Time to hunker

It is an old Chinese curse (as compared, I suppose, to a modern one): May you live in interesting times. Check.

Of course, it is made all the more interesting because of the presence of the humans.

Social media is chockablock with every kind of advice, every kind of news bulletin and every kind of opinion about what it all means to us, to each other, to one another and to everyone else. Don’t overreact. Remain calm. The flu kills more people every year. This is the most serious health crisis of our time. This is a test of our generation. And so on. It most assuredly is one of those things, perhaps all of them.

It occurs to me that I have yet to mention the subject of this column. Is that really necessary?

We’re all staying home from school and work. It’s like an off-brand spring break. Mom and dad say you can’t go to Florida or Mexico, no matter how much you insist that ocean and sunshine and beer have known preventative qualities.

If you long for crowds, you can always hustle on down to the grocery store, where everyone is still buying up toilet paper, paper towels and water. Apparently, the current crisis has caused our faucets to stop working. And caused us to crave popcorn. The local Costco had rows and rows of massive bags of prepopped, low-fat popcorn. Just in case of — you know — something.

THIS IS NEW AND DIFFERENT: This certainly is like nothing we’ve ever experienced.

Some of us lived through the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Everyone stayed home or close to home. A few days later, we all went back to work and school and they played the World Series, although I forget how that turned out. Things got back to normal, as it were.

Many of us lived through 9/11 and everything came to standstill for a few days. A few days later, we all went back to work and school. Things got back to a new normal, as it turned out to be.

This is not any of that. It is not a temporary disruption of our daily routine but that leaves our lives largely unchanged. This time, there are sweeping restrictions about where we shouldn’t go, and what we shouldn’t do and who we shouldn’t do it with. All on an uncertain timeline. There is before, but no one can say when after will arrive.

The entirely novel nature of this crisis may be why it took a while for everyone to join the program. Last week, I went to lunch at John’s Grill in San Francisco, and only two tables were occupied in a landmark restaurant that usually is shoulder to shoulder on a weekday. On the other hand, the occasion was a gathering of retired journalism colleagues, each of us in a high-risk group by virtue of age or otherwise underlying conditions for which we take medication and about which we try not to think too much. The next day, I went to lunch at Plow in San Francisco, and it was shoulder to shoulder with 20-somethings who were “working from home.” And by that, I don’t mean they all had their laptops.

Clearly, the first response from non-first responders was that this is a nice chance to grab lunch. Certainly, I wasn’t observing any protocols.

Of course, by the end of the week some of us Boomers were ordered to go home and stay there. By the end of the weekend, all of us were.

HUNKER ON: So, when does a crisis cease to be a crisis? When it becomes the status quo. On my quiet little street in the hills of Redwood City, there is more foot traffic, as families get out of the house for a little exercise and fresh air. People check in by phone and email and on Facebook. Lists of shows to read and books to watch are exchanged, along with jokes and stories that distract us from the daily task of wondering if that cough is from seasonal allergies or something more.

So, we hunker. Meanwhile, somewhere, someone has enough toilet paper to last more than year. Let’s hope not all of it is needed.

Mark Simon is a veteran journalist, whose career included 15 years as an executive at SamTrans and Caltrain. He can be reached at marksimon@smdailyjournal.com.