Covid Chronicles Chapter 95: Christmas in Fond du Lac

Read chapter 94 here

Selfie taken by Cindy

Saturday, December 19, 2020     

At the beginning of the year, who would have guessed that a convenience store at the southern edge of Fond du Lac would play a role in our Christmas celebration. 

Living in a Covid bubble means no road trip to Manitowoc to visit Cindy and Jen this Christmas. To compensate, and in order to exchange gifts, we agreed to meet at an approximate halfway point today. Certainly a poor substitute for what we typically did in The Before Time, but we’ll take advantage of whatever personal contact we can arrange. 

Working with older adults and numerous volunteers of all ages as a Meals in Wheels program coordinator, Cindy needs to keep her social contacts to a minimum, even with family. Except for a few weeks in September, Jen has done most of her teaching virtually since March. As a result, she feels increasingly cooped up, spending the weekdays alone in their small house while Cindy works onsite at the Manitowoc Senior Center. 

“How is this rendezvous going to work?” I asked JoAnna when he announced this rendezvous. 

I pictured the four of us standing uncomfortably around the coffee machine, avoiding the questioning eyes of the counter clerk. 

“I don’t know,” she replied, not yet having thought about what we do when we get there. “I thought the four of us could just sit on the car and talk,” JoAnna suggested as we were getting ready to leave this morning. “We’ll all be wearing masks.” 

And, as an additional precaution, we kept two windows open a crack, the weather cooperating -- temperature in the upper 30s with no wind to speak of. 

Photo by Retiring Guy

We spent about 45 minutes together, Cindy sharing news of her latest virus scare at the senior center. A young man who volunteers as a cardio drumming instructor came became infected. The center had to shuts down all activities for a week – except for the Meals on Wheels program. Fortunately, Cindy didn’t need to quarantine as she had no direct contact with him. And so far, none of the program participants have tested positive.