Constable: As pandemic giveth new skills, will it taketh away old ones?
Staying in place during the pandemic has led some of us to discover new skills. Who doesn't know people who proudly posted photographs of freshly made loaves of bread they baked?
But this week's snow made me realize the pandemic isolation also has eroded some skills, such as the ability to drive fearlessly on snow-packed roadways.
Honed by years of daily driving to the newsroom and across the far-flung boundaries of the Daily Herald circulation area to interview column subjects, I've become immune to wet roads, icy roads, bitter cold, fog, blinding sun, tailgaters, pokey drivers, fast drivers, massive trucks, and drivers and deer who never use turn signals.
Ten months without that commuting grind has left me soft. Driving our son Will down to Indianapolis for a gathering with his mask-wearing, negative-testing, socially distancing friends before the last term of his senior year finds me a little nervous behind the wheel.
My ability to squeeze my car into parking places around popular restaurants and Wrigley Field used to draw praise from passengers. But I haven't used that skill since March, and I fear it might be gone.
My hope is that parallel parking is like riding a bicycle. Once our kids outgrew the desire to ride bikes as a family, I went a decade without hopping on my bicycle, which turned into a rusted eyesore. Like many of you, I rediscovered bicycles during the pandemic, and now I man a new bike with saddlebags for grocery runs when it isn't snowing.
I've seen social media posts and heard from readers who learned how to convert the spare bedroom into a first-class office and developed the skill to post annoying backgrounds on Zoom calls. We learned how to appreciate distant loved ones more. We learned that we have time to exercise more. We learned how to discover our hidden chef. We learned that we could use time saved by not commuting to read more, play more games, put together jigsaw puzzles, pick up a musical instrument, plant gardens, nurture indoor plants, get a puppy or kitten, and try our hand at painting, ceramics or writing.
My recent column about the 30 years of daily journals by Adam Gibbons of Geneva drew an amusing response from Carol Zarzynski of Buffalo Grove. Zarzynski inherited the writings of her grandma Sadie Allen, who was born in 1878 in Belvidere, Illinois, and kept a journal from the time she was 12 until her death in 1956.
“I wonder what Grandma had to say about the pandemic of 1918,” Zarzynski thought.
“To my surprise, she didn't have a whole lot to say. Her journals mainly dealt with the daily weather, what she baked that day and who stopped by for a visit.”
Zarzynski's grandma had a gift for the understated. Her entry on Dec. 7, 1941, read, “Partly cloudy. Windy. Quite cold. Snowed some tonight. Japan declared war on the U.S.”
Not everything turns out the way we anticipate. I'm guessing we'll eventually emerge from this pandemic with plenty of never-memorized piano songs, three-page novels and unfinished jigsaw puzzles.
Just as my driving confidence has eroded, I'm pretty sure lots of things I haven't done in 10 months are gone. I am hoping that I won't ever feel the need to reawaken my limited necktie-tying ability. But I have gotten good at donning a mask.
Shaken by my snow-driving doubts, I take back roads on the way home from Indiana and drive past a strip club that apparently is open. Do customers getting lap dances from masked strippers yell, “C'mon, baby. Let me see your nose!”
I worry about people who still don't wear masks. In fact, the main reason I get off I-65 and take back roads is not a lack of confidence driving among the 18-wheelers. It's just that if I do get in a crash, I don't want to be pulled from the flaming wreckage by Hoosier heroes not wearing masks.