Captain’s Log 3 April 2020
To see the previous blog, click here.
This week has been a busy one. Pre-quarantine busy would have meant school functions, games, practices, lessons, grocery shopping, booking various aspects of trips to far flung places, packing and planning for said trips, and a couple ‘framily’ dinners with friends. Now, busy means something quite different… As I think on that, maybe we haven’t been all that busy maybe we have just finally become productive in a new way.
Homeschool. This is what our day revolves around. What we are doing is truly limbo-schooling; we aren’t homeschooling nor are our kids ‘going to school’. (Have I said this before? Because it is constantly in my mind.) They work for a while then play outside if it is nice or if it’s yucky, they play some raucous game of their own making inside that threatens the structural integrity of our house. Mark and I spend about an hour a day saying, get to work and eventually they do. The lure of warmer weather, a ball to kick or throw, and wrestling one another are powerful forces. And you know, I can’t blame them. Being isolated makes the need to expend energy that much greater. It’s been rather nice out so, they are getting a lot of PE credits this week.
Mark’s live lectures via YouTube on his Professor Wolters channel have been well received by his students. I enjoy listening to him teach and I am sorta getting a free half semester of marketing classes out of this covid-19. There may have been a couple snafus though. Yesterday, the dog got out of our room mid-lecture and had a bark fest at the kids who dared to ride their bikes through his ‘territory’ (which means anything he can see), then a shirtless child ran through the kitchen while on his way to go play ‘HORSE’ with his brother. Mark is learning that working from home one cannot expect professionalism from children, pets, nor spouse because I sat behind his camera and made faces at him while I munched on crackers and peanut butter. We are a supportive bunch.
Strange times mean strange lecture halls for everyone.
Our travel channel on YouTube is painful. If things had gone on normally, we were on target to hit a million subscribers this year. Instead, for the first time in many years we lost more subs than we gained in a week. Mark has poured his heart into building this channel to help people get the most out of their travels for over a decade and I know it hurts to see those numbers. However, being who he is, he is instead looking for ways to use our channel to help our subscribers and followers during this crazy time.
We continue to do Live feeds on Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings. Wednesday, we had over 12k sessions for our 2.5h stream. We have regulars (thank you, Michael, Mark, Terry, and many more) who join us every stream and who have become virtual friends with us and one another. There are new people commenting every week, and those people often end up in conversation with other people watching the stream. It reminds me of my bartending days. We talk and answer questions and foster a fun, positive atmosphere and the people watching fall into side conversations just like Norm and Cliff. This is what community is and I am so glad we have a platform from which to offer it.
Wolters World Live Streams, where everyone knows your name.
When I was little, we lived across the street from an older couple, Mr. and Mrs. Brookens. Both of them were in their 90’s back in the mid-1980s. Almost their entire backyard was a vegetable garden. They grew everything! It’s where I first tasted rhubarb and learned to shell peas. I spent hours there soaking up the joy of working in good clean dirt. Those two beautiful souls made such an impact on me, I get tears just thinking about them. Ever since then I have wanted a garden of my own. I have never been home long enough to plant and truly care for one so, thank you covid-19, I am going to plant a garden. It won’t be much, just a few vegetables and some herbs but it will be mine and dedicated to John and Beulah. Maybe if things work out, I’ll get to can a few jars of pickles like Beulah always did—Lawd, she made good pickles.
I have the greatest memories of the Brookenses. Now, as an adult I realize that as much as I loved going over there, they probably loved having me over even more. I remember sitting at their formica and aluminum table learning to play Othello and eating Bugles. It was always hot in their house in summer because they didn’t have air conditioning and Beulah was always cooking or canning something. They had a TV but I never saw it on. They had a radio in the kitchen turned on softly all day. They were both born in the 1890’s—think of that, as I write this in 2020. They lived through the Great Depression and they never wasted a thing. They didn’t hoard but they did keep a stock of necessities. They never stopped working. They were both thin as whips but steel strong. My prayer for the world is that this time of quarantine and the subsequent economic downturn will create a generation of John and Beulahs. People who have seen hard times and know the value of hard work, people who are prudent and appreciate the time they are given.
Until next time…
Jocelyn