March 30, 2020 • 38 mins
Tracy and Holly discuss what it feels like, as people who study history, to live through an event that you know will be historically significant. To all of our listeners: Please stay safe, and thank you for being part of the SYMHC family.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy D. Wilson. We're still
in the middle of a pandemic. We are, uh we
(00:21):
we have been talking about what this strange thing is
to be living in the middle of a pandemic, and
also what a strange thing it is as too people
who study history and have studied pandemics. Uh So we're
having a little departure from our normal show today where
Tracy and I are going to kind of talk about
this whole thing that we're all living through from the
(00:44):
perspective of people that study history, but also just experientially
what has been going on and and what we are
all dealing with because it's a very strange time, fraught
much panic going on. Yeah, we'll talk maybe towards the
end of about what isolation has been like, because I've
been sort of marveling at how differently it's played out
(01:05):
for people that I know in my life and certainly
talking to my therapist a lot about it. But first, um, like,
we're we're in this unique position clearly where we have
a front row seat to history being made, but you
don't always realize it when it starts that you're part
of a historical event. So what I'm curious about to
(01:27):
start with, Tracy, is do you remember when you first
heard about what eventually became known as COVID nineteen, but
first was just coronavirus? Yeah? I think I had heard
about there being some kind of novel coronavirus circulating in China. UM,
(01:47):
either late late late or the very beginning of UM.
Because I I start my day off every day I
looking at a whole bunch of stuff online as I'm
kind of getting my thoughts together, and some of it's
fun stuff, but it also includes multiple news sites. So
(02:10):
pretty much every morning I'm looking at the Boston Globe,
the New York Times, the Washington Post, UH, the Atlantic,
and Slate. Those are things that I look at every morning.
And so I am really sure that in the early
days of what was happening in China, I was at
least aware that something was happening, and then I started
keeping very close tabs on it because of my own
(02:32):
planned travel that was coming up in March. UM. I
want to talk about that in a minute. Oh, I'm
eager too. I do, because there are a lot of
questions that I know people have had and I'm I'm
curious what your thoughts are. I feel like I kind
of knew there was something brewing, and then it became
(02:54):
really really obvious because I went to l A for
the podcast words and came back with the worst flu
of my life. And that was in January, and of
course everyone was like, did you catch that weird virus
that came over from China? And I'm like, I don't
think so. Um, I don't know. We had no idea
(03:16):
really anything about it at that point on us soil um.
I will say that I have never taken a week
off of work because I couldn't move before, which that was.
But there are also a lot of gross flues that
went around this year, so yeah, it could have just
been one of those. I don't have any idea and
(03:36):
never will. Yeah. I know multiple people who got like
a diagnosed confirmed with a test influenza this year, many
of whom had also gotten a flu shot UM, so
that like wasn't necessarily a predictor of whether people were
getting the flu or not. The one time that I
have had influenza as an adult that's the sickest that
(03:59):
I've ever been in my adult life. Wait a minute,
you've only had the flu once? Yes, only well as
an adult, Like I'm not like to forget everything in
my childhood only one. I feel like I gotta stop
licking things. I've had bad colds before, and I might
have had bad colds that I described as the flu,
(04:20):
but once I'd actually had the flu, I was like, no,
that was a whole different thing. I think I did
miss an entire week of work. I'm also pretty sure
I got it from someone who came to work with it,
which I have not quite forgiven them for um like
that was it was. I was very it was a
very frustrating time to be sick. I missed the birth
(04:41):
of a friend's baby because I was at home with
the flu. There was no possible way I could go
see them in the hospital. Like that was just my
own personal frustration. But yeah, that's that's the sickest that
I've ever been as a grown adult. Yeah. I've had
one other flu that was a close second to the
one I had in January, which was actually back in
(05:01):
two thousand. I've had others in the interim, but I
wanted to. Like it was literally the new year turnover
to two thousands. So while some people were still having
y two K panic, I was like, will food ever
go down again? Oh? No, panic going on. I had
a runner up upper respiratory infection one time that made
(05:21):
me almost as sick um and I missed three or
four days of work. But that was a different thing,
Like that was a bacterial upper respiratory infection that I
was on antibiotics for, not influenza. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever I
had in January was just I was like a limp
rag of a human. At one point I got really
ambitious and thought I was gonna go make myself something
(05:41):
to drink, and about fifteen minutes later, Brian walked in
the kitchen and just kind of found me slumped into
the sink. It was like, what did you do it?
