What I Miss Most During the Pandemic

If you could snap your fingers and restore life to where it was two months ago, what would you do following the trick?

At first blush, I would say watch a baseball or hockey game.  These are things I very much like doing in early spring.  Hockey looks like it’s finished for the year and there will be no champion.  Baseball will likely have an abbreviated season, which means any team getting hot has a good shot at winning the World Series.

There won’t be a Triple Crown horse racing series by the looks of the current calendar.  Auto racing is now down to simulated video games, however.  I’ve started to realize I’m not missing a lack of sports in my life.  Or not nearly as much as I would’ve thought.

I’ve written before about how I miss going to my favorite diners but on a more precise note, I miss the thrill of stopping to eat on impulse.  Like the days when I want a submarine sandwich and on a lark stop and grab one driving home.  I get the same hankering at times for French fries.  I can make them at home but it’s not quite the same as a steaming plateful at Depot Grill.

I miss meeting friends for lunch.  I miss their stories.  I miss the time I would spend some mornings after the show with my guests.  For the duration, they’re all joining me by telephone.  Many of our guests are great conversationalists even off-air.

A couple of weeks ago I remarked to some local friends I know how my best friend from childhood used to feel.  He lives isolated on a dairy farm.  He has been on the same rural hilltop for almost 40 years.  Before he met his wife he would maybe get to town once a week and sometimes not for two.  The every other day visit by the milk hauler was a treat.  The same with visits from the milk tester.  Even after marriage his wife, a veterinarian, was at the animal hospital for days at a time.  He now has a teenage son with whom he can speak and I think it ended his cabin fever.

Human beings, we’re told, are social creatures.  Some of us far less than average but I confess, I’d like to see more of my friends.