When I was about ten years old or so I found a copy of Rats, Lice, and History in our local library. My mother had already made it clear that I was allowed to read anything at all that I wanted, so I checked it out and entered a fascination with the changes that epidemics can bring to society that continues to this day. In the process of reading about the medical history, the economic and political history, and all the updates to our knowledge in the past 60 years, I also read the Decameron, which was written by Boccaccio almost 500 years ago, although that came rather later. Essentially, the book is a series of short stories told by survivors of the Black Death in Italy, and the stories run the gamut to the extent that they are not entirely appropriate for ten year olds. Summaries of some of the Decameron tales
Now every morning I open my computer to read the current stories from all over the world trying to cope with the situation of a virus run amok. It seems to me that there are a couple of generations of people who have had a lot of consistency in their environments, politics, and health. I'm one of those infamous Boomers, born in 1949 not long after World War II. While I doubt that there was any time at all while I was young in the US when the country was not involved in a war somewhere, there was little sense of danger or urgency for most of my childhood. We were fighting people in places like Korea, Vietnam and so on, and life continued happily. This was something of a golden time for many Americans when mothers could stay home to raise kids if they wanted because it was financially possible. I was probably part of the last group of young people to be able to work their way through college. I was part of the grand polio vaccination and remember some of my friends' parents suffered with paralysis and had to spend time in iron lungs when I was in secondary school. But I don't recall there being a problem ever that involved closing down schools, shops, and life in general in such a scale as is happening now.
When the issue of self-isolation came up, I wasn't concerned. After all, I live out of an urban center. I'm not in the habit of spending time in the city or in crowds. Why would I be endangered? My children had other ideas and very quickly took me to task with lectures on why I need to stay on the farm as much as possible and why the farm has to be closed to guests. Reading the news over the past week has convinced me that my children were right. I don't believe that anyone outside of areas of central and west Africa have any experience with what the world is seeing now. Articles on the problems with ebola simply do not have the same impact as seeing Italy empty its streets.
What remains to be seen are the after effects in the world's economy and social structure. Will everything go back to where we all were at the beginning of November 2019? Will we see that a new path must be taken. The speed at which skies cleared of pollution has been heartening. We saw the same in the 18 days of 2011, but it didn't take any time at all for the streets to become even more crowded and the air to become even more polluted than it was before. Perhaps if there is a way to work through this virus and come out of it with something of a healthier environment and social consciousness, it will all be worth it. But I believe that for now we are mainly gathering and saving stories to tell.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51799.The_Decameron
copyright 2020 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
Now every morning I open my computer to read the current stories from all over the world trying to cope with the situation of a virus run amok. It seems to me that there are a couple of generations of people who have had a lot of consistency in their environments, politics, and health. I'm one of those infamous Boomers, born in 1949 not long after World War II. While I doubt that there was any time at all while I was young in the US when the country was not involved in a war somewhere, there was little sense of danger or urgency for most of my childhood. We were fighting people in places like Korea, Vietnam and so on, and life continued happily. This was something of a golden time for many Americans when mothers could stay home to raise kids if they wanted because it was financially possible. I was probably part of the last group of young people to be able to work their way through college. I was part of the grand polio vaccination and remember some of my friends' parents suffered with paralysis and had to spend time in iron lungs when I was in secondary school. But I don't recall there being a problem ever that involved closing down schools, shops, and life in general in such a scale as is happening now.
When the issue of self-isolation came up, I wasn't concerned. After all, I live out of an urban center. I'm not in the habit of spending time in the city or in crowds. Why would I be endangered? My children had other ideas and very quickly took me to task with lectures on why I need to stay on the farm as much as possible and why the farm has to be closed to guests. Reading the news over the past week has convinced me that my children were right. I don't believe that anyone outside of areas of central and west Africa have any experience with what the world is seeing now. Articles on the problems with ebola simply do not have the same impact as seeing Italy empty its streets.
What remains to be seen are the after effects in the world's economy and social structure. Will everything go back to where we all were at the beginning of November 2019? Will we see that a new path must be taken. The speed at which skies cleared of pollution has been heartening. We saw the same in the 18 days of 2011, but it didn't take any time at all for the streets to become even more crowded and the air to become even more polluted than it was before. Perhaps if there is a way to work through this virus and come out of it with something of a healthier environment and social consciousness, it will all be worth it. But I believe that for now we are mainly gathering and saving stories to tell.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51799.The_Decameron
copyright 2020 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
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