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What has changed most about the world since the pandemic began?
Los Angeles is our home. The city of legends, the sparling mother of ten thousand stories. Traffic is legendary, the cost of living is astounding, earthquakes are terrifying. What makes our City of Angels worth all of that ? The venues, the amazing restaurants, the world class shopping and art museums. An afternoon at the Getty is everyone's favorite date. Or a visit to the Norton Simon, Hammer or LACMA -- each one showcasing it's own world class collection of brilliant art. And the gardens, (n the photo, Getty Museum). Paradise to wander through. And basically free of charge. You see "Everyone" there, the rich & famous, and everyday moms and dads with their kids. And of course, the Lakers, Dodgers, Rams, Clippers, Bruins, Trojans and all the rest of the teams we love. The food. Holy Angels in Heaven, the food. From every corner of the world, our neighbors brought their delicious food. Showcasing the food their parents brought from hundreds of "old countries". Fancy restaurants where dinner is $100 or more each, and thousands of modest places that would have delighted Anthony Bourdain. Gone. Closed. Barely surviving on take-out orders. Overnight, it all vanished. No games to cheer at. Just TV in our own living rooms. The Rose Parade -- gone. All those wonderful places to visit and eat -- gone. Not to mention our family holidays. Christmas by Zoom ? Hardly. Tickets to Staples ? Not this year ! I got "the stick" first, and E. got hers today. Like plants budding in spring, the places we have missed gradually will come back to life. And our lives slowly will come out of isolation to welcome them. Finally we can celebrate with our family again. No more fear that a holiday dinner might kill an elderly aunt or uncle. Being able to get together with friends and family is the best part of our gradual awakening. Maybe what we learned from the virus is the importance of family.
March 12, 2021
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What do you think history books will say about this time? In your view, what's most important for them to include?
Sadly, I've thought about this quite a bit and I am confident that this time period will be reduced to a paragraph in a text book. I think back to my high school US history teacher and how much history was "skimmed over" or distilled down to mere paragraphs. For example, I remember we spent about 2 days discussing the Civil War. At the time, I had little interest - it wasn't until my Dad took me to Lincoln's Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois that I became obsessed with the history - what caused it, who suffered, who lived, who died and how it foreshadowed coming wars. I learned none of that from my school. It was all self-learning - from many hours standing in Civil War battlefields, Presidential Libraries and museums. So, I feel quite confident that if a four year war was reduced to two days, then an 18 month endeavor like the coronavirus will be a mere paragraph. I can see it now - "there was a new virus that most likely came from China that caused mass panic for several months. It resulted in a minor recession and the first practice of a basic universal income. And there was a bit of unrest with people not wanting to wear masks. Oh and a new president was elected. THE END." Perhaps I'm wrong, I'd like to be. But I don't think it will be that much different. Guess we will need to wait about twenty years to find out.
September 1, 2021