Snow.
Once you arrive at the age when you are expected to shovel, snow is no longer exciting. It has morphed from snowmen and sleds and no school days into scooping and scraping and salting and white-knuckle driving. Not my idea of a good time.
I endured it for 67 years to be near family and in an area that I loved, an area that prided itself on its freedom and its revolutionary heritage of throwing off tyranny.
And then 2020 arrived, bringing with it the Unknown Virus.
I had been through this before – Polio, Asian flu, Bird flu, Swine flu (twice!), Legionnaire’s Disease, SARS, MERS, Ebola, and countless other illnesses, many still mysterious.
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I expected public figures to behave as they had always behaved. “Don’t panic; we’ll get through this. After all, we have faced down many emergencies in the past. We have the best doctors. They will find treatments.”
Instead, I heard FEAR. ‘We’re all going to die.’ ‘Close everything down except essential businesses.’ ‘Stay in your home.’ ‘Wear a mask.’ ‘Don’t socialize.’ ‘15 days is what we need to assure that hospitals won’t be overwhelmed.’
I could do that. But 15 days came and went.
The city instituted a mask order. I started paying attention to local news. After all, I had plenty of time on my hands.
But no one was ‘keeping a level head.’
The list of essential businesses was interesting. Hospitals, police, fire – all made sense. But why could big box stores be open while small businesses were shuttered? Why was it safe to shop maskless in Hudson and Amherst, but not in Nashua? And why was it safe for teenagers to work at Market Basket but not go to school?
Statistics started coming out. The elderly, especially in nursing homes, and people who were already medically compromised were the most likely to succumb.
I looked to the city to start identifying these specific groups and developing policies (cleaning, sterilizing, glove-wearing, grocery delivery) to address those groups. What I got was completely different.
Schools had to stay closed, even though state statistics showed that children were not vulnerable. Everyone had to be masked even though 38 of the 42 initial deaths were at nursing homes. The most vulnerable group was over 80 years old. Why then were 89,000 people of many ages forced to mask up? Shouldn’t we focus on the group that was in the most danger?
I started saving the state reports weekly. I asked questions of local officials. We had a mask order and a 6-foot rule. What were the criteria to lift those ‘safety measures’? No response, other than to say that the Board of Health would tell us when it was safe.
So I got in touch with the Board of Health. Where were the studies showing that masks prevented the spread of disease? They sent me a WHO meta-analysis. Wait a minute – isn’t that the organization run by someone who was allegedly hand-picked by China? Isn’t China the nation where the virus came from?
I looked through the analysis. Then I viewed summaries of individual reports from countries I trusted. Medical masks prevented disease spread in operating rooms and hospital wards, but there did not seem to be any definitive evidence that they would work in a general population.
I asked for the studies on the long-term effects of mask-wearing on children. As a retired special needs teacher, I could not imagine my former students willingly wearing masks. And I could not envision any way that remote learning would be successful with this population.
I was informed that there were no long-term studies of masked children. What? Then why were we doing it?
News reports flashed daily saying you would be killing your grandmother if you visited her. As a grandmother myself, I resented that statement.
After several months of isolation, even nursing home residents in one Colorado facility announced that they would rather die of coronavirus than of loneliness.
New statistics were coming out. Alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic abuse, depression, and suicide were all on the rise nationally. I contacted the aldermen. Why weren’t we focusing on these public health issues in Nashua?
By summer, I was tired of arguing with local officials. I was tired of seeing masked people walking outside or driving alone as I walked my dog. So I packed myself and my dog into my car and started driving across the United States. What an eye-opener.
As I drove through city after city and state after state, I found that places with lockdowns and masks had the most unhappy-looking people. Where freedom ensued, people were friendly, smiling, and talkative.
I returned home several weeks later, rested and serene. But Nashua was still masked up and locked down. I had tasted freedom. I remembered life before corona. As a result, I made three more trips across the nation within a year. And when I wasn’t traveling to the west, I made countless trips south. The further away I went, the freer life became.
After being slapped down by local officials over and over, I was exhausted. At the same time, they were spending millions on ‘luxury’ items, they were re-evaluating all properties to increase tax revenue (don’t worry – there’s no connection to the spending!). I pointed out to the aldermen that a performing arts center is nice, but doing it while causing local businesses to shut down is the proverbial ‘bad optics.’
Finally, I came to the conclusion that, to maintain my own physical, mental, and financial health, I had to leave the home I loved, the neighbors I loved, and the city that I loved. I had spent my childhood and a big chunk of my adulthood in Nashua. It was a gut-wrenching decision.
Now I live in a free state, where masks are optional, and I have been told that schools never closed down. City services are just the basics but are well-delivered. I can see faces. People smile and laugh and tell me their whole life’s story in the supermarket check-out line.
And snow, while we get a little, typically happens overnight and is gone by noon.