It didn't happen here

Yes, I've decided to try again to keep up the Windham County blog. For one thing, I'm here a lot more -- working remotely instead of commuting to Providence every day. That gives me more time for projects I've neglected, and means I'm tied more closely to this place and its people.

The most notable thing about our quiet corner in the past few months is basically, that nothing happened. While much of the rest of the country, and certainly our state, found life radically disrupted, much less so for us. For sure, people who work in casinos and restaurants, hairdressers, lots of people were out of work. But not as many as elsewhere. Our governor let most retail stores stay open, manufacturing, never closed the beaches. And out in the country here of course we all have plenty of space to go about our usual activities, visit neighbors, take a walk, ride a bicycle. We all have gardens. And the virus never really got here. There have been zero confirmed cases in my town, a total of 14 people in the entire county were officially reported deceased from the virus, and as of today, we have zero people hospitalized.

But what's different about us from rural counties elsewhere that you read about is that we played by the rules. Everybody wear masks in the stores, they all kept to reduced capacity, people keep their distance, people didn't have big house parties, the churches all closed. Of course the schools were closed as well and that was hard on people but we didn't have anybody screaming loudly about hoaxes or tyranny or protesting against the rules. Yeah, we were largely spared but we wanted to keep it that way and we did.

By the way the rural towns here vote Republican and my state legislator is a wingnut. The larger congressional district is of course Democratic as is all of Connecticut --- yes the rural areas are more conservative but not to the point of insanity. We're sitting here looking aghast at much of the rest of the country. Not that I'm feeling okay about the passover here, I'm hurt badly by what's happening elsewhere. But now as we're getting back closer to business as usual we can do it safely because there's hardly any virus out there and we can stamp out any outbreaks that may occur -- which so far hasn't happened. There's a lot to be said for doing it right.