Just another COVID column

Mark Levison, The Levison Group

In 35 years writing a syndicated column I have never written about the same topic three times in a row. After the first time I wrote about life in the time of Corona I told myself the next column would be about something else. After I wrote the second consecutive piece about life in the time of Corona, I told myself the next column would be about something else. It has been more than irritating that the cable news stations, nearly exclusively, cover Corona at the expense of everything else. The pandemic is blanketing everything we do and everywhere we go. It came out of nowhere—well Wuhan, China seems like nowhere—and it is going everywhere. We are each accustomed to our personal fears. We worry about things like our jobs, the weather, getting fat, recessions, our children, our parents, the dark, our looks, getting old, money, world peace, the stock market, criminal acts, our children’s looks. This one, nobody was anticipating. So here’s number three in what we all hope will not be a continuous series.

Television commercials have changed. It took a few weeks, but they are now molded by Corona. They include messages about getting through this, hanging together, praising first responders, and ads about hand creams. In fact, just yesterday my wife complained she had washed her hands so many times she had washed off her fingerprints. I got a good chuckle out of that and wrote it off to her being funny. She wasn’t trying to be funny, she was frustrated. To some degree or another, she actually had washed off her fingerprints! Neither her phone nor computer, which previously unlocked by reading her fingerprint, will unlock on fingerprint command anymore. To some discernable degree her fingerprints have disappeared. I hope criminals aren’t reading this column.

We all have different burdens to bear in these times. My wife’s ex-husband died. I found him. One of my male partner’s mother died three weeks ago; his father died last week. One of my female partner’s 32-year-old daughter just checked into the hospital. Her throat was tightening. So, my partner is currently watching her infant granddaughter while trying to respond to a motion to dismiss in a case we are litigating. My secretary’s 27-year-old son suddenly and tragically died today. These things are difficult to bear in normal circumstances, and worse during these days.

My law office is trying to determine when, and how, to commence working on site. I have a suspicion employees with young children are the most enthused to get back to the office, and away from the unaccustomed pleasure of dealing with their own offspring 24-7. I have a suspicion they have a reinforced, or newly discovered, appreciation for their childrens’ teachers.

My own full-time employed daughter, Mariah, whose husband is a doctor dealing daily with Corona patients, has 5- and 3-year-old boys at home. The current conundrum over whether school will begin next fall has got her, and others in her situation, a bit rattled. Young kids need a lot of attention. They are accustomed to much of their time being spent with their friends at school. The weather is currently warm. Meanwhile, Mariah is spending a lot of time outdoors with Sorren and Everett, while contemplating what her life will be like during a Minnesota winter if the children aren’t in school.

She has taken the kids on lots of “nature hikes.” Based upon my challenge, they have been trying to spot animals, like the moose I told them might be hiding from them behind a tree. I wrote about some of the animals they spotted in the last column, and although Mariah told me she doesn’t think they really know what columns are, they are enthused about being mentioned in them. So, they are on a quest to find more animals to be featured in new columns. This week they spotted a bald eagle sitting on its nest and asked if that was good enough, even though they hadn’t found any moose hiding behind trees. I said it wasn’t good enough, to keep looking.

We are all looking for something, and I believe it is human nature to seek out good in the most trying of circumstances. I found some last week. Three decades ago I was one of the few white lawyers that helped elect the first black mayor of our city. I worked with him at times during his administration and got to know Mike McMillan and James Clark, two 20-something young men, in the new mayor’s office.

I, like so many lawyers, have been active on charitable boards. In a few days, I will take over the chairmanship of the local Urban League. The same Mike McMillan is now the president and CEO of that group, and recently James Clark brought his well-known grass roots organization to the Urban League. James heads a team involved in helping members of the community that are in the most dire of circumstances and have the most serious neighborhood crime issues. He works in a holistic manner with young men to deescalate crime and provide services to families that have been victims of crime.

Our metropolitan Urban League, through Mike’s guidance, although very large, is nimble. Food distributions were not a big thing for it in the past, but they are a big thing now. We are giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars in food, toiletries, disinfectant, etc., to families in need every Saturday. Mike has not asked the board members to physically participate because of obvious concerns. I thought I ought to go, and I wanted to witness the operation. The Saturday distributions begin at noon, but by 5 a.m. dozens of cars were lined up at the site of the new Urban League headquarters. Throughout the day, thousands of cars streamed onto the parking lot into four separate distribution lines. Each of the lines had numerous stations. The families received milk, orange juice, all kinds of food, disinfectants, gloves, masks, toilet paper, etc. The hundreds of volunteers — all of us in masks and gloves — placed the supplies in the trunks of the cars at the stations in each of the lines. Many different entities contributed. James secured National Guard personnel to prepackage the boxes during the week before the Saturday distribution. These distributions, spearheaded by the Urban League, are in fact, a community-wide effort. Local governments, media, banks and businesses such as Keely Cares, Schnuck’s, Simmons and Regions Bank have contributed to these efforts. National businesses like McDonald’s, Sysco, Emerson Electric, U.S. Bank, PNC Bank, and so many others, have contributed money, people and products.

Tears came to my eyes, more than once, during the day’s distribution. I was moved when families rolled down their windows and expressed heartfelt thanks for the help. I was moved when I thought about how after all of these years Mike, James and I were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, helping in a community-wide effort to aid those most immediately impacted, and who like all of us, had been attacked by a totally unanticipated enemy.

Times are strange. Each of us have different ideas about the shutdown, the timing of ramping back up, and what type of precautions should be taken. Information is spotty and contradictory. What we think is appropriate behavior one week may seem wrong to us the next. We are all trying to figure out what to do, and what the following days will bring. The answers will come, but we’re not sure when.

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Under Analysis is a nationally syndicated column of the Levison Group. Mark Levison is a member of the law firm Lashly & Baer PC. Contact Mark by e-mail at mlevison@lashlybaer.com.
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