Let's get you back to bed. But I'm fine now.
Uh So enough about that. When did you realize that
this was like a significant thing. That's so that's a
(06:03):
weird question. It is because um, I back in April
of nineteen bought tickets to go on the Jonathan Coulting Cruise,
which was scheduled to depart from Fort Lauderdale, Florida on
March seven. UM. So, especially in February and March, I,
(06:29):
like I a lot of other people I know, we
were keeping a really close eye on what was happening,
especially as cruise ships started to make headlines for having
huge outbreaks and quarantines on board and things like that.
So we still went on this trip. We went on
the trip UH knowing that there were serious things happening
(06:49):
in UH, in China and in Italy and in some
other like specific parts of the US UM but like
we had done sort of this really calculated risk assessment
for ourselves to figure out, like, okay, what what are
the odds of their being an outbreak on our ship?
What are the odds of our not being able to
get home at the end of the trip, like all
this stuff. And when we left, the guidance that we
(07:13):
were getting from like pretty established reputable medical people was
wash your hands, don't touch your face, stay home if
you're sick, And we felt pretty okay about going. We
got on a ship and we left on March seven.
On March eighth, the U. S State Department said US
citizens don't get on cruise ships, and we were like
whelp uh uh. And then it got worse from there
(07:41):
because then on the eleventh the pandemic was declared and
what happened. I mean, it was a fun trip the
whole trip. It did feel like coronavirus was present on
the whole trip. There was a huge focus among everyone
about washing our hands. We were sharing our song tips
for what song to sing while you're washing your hands.
Like the crew of the ship seemed extremely focused on
(08:05):
making sure that everyone stayed healthy. But after that pandemic
declaration and then the ban on flights from Europe and
all this other stuff, like everything became way more serious
than it had been, and there was nothing we could
do about it. Like we had already left the only
port where we anybody could feasibly have gotten to an
(08:27):
international airport to go home. Um, we had other weird
things that happened because of weather that that that changed
our whole port schedule, but like we were just on
the ship, there was nothing we could do about it. Um.
People who live in hub cities in the US were
like offering up crash space to people who were on
the cruise from Europe who were worried that they couldn't
get home. Like the whole thing just became a whole
(08:48):
lot more urgent. Um. We had left on the trip
prepared to go home, to come home and self isolate
for fourteen days, like out of an abundance of caution,
and we were just sort of prepared for that possibility.
We were not at all expecting to get home from
the cruise and have the entire uh community where we
live essentially being on lockdown, like I was not. It
(09:12):
was not a thing that that we were like expecting
ourselves two out of an abundance of caution, keep ourselves
away from other people too for fourteen days. We were
not expecting that to be the increasing guidance of more
and more cities all around the country. I will say
I was surprised that you went on the trip, yeah,
because I don't think it's a secret and that I'm
(09:33):
outing you to say that you deal with some anxiety
we've talked about on the show before. I was really like,
there's no way Tracy's getting on that boat. Um. And
it was a little bit interesting. But I'm glad you
talked about the fact because you were a smart person
and your beloved Patrick is also very smart, and that
you had this very thoughtful risk assessment because I remember
(09:56):
seeing like people on Twitter talking about the Joco Cruise
and being like, I can't believe anybody got on that boat.
And I'm like, wait a minute, Like one everybody has
to make their own decisions about anything, and to the
boat was still running. It wasn't like the boat said
we don't really want to do this and you guys
like stormed the captain's quarters and made him do it.
It was a functioning ship. Yeah, we did get off
(10:18):
the last cruise for at least a month when we
got off the boat. Um, But yes, I I kind
of compare it to I don't know if I've talked
about it on this show as much before, But for
a really long time, I was terrified of airplanes, like
I had been uncomfortable with them, and then I had
(10:38):
a bad experience and I did not get on a
plane at all for more than a decade um, and
like I would have nightmares when they were air travel
incidents in the news, Like it was just a whole
huge thing. Um. And I knew rationally that being on
a plane was much safer than being in a car,
and that there are like whenever something happens on an airplane,
(11:01):
it makes huge headlines, but most of the airplanes are fine.
