{"id":85478,"date":"2020-03-18T22:14:56","date_gmt":"2020-03-19T03:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=85478"},"modified":"2020-05-29T19:08:27","modified_gmt":"2020-05-30T00:08:27","slug":"the-view-from-the-balcony-the-coronavirus-struggles-suds-and-silver-linings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/the-view-from-the-balcony-the-coronavirus-struggles-suds-and-silver-linings\/","title":{"rendered":"The View From The Balcony: “The Coronavirus: Struggles, Suds, and Silver Linings”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By the time this issue of The Local Voice <\/em>hits the streets, no one may have a view from The Balcony. I\u2019ve never seen a time in which such a significant part of the USA was on shutdown. Covid-19 (the Coronavirus) is likely the biggest health threat to humanity in my lifetime. While the Coronavirus is no laughing matter, I\u2019ve been told by several people that we could use a bit of levity and humor right now. In that spirit I continue, albeit briefly\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went to Walmart over\nthe weekend. The only bottled water left was the high quality, more expensive\nkind. I\u2019ve been meaning to start drinking alkaline and electrolyte infused\nwater anyway. All preventive vitamins\/supplements were gone. I used my last\nvitamin C pill Sunday. Thankfully I found some with zinc at Walgreen\u2019s. There\nwas no toilet tissue\u2015not one single roll\u2015and the shelves of baby wipes were\nnearly empty. I lucked out and found toilet tissue at Oxford Chevron West on\nHighway 6. It was hard as hell to get it off the wall dispenser in the men\u2019s\nroom and I was nearly arrested when I sneaked out of the women\u2019s restroom, roll\nin hand! (It\u2019s ironic to me that we\u2019re having a run on toilet tissue.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has been reported,\neven by CNN, that the sales of Corona beer are down significantly due to the\nCoronavirus. According to Snopes, that\u2019s fake news. There is no known\nconnection between the virus and the beer. Corona beer, known by some as the swill\nof Mexico, is actually from Mexico, not China. For what it\u2019s worth, when I\ndrink beer, Corona Light is my first choice. In fact, the only piece of visual\nart I\u2019ve created as an adult is based on Corona Light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider this: vaccines\ninfect us with a small amount of a disease so we can build an immunity to it.\nIf Corona beer had anything to do with the Coronavirus, doesn\u2019t standard logic\nsay that we should be drinking more of it so we can build a greater immunity?\nJust to be on the safe side, I picked up a six pack today and am practicing\npreventive care right now. An ounce of prevention and all that\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re being told not to\ngather in groups of ten or more, not to travel unless we have to, and not to go\nto bars or restaurants. While we\u2019re all feeling the impact of the Coronavirus,\nthose in the hospitality and travel industries have been especially hard hit from\nthe get-go. I can hear the sound of restaurant and bar doors being locked and\nsense the emptiness in the pockets of those who live from shift to shift. Those\nof us in the counseling profession are now required to conduct sessions online\nor by telephone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All that being said,\nlet\u2019s look on the bright side of life. My friend and Hollywood filmmaker, Mark\nDavid (Mark directed Texas Heart<\/em>, a movie made in Oxford and Charleston\nthat utilized many locals on- and off-screen, including moi<\/em>), said it\neloquently in a Facebook post: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe corona virus has forced to me to spend the past few days\nhanging out with my wife, lighting candles, playing the acoustic guitar in the\ncorner I haven\u2019t picked up in a year, talking to my aging mother several times\na day, spending an hour a day on the phone with my sister who is across the United\nStates, cooking at home, washing my dogs twice this week and having multiple\nconversations with strangers at the grocery store that I normally wouldn\u2019t talk\nwith. As much as I hate this pandemic and its effects on our health, economy\nand particularly the film business, I can\u2019t help but notice the irony in that I\u2019m\nacting like a human again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark, you\u2019re not acting. You\u2019re being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anybody wanna bet against me that the birth rate will spike\nnine months from now? And can you conceive of some doofus naming their new baby\n\u201cCorona\u201d? It\u2019s gonna happen. Mark my words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In closing, I raise a Corona Light in a toast to all: \u201cLet\u2019s\nsupport each other, let\u2019s not panic, let\u2019s find humor where we can, let\u2019s\nharvest the good from the bad, and let\u2019s all be careful out there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026and that\u2019s the remote view from The Balcony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By the time this issue of The Local Voice hits the streets, no one may have a view<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":39753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11902],"tags":[31,10286,10878],"class_list":["post-85478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-randy-weeks","tag-city-grocery","tag-randy-weeks","tag-the-view-from-the-balcony"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-5-11-View-from-the-Balcony.jpg?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}