Sunny Days Apr. 6-13, Covid-19, Social Distancing, Drives in the Convertible Keeping Distances

April 6 2020 

Can’t let a sunny day go by without a ride ... For Langley, a ghost town, but the Fifties Diner served milk shakes out the door, then down the river road as far as possible and south to 0 Ave., and west to 184 and north to home where I began to paint a landscape.

April 7, 2020
Sunny again. We’ll take it. Morning walk, Washed windows; a drive in the sun, Brodeur's Bistro (takeout only) Montreal Smoke Meat Sandwich (embarrassingly huge & good); tailgate party of 2. (wasn’t close to anyone .. that’s for my children)


April 8, 2020
Sun. 15C. Milkshake Country. Planet Java 50’s Diner. Can’t go inside. Shout in an order. It’s brot out. Thru farm country, top down on the Miata. What a win! & we were distanced from everyone.

April 9, 2020 Today, warmest of the week, Miata open, ohhh so nice, to a friendly farm, wiener roast in isolation. I even distanced from my car. Eugene &  Elaine invited us. We shouted to one another from adjoining fields. Fuel on Fri. in Aldergrove was .80/litre. Last year it was $1.60. 

April 13, 2020 Easter Sunday
Sunday. Easter. Streaming Church Service. Easter Bread & sprinkles delivery to our Kids. Miata top down & what can I say, Open Road, few cars out, Mountain views spectacular, Vanilla shakes from Planet Java 50’s Cafe (takeout, nothing but distance), stopped @ Chaberton, home for dinner - Christine’s Rouladen, (beef roulades filled with bacon, onions, mustard and pickles, then browned and simmered in the richest gravy imaginable). But sad without family.

COVID-19, ABNORMAL DAYS,

This entry is intended more as a personal record for future reference rather than a news report.

Covid -19 has changed our lives within a few weeks. Many of us have spent a minimum of 14 days in at home isolation. Most people are observing the precautions recommended by provincial and federal health officials. This seeming imposition of self-isolation will feel like salvation when this scourge dies. No knowledgeable authority can predict a quick end to this pandemic. Individual financial futures as well as the global economy are a great concern.

COVID RESPONSES & FLASHING BACK (a poem)

While expected to self-isolate 
My mind made a quick happy trip
To my boyhood a long life ago,
When I was content in a hole
That I myself dug
And where dreams lived
When I was six.

Higher than houses and nearby barns
In the crotch of our tallest tree,
I snuggled with wood with my small frame
At peace with the world and alone.
In need of no one else
Thirty feet high
When I was twelve.

Two weeks, three weeks, four weeks or two months
No shortage of neat things to do
As many as minutes of each day
No Internet or Nintendo.
Just bike, open air, open road
With a good pal
At age fifteen. 

I am glad that I lived when I did.
Modest pleasures were good enough,
Never envisioned anything more.
I’m alone and writing this verse,
I’m seventy-seven
And if God wills
Seventy-eight.

© Ron Unruh March 2020

Backstory: Playgrounds and public recreational facilities are closed and children’s default activities are indoors and electronic, and I am saddened that children are short on self-initiated notions of fun.