The whirlwind… The memories. The horrors.. the anxieties.
About 3 years ago at this moment my son was celebrating his 9th birthday party, give or take a few days. In the midst of the celebration, and the ‘Stranger Things’ theme he picked, we also gave little gift baskets to kids that included, candy, tissues, and hand sanitizer. Little did we realize that his party was going to be the last ‘normal’ moment of 2020– and maybe the last time we experienced the “old world” of events in our timeline.
After all.. things changed on March 13, 2020–Friday the 13th.
The big story on March 11 was Joe Biden’s primary victories–shocking to political observers. Along with that news was some other headlines that included coronavirus cases swelling, and stories of cities across America getting ready for mass closures and Italy dealing with an upending of life..
Something else in the cards. Things felt weird..
Both Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden canceled their Ohio rallies..
Banks in the mean time were readying disaster plans..
Festivals started getting canceled, such as the Ultra March festival in Miami..
By the evening of March 12, 2020, the world was on edge.. Norway shut its entire country down. The FEDs begans pumping more money (we saw the results of that, right? ) while the DOW plummeted .. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson got isolated with coronavirus.. And a speech to the nation from then President Donald Trump was said to have “failed” to reassure the nation about the new pandemic..
It can be said that March 12 was the final day of normalcy for the planet–sure it was filled with strangeness and anxiety but it was absent the global shutdowns that would commence only hours later..
By Friday the 13th, a brand new dark normal had started..
Wall Street had its worst day that day since 1987.. Doctor Anthony Fauci was warning of 150 million Americans becoming infected — interesting that at this point we all were exposed and infected a number of times.. While the virus shutdowns started, China said that the United States military brought it to Wuhan!
By the close of business on Friday March 13, 2020, schools were falling like dominoes across the nation. Shut downs were starting–15 days to slow the curve, two weeks closed. Little did some know it was going to persist into months instead of just weeks–years for others.
By nightfall we had a “national emergency.” Unprecedented events started to take place. It felt like a strange end of the world miniseries that we, as a nation, could not get out of.
The CDC had a nightmare scenario–1.7 million people would die in the United States from the coronavirus.. Little did we know that, despite these shutdowns and meltdowns of 2020, eventually just about that very number of Americans would eventually die. Despite vaccines.. despite these closures, what was predicted ended up occurring in a slow motion nightmare for the nation.
Modern life, at that very moment, turned surreal..
Everything you felt could not happen did.
Everything that made no sense would occur, like walkways in grocery stores and sanitizing of products. The world get freaked. Government freaked out.
At the time there were fears that the system of the nation itself would buckle and fail.
But what stands out–the true emotion of the time was in full view–were nightmares across America. Nightmares were being felt by people across the globe, as we documented on March 29 2020..
And it all began around now in 2020..
How fast three years go.
And with hindsight, we can figure out what was true, what was false, and who the con-men of the time ended up being.
But at the time? It was real. It was traumatic. And we lived to talk about it today…