And that was also how I sort of felt about
the cruise, like there were some cruise ships that had
huge problems, but most of the cruise ships were fine,
and so um I also made that decision under like,
(11:22):
if if we had had the same direction that we're
having now, like if everybody was social distancing and needing
to stay six ft away from other people and all
that stuff, we would not have gone on the trip.
Um if the state of things on the day we
got back had been in place a week earlier, we
wouldn't have gone, and a lot of people that I
know wouldn't have gone. But it wasn't and everything seemed
(11:43):
a lot more manageable when we got on there, and honestly,
we felt I heard this among so many people who
were on that trip with us. We felt a lot
safer on the cruise ship, where everyone we ran into
was making a determined effort to wash hands and stay
away for or like not touch other people, like not
get into people's personal space, and to try to keep
(12:06):
everybody on boards even healthy. We felt so much safer
in that environment than we did getting off the ship
and going to the Fort Lauderdale Airport where somebody in
Terminal three, gate F ten was coughing and coughing and
coughing and coughing all over their tablet and all over
their table and not even bothering to cover it. And
I was like, I feel like I have just undone
(12:28):
the last week of care aboard the cruise ship by
being around this inconsiderate person who was not even covering
their mouth. Yeah. Um, alright, on that peppy note, We're
gonna pause for just a second. Uh, and when we
come back, we're gonna talk a little bit more about
viewing this through the lens of history. So, Tracy, I
(12:56):
feel like the moment when I realized that this was
going to be a thing that was written about in
history books is literally and it occurred to me beforehand.
But when I was like, there's no way this is
not going to be a significant event that gets discussed
and analyzed four hundreds of years was when it was
(13:16):
declared a pandemic. But the World Health Organization, that's not
something that gets declared a whole lot on occasion. And truthfully,
I mean some of that is my own insulated ignorance, right, Like,
there are certainly epidemics that happen in other places, um
and outbreaks, but it is again that's sort of selfish
(13:37):
thing of like, ohh this is right on my doorstep, um.
But then when you start to look out with a
wider worldview, you realize it is on everyone's doorstep, especially
because this is so highly contagious and one of those
things that people can be passing very very easily without
showing any symptoms. Just one of the reasons that I
mentioned that in our pet and co for episode, that
(14:00):
was something that that was being established as a real
thing about contagion when he was working and I, of
course you I wrote our episode on the influenza, so
you have studied that. But it is one of those
things where I think we can't help ourselves, and I'm
(14:21):
sure anyone else who studies history, who is a professional
historian cannot help. But consider what this is going to
look like in the future. Yeah. I know a lot
of people are really reluctant to try to make predictions
based on the past, but it's like there are also
parallels that we can see in the past versus things
(14:45):
that are happening right now for sure. It's so we
are going to have that eighteen flu episode as a
Saturday Classic. UM. I haven't really listened to it in
a while, and I just sort of skimmed through the
outline and it was one of those things that I
looked at and I was like, Wow, if we were
recording this episode now, there are various things, um that
(15:06):
like might have been approached differently, because I know I
One of the things that you sort of see floating
around on Facebook and Twitter and whatever is people who
feel like everyone is overreacting, um and saying things like like,
the nineteen eighteen flu killed, however, many millions of people
(15:27):
and this is not that, and it's like, well, okay. Also,
the nineteen eighteen flu lasted well into nineteen nineteen. We're
only a couple of months into all this, Like, you
can't really compare what's happening in this moment to what
happened well over a year into a totally different pandemic.
But at the same time, there were lots of communities
in nineteen eighteen who were doing things like canceling public
(15:50):
gatherings and trying to adjust public transit schedules so that
they wouldn't be as crowded and like similar steps to
some of the things that are happening right now. UM.
