It’s been a little while – but this is the next in the “Outside My Window” series -about life during COVID.
New Mission
Sunday was the third day of spring. Jenn and I spent the day working in the back yard; pulling all of the old plants, cutting down the ornamental grasses, cleaning up leftover leaves. It got hot, for the first time since October, shorts and t-shirts and that first cast of sun burn and tan. We cleared off our “sun deck”, got the furniture arranged and all of the “stuff” that got stored there over the winter put away. And of course, when we were done, it was a couple of cold ones on the “sun deck” in celebration of this first intimation of summer.
We have a new mission. One day a week we spend driving all over the state delivering and picking up “lost dog” equipment: cameras and live-traps, and also things to help animal rescues. We took five dog houses to Waverly last week to help improve the conditions for some “outdoor” dogs. You know it’s spring: somehow the pickup truck veers towards every high school track as we pass through the small towns of Ohio. The driver, me, just “wants to see” a track practice – just for a moment.
Filling in the Hole
I’ll see plenty of high school track soon enough – with a white shirt, a flag, and a starting pistol. April will be full of officiating meets, from middle school dual meets to big invitationals. Memory is a strange thing – it seems like I did that last year too. Of course, I didn’t. There wasn’t a high school track season last year. All of “last year’s” memories are really from 2019. The “hole” of 2020 just gets filled in.
This is my fourth year out of coaching. There aren’t any kids I coached still on the high school tracks. Even the young coaches don’t know me other than as an old official. But I’ve still got a “hand in”. I’ve “Covid Coached” a few kids – using text messages and IPhone videos. I think we’ve done some good, and it’s been good for me to analyze, discuss and defend my technical positions.
Zoom
It was a year ago this week that I took an “online” substitute teaching job, scrambling along with the regular teachers to figure out how to keep “school” going in the shutdown. I don’t know that we found a lot of great answers for keeping kids involved in school. But it wasn’t for lack of effort: every teacher I know went far and beyond the “call of duty” to reach out and keep kids involved. When the world turns upside down, a Zoom class might be the only echo of normalcy in that child’s life. Looking back, how strange to have your teacher literally “in your bedroom” every day. No wonder so many kids set Zoom to audio only.
I’ll be happy to never Zoom again. And now, with vaccines and lessening infections, we are all looking to get back to normal. Normal doesn’t just mean going to a restaurant (last week I sat down in one for the first time in a year), it also means not being “addicted” to 24/7 television “news”. Washington doesn’t demand the need for our attention every day, though there’s still plenty going on. For the first time in several years, we can look away for a moment and focus on our more local life. That’s a good thing.
Change at the End
But there are things unalterably changed by our shared year in pandemic hiding. Jenn and I picked up a third and a fourth dog. When the yen to go camping hit, we realized that four dogs in our “efficiency camper” wasn’t going to work. Want to buy a 2017 Rockwood Mini-Lite? There’s one for sale in the driveway. It was a lot of fun – spent a winter in Florida and plenty of time in the fall leaves of Ohio. But now it’s got to go. After it’s sold, we’ll look for a Class A, a bus, where there’s actual rooms and a place for the dogs to get comfortable while we drive.
So here’s a most unusual essay from me. It’s about spring, about track, about camping, and about hope. It’s about the light at the end of the tunnel. If you’ve never experienced that phrase in real life – you need to head over to Blackhand Gorge just east of Newark, Ohio. On the North side of the river, there’s a path through on old railroad tunnel – a relic of the “Interurban”. That was a train that used to take you from Columbus to Pataskala, Hebron, Buckeye Lake, Newark, and Zanesville. The tracks are gone, but the carved tunnel through the stone hill remains. Take a walk – and there in the center, you will fully understand what “a light at the end of the tunnel” means.
You can’t really see what’s beyond “the light” – you don’t know what the next step you take will reveal. All you can see is the brightness. But there’s one thing for sure. Out of the damp darkness of a century old tunnel, you know that there’s something better at the end.
The Outside My Window Series
Out My Front Window – Part One (4/21/20)
Outside My Window – Part Two (4/23/20)
Outside My Window – Part Three (4/26/20)
Outside My Window – Part Four (5/13/20)
Outside My Window – Part Five (6/3/20)
Outside My Window – Part Six (7/3/20)
Outside My Window – Part Seven (7/31/20)
Outside My Window – Inshallah (8/13/20)
Outside My Window – Part Eight (9/15/20)
Outside My Window – Part Nine (9/25/20)
Outside My Window – Part Ten (10/9/20)
Outside My Window – Part 11 (11/29/20)
Outside My Window – Post-Truth World (12/16/20)
Waiting for the Shot (3/11/21)
Outside My Window – At the End of the Tunnel (3/22/21)
