One of the victims of the past year has been the sense of community that is the main advantage of living in Simpson County. The virus hasn’t killed community spirit yet, but it’s wounded and bleeding.
A glance through our paper shows the changes that COVID-19 has forced on us. A year ago, our Community Calendar page was loaded with club, volunteer group and church events all over the county. Today, only four or five events are listed. We’re missing so much of our social interaction.
One report that I was sad to read was that the Simpson General Hospital Auxiliary had disbanded. They gave up their volunteer work partly because they couldn’t be in the hospital to help patients and staff and partly because more people are working or are too busy for volunteer work, so they couldn’t get new people to replace those who dropped out along the way.
I was not a member, but I appreciated their meetings, activities and fund-raising efforts over the years to help support SGH. I always enjoyed seeing the pictures of women I knew modeling their Stephens finery for an audience and donating their proceeds to the hospital. It just seemed such a good community activity that I always thought I would attend when I wasn’t working. Now I won’t get the chance.
In Magee, the Lions Club is not meeting, nor are other clubs. Most churches are back to at least a Sunday worship service, but many aren’t doing much more than that. Our church is adding back more activities with precautions, but I fear that many members have used the virus as an excuse not to attend, even some who have had the vaccine and could come back. Christianity grows in community, and it’s sad to have lost so many spiritual community members.
The library book clubs aren’t meeting now, and I miss seeing those members that I only visited with as we discussed books.
Our neighborhood coffee group hasn’t met since last winter, and I miss those friends too.
I’m not sure that some of our community groups will ever get back together. There is a “feeling” people get when they don’t participate in community activities for awhile: the feeling that maybe they don’t need to do those things even when the virus clears. We get used to not taking responsibility for making things happen, not having to support activities, not even having to get dressed most days.
When the virus becomes less of a threat with the immunization now available, I’m wondering whether people will be so comfortable with isolation that they will remain social hermits. Will club members take up their duties and responsibilities again or stay at home in their jammies with their feet up?
Will apparel stores keep their dressing rooms locked because a locked dressing room poses less of a shop-lifting threat than an open one? By the way, owners, I only shop now where I can try the clothes on before I buy them.
At least we’re trying to have school here, unlike in some states. But I’m not sure that “school” will ever return to normal. Too many students have had a taste of not having to be in class. Too many teachers, especially in bigger cities where discipline is more of a problem, have had a taste of not having to conduct real classrooms. The public may demand the right to virtual instruction any time, even when the virus wanes. And we’ve seen what happens when people demand their rights--they get what they want even if it damages them.
Social isolation helps contain the virus, and some are too fragile to risk getting out, but isolation is dangerous mentally, physically and emotionally. And we’re already seeing the signs of what community isolation is doing to us.
When students are not in school, they begin to feel no loyalty or responsibility for what’s happening to their school. And their parents cease to care, and taxpayers cease to care.
I’ve noticed a great increase in the amount of litter along our county roads. It’s tossed out by people who do not feel a connection with their community and do not care whom they offend.
If we sit at home ordering what we want from online mega-marts instead of looking for it in our towns, our local businesses suffer. Some of them won’t make it through the economic crisis the virus has caused. And every time you lose a business, you lose part of the tax base that supports your town. When a business closes, its owner often moves away to try somewhere else, and other potential owners won’t be coming to a place where people don’t support local business.
The vaccine will help. “Herd immunization”--so many of us having had the virus and developed antibodies--will help. But to save our community as we have always enjoyed it, we who are reasonably healthy must shake off our lethargy and get back to the work of making this a place where we want to stay when the virus is conquered.