And so I've seen more things recently about like how
cities that canceled all their public events faired the nineteen
eighteen flu versus ones that didn't. Uh. Yeah, I mean
(16:11):
I think those are pretty predictable. UM. Probably data sets, right,
like lower incidents of contagion when people are not exposing
themselves to everything. UM. I recently, as you know, did
a ted X at Emory University, and the whole premise
(16:32):
of it was that we are often in many ways
reliving things in history that are reliving things that are
very similar to what has gone before in history. And
in that case, I use several examples. UM. I talked
a little bit about the butter versus margarine thing and
how in some ways that is similar to what you
and I have talked about, uh, with the beef industry
(16:54):
today being very chagrined about sort of the the evolution
of plant based meat substitutes that are getting more and
more like beef, and so they're similar litigation type issues
going on UM, as well as a couple of other
historical examples and My whole premise was that if we're
cognizant of the fact that we are living through things
(17:14):
that will be viewed by future historians, we might become
a little bit more thoughtful about our choices and about
these little sort of messages that we're sending to the
future about how people live today and how they they
chose to handle things, and whether or not they looked
back and learned from history rather than just forging ahead
without thinking about things in that way. Uh, that all
(17:36):
happened before this. Um. That talk was at the very
beginning of February, So the coronavirus existed, but was not
at this level. I think at that point there was
still probably a perception among the a lot of the
American public. I don't want to presume on anybody's um behalf,
(17:59):
but that this was going to be a thing. We knew.
It was already affecting China very heavily, and Italy to
a degree I think had started to hit the the
statistics in the news. But I think there was a
perception that, like this is happening in those places, it
will peter out before it gets here. Yeah, And I think,
(18:20):
um some of that perception may have been fueled. I mean,
some of it's probably wishful thinking, and some of it
is just not being connected and tuned into what all
was happening. UM. But I think it might have also
been fueled by other epidemics, not pandemics, that have happened
within people's memory, like stars or ibola, that were um
(18:48):
really uh like like emphasized in the news, and that
in some places people got really panicky about, and then
those did not blossom into global pandemic in part or
like in some cases it's because like the way the
disease spread did not turn out to be as as
(19:09):
contagious as was expected or or whatever. But in a
lot of cases it's because medical professionals and communities took
steps to stop the spread of the thing. Like we
took actual steps to stop all of these diseases, and
and that kept them from becoming pandemics. And one of
the points that I've seen made um over and over
(19:29):
and in this particular pandemic that we're living in, is
that when you take the kind of steps that are
necessary to stop the spread of a disease like this,
the goal is the disease doesn't spread, and you save
a lot of people's lives. But the way it will
be interpreted is they said this was going to be
a nightmare, and it wasn't a nightmare. Obviously everyone overreacted. Um,
(19:54):
it's not really that everyone overreacted. It's that the correct
steps were taken to stop the thing, and we stopped it.
It's that they reacted appropriately. Yeah. And then also, honestly,
I'd rather overreact have it not turned out to be
uh as much of an issue then not react and
have it have a death toll in the millions. Yeah.
(20:15):
I feel like it is one of those things where
we have all seen the footage of the people on
spring Break being foolish. Uh. There is also that perception
of and I wish I could time travel a little
bit and see how this will be written about by
future historians. There is that perception among a lot of
(20:36):
people of only old people and young people and the infirm.
So I'm fine. One, that's kind of sucky because you're
saying that those the elderly and people with pre existing
conditions are not worth worrying about. And two, that's not
the case at all. We're seeing more and more instances
of people who appeared perfectly healthy who do not survive this. So,
(21:00):
I mean, my I don't know that I would say
it's a fear, but I have to sort of shake
my head and be a little chagrined that there are
going to be a lot of reports in the future
of how very foolish we were on mass. Yeah. Well,
and that's where, UM, some of the historical parallels that
come up for me in all this. I mean, there's
(21:22):
the obvious parallel of previous pandemics, but then there are
also things like the Great Famine in Ireland and how
one of the reasons that the Great Famine in our
Ireland was so bad was that UM, Parliament took this
very lacey, fair attitude towards the whole thing, and rather
than taking steps that could have saved people's lives, it
(21:46):
was more like those aren't the people that matter though, UM,
And some of the stuff that has been going around
among politicians here in the US as of when we're
recording this, which is March at ten thirty seven in
the morning, UM has a similar tone, so like, well,
the people that matter will be okay, and uh that's
(22:10):
not okay. Uh. Yeah, I mean there is this growing
discussion right now about whether or not it is more
important to save the economy by kind of letting this
thing run its course and potentially kill off a lot
of people so we can get businesses back up and running, which, um,
to me, is very troubling. There are clearly some people
(22:33):
who support that line of thought right well, apart from
the moral implication of that, We've also seen in previous pandemics,
like with the Black Death in in Europe which killed
such a huge proportion of the population that economic effects
of that afterward we're devastating. It was like, there wasn't
enough labor to bring in the harvest. And if there's
(22:56):
not enough labor to bring in the harvest, like people
are not eating and so um. We actually got a
question about that one time. We made a comment about
the labor shortage after the Black Death, and someone was like,
I don't understand how that works, Like if there weren't
as many people to feed, you don't need as many crops.
