Covid Chronicles. Chapter 83: Reconnecting with Neighbors and Friends

 

Read chapter 82 here

Photo by Retiring Guy (11/6/2020)

Monday, November 9, 2020 

After a period of social isolation during the past month, JoAnna and I took advantage of every opportunity to hang out this weekend. On Friday evening, Dave and Karen invited us over for a fire in their back yard. Also joining us were Michael and Amy and their 2 children – Clare, 8, and Everett, 5 – who live next door to Dave and Karen. Amy works part-time at the Willy Street Coop, and one of Michael’s brothers is friends with Andy. (One of his lacrosse teammates at UW-Milwaukee.) Amy and Michael were regulars at our Bastille Day party once they moved into the neighborhood. 

The evening didn’t proceed as I expected. 

The couple that lives behind Dave and Karen also have 2 children: an 8-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy. The four of them spent the first hour, plus overtime, tearing around the back yard, emitting frequent high-pitched, gleeful screams that scraped the inside my head raw. Amy and Michael finally got them to settle down. The other parents didn’t join us, no doubt content to savor some quiet time away from their high-strung kids. So as it turned out, having an adult conversation proved to be a struggle. It wasn’t until 9:00, when Michael and Amy said their goodbyes, with kids in tow, that the four older adults were able to have an uninterrupted conversation. Twenty-five years ago, if Andy and Eddie had acted in such a boisterous and unrestrained manner, I would have taken them aside for a little heart-to-heart. 

As I thought more about situation the following day, I wondered how much of the kids’ behavior was related to the pandemic. I imagine it’s been quite an adjustment for parents and children faced with considerably fewer opportunities for structured activities. Kids need to let off steam, and on Friday night the four of them in our company sounded like a stovetop of furiously boiling tea kettles. 

On Saturday, we got together with Ron and Margaret for the first time in nearly a month. Margaret tends to take spur-of-the-moment trips to Rockford to visit her only grandchild, and Ron’s aging parents — his father in his early 90s with dementia and mother in her late 80s in gradually failing health — require lots of attention from him and his two sisters. Ron visits them every weekend. 

We met them at Wisconsin Brewery in Verona, which has a large outdoor seating area. (The accompanying photo doesn’t even show the half of it and is clearly pre-Covid.) By the time we arrived, we had barely an hour of daylight left, but we were nearing the end of a week’s worth of high temperatures in the 70s so it wasn’t an issue sitting outdoors. The most interesting sidelight of the evening was the number of couples and families that brought along their dogs. We sat near the entrance – just beyond where the flagpole is in the upper left-center portion of the photo – and every time I looked to my right, I saw people arriving and leaving with dogs on a leash. And not a single one barked or misbehaved. 

Wanting to take advantage of another beautiful day, JoAnna and I planned to meet Ron and Margaret at the Capital Brewery beer garden in Middleton on Sunday afternoon. We received a call from them as we were walking there. 

“They’re closed, Margaret said,” JoAnna reported. 

We checked their website earlier in the day and found their hours of operation, even a note that “hours may vary on Veterans’ Day”. Guess it always pays to call to confirm. 

We ended up at the Free House Pub, where all but one of the outdoor tables were occupied. We arrived just in time. We ordered a round of beers and a few appetizers and enjoyed the summery atmosphere, a rare treat this late in the year in Wisconsin. Definitely no need to fire up the patio heaters. 

Next weekend it will be at least 20 degrees cooler. Even more so after that. Bar and restaurant owners here are facing a crisis. And I don’t think that heat lamps and ‘igloos’ and geodesic domes will provide enough insurance for them to make it through the winter. I see a lot more ‘temporary’ closures on the horizon. 

Here’s a recent list published by Madison magazine. (Highlights indicate restaurant where we’ve dined more than once. The Avenue is where Eddie worked for 2½ years. Curiously missing from the list of Vin Santo, our favorite ‘special event’ dining location. I’m sure there are other omissions , but none immediately come to mind.)