This photo was taken exactly three years ago on my birthday. This would be our last normal evening for awhile. For the very next day, Saturday, March 14, 2020 the world shut down (at least in our area of the world). Friday, March 13, 2020 was one of the rare times my birthday fell on a day that wasn't on Spring Break. Our Spring Break began the following Monday. So I had taken the day off. If I had known that it would be the last day of school for the rest of the school year I probably would have come in to work that day.
Instead I slept in a bit. Took the Jeep in for an oil change. Watched the news on the waiting area TV blaring warnings of rising covid cases. Went and had lunch with my daughter at her school. Picked up my son early from school since they were just watching movies on the last day before Spring Break. We drove to walmart and were stunned by the scene in the parking lot. Absolute chaos. The lot was jammed even more than normal. People running about with a crazed look in their eyes. We didn't go in. We bailed and drove across the street to Kroger.
Not much better in Kroger which is usually considerably calmer than walmart. Twenty people in every checkout line. We bailed again. We had already stocked up on necessary supplies, including toilet paper. Everyone was desperate for toilet paper. So we left and went home and watched Batman Begins on DVD and relaxed as the world burned.
That evening we were going to meet my family and my in-laws at my favorite pizza joint about a half mile from our house. They all bailed due to Covid fears, which I understood. But at the time I didn't truly grasp the enormity of what was happening. I had no idea that we were about to be placed in a months long quarantine. I had no idea the world was about to change forever.
So my wife and kids and I went to Eno's. It was eerily empty for a Friday night. The pizza was great as usual. We went home and played games. Little did we know that would be the last time we would actually eat a meal in a restaurant for months.
Now, three years later that time seems strangely distant. We were almost quaint in our naiveté.