And it's like, well, sure, but if if you don't
have enough people to harvest the crops, it doesn't matter
(23:16):
that there are fewer people to feed, the crops are
not coming in. Yeah. Uh, we are going to pause
once again and have a little sponsor break, and then
we will come back and conclude our discussion about living
through history. Tracy, you had mentioned to me that one
(23:39):
of the things that you were thinking about in the
context of this discussion was um other historical events that
we have lived through in our lives that we recognize
now are historical events and perhaps did at the time,
but that this feels a little bit different. Yeah, That's
something that I've seen a lot of people say on
Twitter or otherwise express in some way that people sort
(24:02):
of are like, I suddenly feel like I'm living through history.
I'm living through a thing that's going to be in
history books. And I was thinking about, like other times
in my life that I have felt like I'm witnessing
a historical moment, and it's like my very youngest political
or historical memory. I have a vague, vague memory of
(24:23):
Ronald Reagan being elected president, and then I also have
a very shady early memory of the assassination attempt on
Ronald Reagan, and then I have very clear and vivid
memories of um like the Chernobyl and Challenger disasters. In
six I sort of have the general sense of living
(24:46):
through the end of the Cold War in the eighties.
It's like a lot of things that are more specific
moments in history, like obviously nine eleven and the dot
com bubble collapse in the housing crisis um that started
here in the US in two thousand and eight. Like
all of these things, wars that even if I knew
(25:08):
someone was serving in also felt kind of far away
from me. So a lot of stuff that felt like
either isolated or something that felt removed from me in
some way. But this pandemic more feels like a global
thing that is uh involving much of the world, and
(25:28):
I feel like it's going to involve the whole world
for a prolonged time that I am living through, rather
than something I'm kind of witnessing that's not directly touching me. Yeah. Plus,
we really have no sense of the timeline, no right, um,
And that that's the thing that has has looped around.
(25:49):
When I have talked to people about the nineteen eighteen
flu is like we know how bad that was because
the end happened and we have all the data. Yeah, yeah,
we're not at the end of of what's happening now. Um.
I also have really felt extraordinarily fortunate through all of this.
I mean, number one, you and I have jobs that
(26:11):
I was already working at home, and you and our producer,
Casey were able to pivot to working at home really quickly,
and so we're incredibly lucky in that way. My mom's
parents grew up during the Great Depression, and I remember
my grandmother telling stories about when she was a kid
and not having any toys to play with, so she
(26:31):
was playing, um with like a stick or whatever like that.
Actually might be my other grandparents who grew up on
a tobacco farm and played with tobacco sticks like they
were hobby horses or or things like that. But um, like,
I heard a lot of stories from my grandparents about
about living in the Great Depression and growing up in
the Great Depression and having just a scarcity because in
(26:52):
addition to the fact that my grandmother was growing up
during the Great Depression, she was a preacher's daughter, so
the family already didn't have a ton of money before
the Great Depression even started. Um. My dad's dad served
in World War Two and Korea and was deployed when
my dad was really little, and that was one of
the things that influenced my parents decision uh not to
(27:16):
wait after they got married to have children until my
dad was um out of the army because they got
married during the Vietnam War. And so by comparison to
all of that, like, my life has been incredibly easy.
And I know that there have been times, especially in
my younger life, when we had to be really frugal,
(27:37):
um because money was tight around our house, but we
still had food and we had a roof over our head,
and IM like I had a stable family that was
invested in my brothers and my well being. Um. So
the fact that for me personally this seems so different
from all of that, I feel like I've been extraordinarily lucky. Yeah,
(27:59):
did know. I I have noticed a number of people
talking about the people that are handling this quite well,
of which I would kind of count myself. I would
just not to say that I am not keenly aware
of the risk and danger of the time we're living in.
But like, isolation is totally fine by me, um, which
(28:19):
shocks me because I am very extroverted. But I'm having
a delightful time at home. It's interesting because people um
that have this has come up on social media. I
have also been talking to my therapist about it. People
that grew up in more chaotic homes tend to be
able to ride this out a little bit more easily
without as much, you know, mental and emotional stress, because
(28:42):
they're a little bit used to it. I have said
on the show. Before my dad's career Air Force, he
was one of those people that would sometimes just vanish
for long periods of time, Like he would wake me
up in the night and be like, I'm leaving and
I can't tell you where I'm going, but I love you,
and I don't know what I'm coming back and by um.
