#TBT - Back to the Pandemic

by Skip Cohen

It's my favorite day of the week, Throwback Thursday. Normally, I go back at least a decade, but the pandemic came into our lives. Suddenly, we were all living a "dog's life," where one year felt like the equivalent of seven!

Those are our good friends "Kit and Kaboodle" (Tom Kitt and Kristen Jensen). They were considering moving to Florida and came down to house hunt in 2021. We got out to dinner together on their first night down here, but it would be another year before we were coming out of social distancing.

Half the fun of throwbacks is the way old photographs transport us to another time. They bring out the backstories, much the same way seasoning brings out the flavor of a great steak. Think back to your pandemic years. Here are some things that stand out for me...

• Fear: While I know it was more good than bad, the media, with the nonstop attention, simply left us scared. Sheila has some respiratory issues, so I started doing all the food shopping.
• Sanitizer: We bought hand sanitizer in case boxes at Costco.
• Netflix: I think we watched just about everything that Netflix aired. Even today, we'll run across an old movie and not remember watching it until about thirty minutes in, and then, like two cartoon characters with an idea, the lightbulb goes off above our heads, and we remember, "Oh yeah, we watched it during the pandemic."
• Pups: We didn't know the pandemic was headed our way when we got Lucy and Belle in November of 2019. As it turns out, it was the best thing we could have done. When we suddenly had to hunker down, the pups were nonstop entertainment.
• Hunkering-Down: It's an expression I had never used before the pandemic. It became so commonplace to talk about it because everyone was in the same boat.
• Family Values: The one good thing the pandemic brought out was a return to family values, especially in photography. We were all spending time in lockdown. Photographs, the Internet, email, phone calls, and video calls all became so important and valuable to keep us together.

So, while normally just looking back to five years ago really isn't a throwback - it was one of the most stressful times any of us have ever experienced. And habits developed back then still bubble to the surface now and then.

I still wipe down the handle on the cart at the market, and love doing most of the shopping; we still have bottles of sanitizer that were never used; we had to expand beyond Netflix and now have at least three other platforms to choose from; the pups are a bigger part of our lives than ever; now we hunker-down in terms of information - not from the fear of a virus, but the need to limit exposure the all the politcal garbage in the new!

Family values have never been more important, and keeping in touch with friends is, too. Tom and Kristen moved here permanently - every time we get together, it's non-stop laughs, lots of food, and another memory-maker.

If you haven't done your own search for a few throwbacks today, what are you waiting for? Throwbacks never stand alone, but come with backstories that allow you to turn back the clock and stop time.

Happy Throwback Thursday!