coronavirus
Just as I generally am inclined to do, I have begun to seriously wonder what kinds of things have changed permanently, and what this will mean for our future. It so happens that I have time to ponder these questions, because I'm home and we only go to town once a week, if that (mind you, I'm still busy, raising the last four children, trying to get them on zoom, etc.).The one I've been mourning today is trains. Who would ride an Amtrak anymore? I'm heartbroken as trains will be down a year, two, maybe permanently. We'll have to go back to hopping freights if we want a train ride.
Theaters, malls, department stores, buses, tour boats, all these I think are gone. Who's going to want to sign up for them when there is a safer way? I think life for a while - maybe two or three years - will be finding different ways to do such things. Libraries will go online. Schools will be more online than they were. Conferences and legislatures will be online.
Beauty salons, barber shops, gone. Restaurants, limited. You can still see how hooked we were to restaurants by the stiff trade in takeout. People can cook more, and will, and will bake more as well, but restaurants will still compete for a certain, smaller, chunk of income. As for barber shops and beauty salons, they'll be kind of pointless after a while. What for, for zoom meetings? I think that the governors can pressure them in to opening but that's not the same as pressuring people into patronizing them, when they not only don't want to (because of covid) but also don't need to (because they live in their pajamas these days).
Down here, it'll all be oil. permian boys will be out of work. And may come looking for boats in lawns (have been known to steal these, in dry times). It's not easy to simply find a new job.
posted by tom @ 9:21 PM
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