So there's part of me that's just very used to
instant ability and like not knowing what the future holds,
(29:03):
which has been in some ways, little did I know
it was preparing me for this. It certainly made me
a very independent person, which has served me very well
at numerous points in the curve. But this is an
interesting thing in that, I think because even for those
of us, like you said, that have lived through these
other significant moments, I very clearly remember the Challenger disaster
(29:25):
as well as Reagan's assassination attempt because I thought my
brother was lying to me when I walked in the
door from school and he told me that happened. I
was like, you're a liar, um, because I was a
snooty nine year old who thought my much older brother
was stupid. Um. But one in a lot of those cases,
those were like events that happened. They may have been
a shock, but we started to move into the the
(29:47):
recovery of it pretty quickly, or as you said, they
were at enough of a distance that we were processing
it without the immediacy. This has been a phase where
seeing how people in my life are dealing with it
has been enlightening and sometimes more upsetting than my own experience.
You know, Like I I will not out anybody's stories,
(30:11):
but I have had numerous friends who have reached out
and said, like, I think I am having a panic attack.
I'm very upset. I might be having a heart attack.
I'm not sure. And and I have literally had that
from three different people, one of whom is so completely
relaxed at all times that knowing she was upset was
more upsetting to me than anything I was feeling. And
I think this is not uncommon. Right, we are going
(30:32):
to be dealing with this emotionally as an experienced group
trauma for a long time. Neither of us has children,
but like, one of the things that my friends who
are parents have talked about is how hard it is
to explain to their kids, like no, you can't go
hug your friend across the street. No you can't. And
(30:52):
there some of these kids, especially if they're in a
one child household, are feeling lonely about it. Like there,
they're used to social internet, that's an important part of
child development. And so I think we'll be sorting out
what this has really done to the globe socially for
a long time. Yeah. I similarly, like my my parents,
(31:15):
we're already really isolated before this started, um, because the
world is not accessible to my mom. Basically, it's really
hard for them to get out of the house and
do anything. And then um, as is the case with
a lot of people who get older and are mostly
(31:36):
in their homes, like there, their peer group also getting
older mostly in their homes, Like they don't get as
many visitors as they used to. So I had this
whole conversation with my dad about my mom's sisters wanting
to come visit her, and my dad and me both
feeling like that was not a great idea and trying
to figure out how to protect everybody involved if they
(31:58):
did make this visit. I like, at the same time,
I recognize that having that kind of conversation is uh,
not nearly as dire as a lot of the other
conversations I've seen people having to have about like not
knowing what's going to happen to their paycheck and whether
they're going to be able to pay the rent and
buy groceries, and um, whether the company they work for
(32:21):
is going to be able to weather this and all
kinds of other stuff. Um. So it's it's one of
those things where simultaneously I feel like I have been
incredibly lucky, like I said earlier, to be in a
place where I can mostly make this work, and I
my heart goes out to the folks who are in
(32:43):
so much of a bigger struggle and so much more
risk than I am. Um. One of my friends is
a nurse, and I am worried about her every day. Um,
And it's it's one of those things where where I
don't I don't know what's going to happen with that. Yeah, yeah,
I think instead of doing a listener mail on this
(33:05):
and one of the things that I wanted to really, really,
I'm not an expert and I'm not the first person
you will hear this from. UM, but make a note
one to thank all of the people who are deemed
essential and can't stay home, like medical professionals who are
at great risk every single day, mail carriers, the people
(33:26):
who are running take out, the people who are delivering groceries,
the people who are stocking shelves in grocery stores, the
sanitation workers, utility workers, and there are so many people
that are out there doing their jobs in very dangerous times. UM,
please be nice to them. Uh if you if you
(33:49):
can do something nice for them, great. That's tricky I
know to figure out. UM. One of the things we
had done, we ordered a bunch of cookies from a
bakery that was going to have some problems as they
had stocked up and could not do an event. And
they come in little packs of three. They're sealed from
the bakery, and so we have tried to give those
out to like our mail carrier and and FedEx drivers, etcetera.
