to go by Easter.

The challenge now is to try to pretend to attempt to live a normal life in this brave new world of social distancing, an oxymoronic term which will be the Word of the Year. It is April outside, redbuds blooming and redbirds whistling. Chilly mornings, warm afternoons, March winds working overtime, April showers a-coming.

We had to get the riding mower working after its winter slumber — it wouldn’t start. Bad battery? Bad gas? Two trips to the auto parts store, to check the battery and buy a replacement, and later that day to buy a little hand pump to siphon out the gas. The store had a barricade of containers in front of the counter, with plenty of placards enforcing the six-feet-apart rule. Each clerk wore gloves and wiped them down with disinfectant cloths between transactions. The guy who waited on me said when he gets home he immediately washes his hands and then takes a long hot shower.

The store considers itself an “essential business.” Both my trips, they had plenty of customers, because with warmer weather, people are working on their cars, mowers, tractors, or replacing windshield wipers to drive through the rain.

I went to the vet to pick up tick medicine for Tootsie the wonder dawg. Another essential business: employees wearing masks offer curbside service while you wait in your vehicle, the vet still does pre-arranged surgeries and will make visits to check on ailing horses. The libraries also offer curbside service, and what better way to self-isolate than to cuddle up with a good book?

Part of my new routine is to look online every morning to gauge how we are doing locally. An interactive Arkansas map shows Carroll County still reporting zero confirmed cases and 19 negative tests. I’m grateful to live on a gravel road, halfway between two small towns where most folks are taking this thing very seriously. When I do go to town, traffic is light, parking lots sparse, those “essential businesses” taking the recommended precautions, the non-essentials closed.

On my last visit to make groceries, I saw an elderly gentleman wearing goggles, mask, and gloves — gear that is supposed to be worn only if you have the virus or are working directly with someone who is infected. If he is sick, why is he out in public? I almost asked him, but I didn’t. People who are out in public seem to be on guard — no eye contact, no smile, avoid passing strangers in the aisle. To save our lives, we risk our humanity. It’s different if I see someone I know; from six feet away we can conversate and commiserate. We are all forced to confront our own mortality, or for those who subscribe to it, immortality.

Unfortunately, that view leads to trouble. Among the half-dozen deaths reported thus far in Arkansas are at least two who attended a church service in defiance of scientific advice to meet in groups no more than ten people and maintain six feet of separation. The idea that God protects Christian fools more than the garden variety is quickly proving disastrous. Jerry Falwell, Jr., reopened his super-Christian Liberty University and soon thereafter students are reporting symptoms.

Besides being isolated, another result is the growth of digital communication, as people hold meetings, concerts, comedy, religious services, play games, or just visit with friends and family online, trying to get through this cruelest April somehow.