There have been great rallying cries in our history to challenge Americans to take action against an enemy or in a national crisis. “Taxation without Representation .” “Give me liberty, or give me death.” “Save the Union.” “Remember the Alamo.” “Remember the Maine.” (Even though history tells us the Spanish didn’t blow up the ship, it was an accident). But, hey it got us into a war which apparently some of us wanted at the time. Our most recent rallying cry, “See Something, Say Something” after 9/11. We were all urged not to be afraid, to go on with our lives. Go to work. Go out to restaurants. But be out there and be vigilant. Don’t let the terrorists win by taking away our way of life. In all of these cases, our leaders were urging us to take collective action. Do something for the good of your fellow citizens. Be part of something bigger than yourself. “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Not sure where that got started. But every football coach has used some version of that during a losing streak. Now it’s different.
Yes, we are being urged to take collective actions. Wash our hands, which should have been doing anyway. Social distancing. A couple of weeks ago no one had ever heard the phrase. But, what is counter to every other crisis is the order to stay home. Don’t go to work. Don’t go to school. Don’t travel. Everything has to stop. Stay away from each other because we may be carrying the enemy within ourselves and not know it. So we can only stop the spread of coronavirus by not coming together. So we have to fight the virus by starving it for victims, our family, friends, colleagues, classmates, and any stranger we meet.
All this has had a dramatic effect on our home life. People, who can, are working from home. Kids are trying take classes on line. People who have been laid off are going out of their minds over what’s going to happen to them. People are coming up with all kinds of ways to stay busy while stuck in the house. My wife is painting all the woodwork in the house. I’ve been forced to weed the garden. We’ve been trying to stay in touch with friends and family by texting and calling. We had hoped to be in Texas this weekend to help our son and family move to a new house. We couldn’t go. It also happens to be his youngest daughter’s birthday today. It will be a FaceTime birthday. There are singers and comedians streaming. There are people putting the crazy things they’re doing to stay sane on social media. Netflix and You Tube are reducing streaming quality by 25 per cent in Europe for a month. They are afraid of the internet collapsing because of record usage by people stuck at home. Old TV shows are getting new life on demand. I have to admit I’m several episodes into season one of “The Office.” The show really holds up and Michael Scott will remind you of how much you don’t miss your boss. But, don’t worry, he’ll be there when you get back to work, and you will go back.
This is a scary and uncertain time for all of us. None of us have ever been through this before. We want to get out and do something to kill the virus and get our lives back. This is America. We want to do something. “Stay home!” is not in our blood, but there may be something far worse.
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