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Kathryn Finegan Clark: By the Way -- Lessons from the plague

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“On hearing ill rumour that Londoners may soon be urged into their lodgings by Her Majesty’s men, I looked upon the street to see a gaggle of striplings making fair merry, and no doubt spreading the plague well about. Not a care had these rogues for the health of their elders!”

– Samuel Pepys Diaries

London 1664

A dear friend, one who also majored in English, sent me this excerpt. Strangely enough I had also thought, not of this passage exactly, but of Pepys, because I had recalled he had written about that killer epidemic.

For those of you who don’t recognize his name, Pepys (pronounced Peeps) was a British member of Parliament and Royal Navy administrator, who kept a daily diary between 1660 and 1669. He wrote of catastrophic events, such as the bubonic plague and the Great Fire of London that destroyed the medieval section of the city in 1666, as well as the truly trivial, such as what foods he liked and even more intimate details. All in all, he provided a front row seat to life in 17th-century London.

His diaries were not published until more than 200 years later and they have been a valuable resource for historians.

A lot has happened in the more than 350 years since Pepys recorded his and the city’s daily ups and downs but human behavior seems to have remained unchanged.

Rogues, still dancing in defiance even as their elders die, are not willing to give up their merry-making and apparently turning a blind eye as bodies spill out of makeshift morgues. More merry-makers were dancing at a private party Jan. 6 even as anarchists stormed the walls of the U.S. Capitol.

Pepys’s words ring true today. Ounces of prevention don’t seem to count for those who want to party no matter what. The same words also rang true in 1918 during the massive influenza epidemic that killed 675,000 in America.

People then also were urged to wear masks and to avoid crowds. Still the music played and liquor flowed at party after party even as the sick lay dying. It seems a certain segment of the population will simply resist changing their behavior if they’re told to.

Granted, wearing a mask can be a pain but it means helping to protect others from the virus and may even help shorten this long nightmare of isolation and fear.

Life is precious and all lives should matter more than a cocktail and a hug at a bar.

For me, it’s a matter of priorities, and I do have trouble wrapping my head around the excuses spouted by those who don’t share my sentiments. Did they not see those cold-storage trucks waiting to collect bodies outside New York City’s hospitals in April and May? Are they not seeing them now in California?

But I suppose people are tired of following the rules, the skin on their hands dried out from sanitizer or too frequent scrubbings. They’re tired of covering their faces with masks, affecting their breathing and fogging their glasses, tired of having no place to go, tired of sitting on hold on telephones for an hour just to get to talk to another human being to help solve a problem, tired of being at home all the time, and so they go out to escape the boredom.

I had a friend who lived in London during the Blitz, when Nazi bombers poured fire from the skies every night. She told me that as the Blitz dragged on, some people didn’t even bother to go into the bomb shelters when the sirens screamed their warnings. Londoners just took their chances on the street.

Our family is scattered. Our son, his wife and our grandchildren live in New York, our daughter and her husband in Texas—and these small families spent Christmas alone, instead of here with us for our usual great, big, chaotic, noisy, warm and wonderful gathering.

No towering Christmas tree here – just a lonely little Norfolk Island pine with a few ornaments, no big feast –just a small dinner for my husband and me. Presents from Santa for the children? Yes. For us? Not necessary or even wanted as that dark year came crashing to an end. But still, we feel blessed. We are here.

Now, in a gaunt January, I’m finding it difficult to understand, even more difficult to forgive, the 21st-century merry-makers who have spread the virus in crowded airports, taking it back home with them. Human behavior truly is mystifying.

kathrynfclark@verizon.net


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