From Jeff Childers

*FIELD REPORT*
The Childers family is having a “plains, trains, automobiles” type of holiday. After our original plans fell through at the last-minute, a mad online scramble ensued, hotels were full, flights were canceled, reservations were scarce, and we finally landed on something completely different but within an easy day’s driving distance in a beachy resort town three states away.

The CDC would FREAK OUT if it saw what was going on down here. It’s a lovely, amazing, marvelous madhouse, bustling with activity, bumper-to-bumper with traffic, and nigh-impossible to find a restaurant reservation. And — it’s almost completely maskless. Everywhere. Even the servers are down to 50% masked. Maybe less.

Even if you were looking for it, you might be forgiven for not knowing the government has declared a pandemic.

For instance, we took the kids up the old lighthouse yesterday afternoon, with gift shops conveniently located in the base AND at the top, a narrow concrete staircase winding up about seven flights, scenic views and cool breezes at the top.

It was a popular spot; totally packed. Believe me, it was way over fire code capacity in there. WAY over. Navigating the narrow stairs was an exercise in squeezing tightly past people who were either headed down or passing us on the way up. I have to admit, the first few times it was kind of shocking. It’s been so long since I’ve been reflexively allowing other people extra personal space that it took a conscious effort to be comfortable with crowd-normal.

Everything is open. We haven’t encountered a single — not one — store, restaurant, event or attraction that required masks. Certainly not injections. In stark contrast to late December, 2020, the streets, roads, and highways are busy. Almost too busy. No awkward moments at the elevator, trying decide whether the person already on board is going to freak out if you get in with them.

My guess is that many of you are also experiencing life this way — something very close to pre-Covid normal. These types of stories, describing ordinary life, are — mercifully — getting boring again. Still, clearly, not everyplace is back to normal or even close to normal. For example, even NBC moved its company New Year’s Eve party to Miami. And a viral picture shows that AOC and her boyfriend are spending the holiday there, too. I guess all that “safety” in New York City isn’t 100% working out.

My working hypothesis is that Covid madness is draining out of the world like dirty water out of a bathtub. It’s still pooled up in the big cities and the elitist public events, but it’s drying out everywhere else. True, we have a lot of mopping up to do, and we need to get control back to make sure this never happens again, but the flood is over.