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The news has indeed come to a pretty pass, hasn't it?
As of this writing, the economy has all but wholly deactivated. Locally, it was like a clacking fall of clunking dominoes. I remember it really begun to happen for me a week and a half ago.
Me and The Brown Eyed Girl were in the Gresham branch of the mighty Multnomah County Library, enjoying what would become, though we didn't know it then, the last visit to our power source for the foreseeable future. I was plugged in to the net, as 'ere I am any more, and I learnt that the NBA was suspending the season.
Dominoes, I thought. I know I can't be the only one. I couldn't have been that deep an insight. But the business juggernaut that is major league sports in America doesn't just fool around and ghost on you. The only thing that I don't think neither I nor many foresaw was how deep things would go. Between now and then, in rough approximate order, large gatherings about the state of Oregon were declared verboten; first 250, then 25. Then the governor had clubs and bars and restaurants closed (takeout being gratefully available). Then the Library closed (until further notice). Then Powell's.
This takes us up to last Tuesday. The weekend, which for me runs Tuesday-Wednesday these days, was long and languid and didn't involve going out anywhere (where was there? Our two main jams had been silenced), except the grocery store, where we got what we needed but saw the cleared shelves of pasta, the legendarily denuded shelves that stocked toilet tissue, the bins in the WinCo bulk aisles devoid of even the merest speck of flour and not one solitary dry bean.
We rewarded our fortitude by feasting on Chinese from Rainbow Dragon at 130th and Stark, for three reasons: one, it helps keep a beloved place in business during this bizarre time; two, it sticks a finger in the eye of people who apparently, we've heard, think that coronavirus is transmitted by Chinese peoplle; and, three, in my world you don't actually need reasons to eat Chinese food.
As of today we stand on the brink of a statewide order to stay the fuck home unless you have a good reason to be out in the open. Me, at this point, still have a job to go to. At this point, we'll leave it at this: I work in the transportation industry, and right now that's all you're getting out of me. My company has seen layoffs and we are operating at an absolute minimum of staff; it's also helps to be at the head of the seniority list in a union shop. But I, unlike many, still have a job to go to ... at least for now.
Which kind of brings me to the pictures I'm illustrating with. I work near the Portland International Airport. One of my favored commute routes, for many years, ecompasses I-205 from Exit 23B - Killingsworth Street - to Exit 21 - Glisan Street. The slick new electronic signs which are meant to give you estimated transit times to important junctions ahead no longer have their colorful displays. Up the hill and around the east side of the hill we call Rocky Butte, the signs read as pictured:
As of this writing, the economy has all but wholly deactivated. Locally, it was like a clacking fall of clunking dominoes. I remember it really begun to happen for me a week and a half ago.
Me and The Brown Eyed Girl were in the Gresham branch of the mighty Multnomah County Library, enjoying what would become, though we didn't know it then, the last visit to our power source for the foreseeable future. I was plugged in to the net, as 'ere I am any more, and I learnt that the NBA was suspending the season.
Dominoes, I thought. I know I can't be the only one. I couldn't have been that deep an insight. But the business juggernaut that is major league sports in America doesn't just fool around and ghost on you. The only thing that I don't think neither I nor many foresaw was how deep things would go. Between now and then, in rough approximate order, large gatherings about the state of Oregon were declared verboten; first 250, then 25. Then the governor had clubs and bars and restaurants closed (takeout being gratefully available). Then the Library closed (until further notice). Then Powell's.
This takes us up to last Tuesday. The weekend, which for me runs Tuesday-Wednesday these days, was long and languid and didn't involve going out anywhere (where was there? Our two main jams had been silenced), except the grocery store, where we got what we needed but saw the cleared shelves of pasta, the legendarily denuded shelves that stocked toilet tissue, the bins in the WinCo bulk aisles devoid of even the merest speck of flour and not one solitary dry bean.
We rewarded our fortitude by feasting on Chinese from Rainbow Dragon at 130th and Stark, for three reasons: one, it helps keep a beloved place in business during this bizarre time; two, it sticks a finger in the eye of people who apparently, we've heard, think that coronavirus is transmitted by Chinese peoplle; and, three, in my world you don't actually need reasons to eat Chinese food.
As of today we stand on the brink of a statewide order to stay the fuck home unless you have a good reason to be out in the open. Me, at this point, still have a job to go to. At this point, we'll leave it at this: I work in the transportation industry, and right now that's all you're getting out of me. My company has seen layoffs and we are operating at an absolute minimum of staff; it's also helps to be at the head of the seniority list in a union shop. But I, unlike many, still have a job to go to ... at least for now.
Which kind of brings me to the pictures I'm illustrating with. I work near the Portland International Airport. One of my favored commute routes, for many years, ecompasses I-205 from Exit 23B - Killingsworth Street - to Exit 21 - Glisan Street. The slick new electronic signs which are meant to give you estimated transit times to important junctions ahead no longer have their colorful displays. Up the hill and around the east side of the hill we call Rocky Butte, the signs read as pictured:
GIVE EXTRA SPACE
TO EACH OTHER
AND ON THE ROAD
The other direction has a simpler message:
COVID-19
AVOID
LARGE GROUPS
This is meant to encourage not only safe driving (always commendable) but also to instill, if even a minor way, the new gospel of social distancing which is meant to keep us all far enough apart so as not to give each other the gift of novel coronavirus.
It does not appear to be wholly effective as there is talk of Oregonizing the so-called 'shelter in place' strategy. How that will be implemented remains to be seen, but they say we should know something by Monday.
The freeway seems empty but that's not wholly unexpected for Saturday. The only difficulty with working 3rd shift and weekends is that it kind of always looks like this.
But the tension in the air? You can almost see it, these days.
So it goes.
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