(34:11):
If they will take them. It is not enough. It's
like a tiny, tiny gesture. UM, I hope we figure
out a way to do more, including everyone revisiting how
those people get paid, because a lot of times those
are not high highly paid positions, but those are the
people that we are realizing are essential just to keep
(34:32):
our daily lives running. The other thing that I just
want to make sure people do is to it sounds
very hippy dippy, but be gentle with yourself. None of
us really know how we will react day to day,
because some days you wake up and it's very sad
and upsetting, and other days you wake up feeling fine,
and that almost feels guilty. It's tricky. Yeah. One of
(34:56):
the things that I've noticed UM next Door for my
neighborhood has been blessedly low on racism in the time
that I've been part of UM, but very vocal about
people not picking up after their dogs. Um. I get it.
(35:17):
But suddenly the months long conversation about the dog poop
has been replaced with people saying I'm healthy and have
a car. If you need groceries, call me UM, which
I applaud in respect. I am on I think day
ten of this, like fourteen days of intentionally isolating ourselves
(35:40):
after getting off of a cruise ship. So after we
get to the end of that fourteen days, I think
my my, my spouse and I will be talking about Okay,
what what should we do now? Um? We've been banking
donations and things, but like, is there something else we
can and should be doing when we feel like we
we are less of a potential risk to other people? UM,
(36:02):
So we'll see. I also want to thank our listeners.
We recently put out a playlist of of sort of
episodes to maybe lighten the mood and make the time
pass a little faster um. And I was a little
nervous about doing that because I know that when folks
have something that changes in their podcast feed, it can
be a big deal. Um. And overwhelmingly folks have been
(36:26):
so gracious and so kind um and have checked in
on us and ask us how we are doing. UM.
And I just wanted to thank everybody for that, Yes absolutely,
and also just for you know, listening and being with
us over the years since sticking with us through this weird,
weird time UM. And I, like I said, be gentle
(36:47):
with yourself and others as much as you can and
just recognize it. We're all in this together. And I
hope that everyone who hears this is safe and sound
and makes it through as unscathed as possible. As you said,
we speak from a very very fortunate position since our jobs,
even within like the entertainment industry and media, we are
(37:10):
in a position of great fortune because we can keep going,
whereas like people that work in film and television have
had to shut down. UM. So for everyone listening to this,
know that we are very grateful for the position we
are in. We are very grateful for you, and we
hope you are very very safe, um, and that you're
taking care of yourself, uh, you know, helping others if
(37:31):
you can, and if you can't, that's fine. Just get
through and meet us on the other side and we'll
have a huge party somewhere. That's my big plan. I'm
planning the after parties right now. That's like part of
a mental health thing for me, where I'm like, oh,
the outfits I'm going to wear to these huge, huge celebrations. Yeah.
Over once it's safe for us to be within six
speed of each other, Yes, it's going to be a blast.
(37:54):
I really do. Again, want to just reiterate our thanks
and that we hope you stay safe and we will
all get through this together one way or Another stuff
you missed in history class is a production of I
heart Radio. For more podcasts from i heart Radio, visit
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
(38:17):
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy D. Wilson. We're still
in the middle of a pandemic. We are, uh we
(00:21):
we have been talking about what this strange thing is
to be living in the middle of a pandemic, and
also what a strange thing it is as too people
who study history and have studied pandemics. Uh So we're
having a little departure from our normal show today where
Tracy and I are going to kind of talk about
this whole thing that we're all living through from the
(00:44):
perspective of people that study history, but also just experientially
what has been going on and and what we are
all dealing with because it's a very strange time, fraught
much panic going on. Yeah, we'll talk maybe towards the
end of about what isolation has been like, because I've
been sort of marveling at how differently it's played out
(01:05):
for people that I know in my life and certainly
talking to my therapist a lot about it. But first, um, like,
we're we're in this unique position clearly where we have
a front row seat to history being made, but you
don't always realize it when it starts that you're part
of a historical event. So what I'm curious about to
(01:27):
start with, Tracy, is do you remember when you first
heard about what eventually became known as COVID nineteen, but
first was just coronavirus? Yeah? I think I had heard
about there being some kind of novel coronavirus circulating in China. UM,
(01:47):
either late late late or the very beginning of UM.
Because I I start my day off every day I
looking at a whole bunch of stuff online as I'm
kind of getting my thoughts together, and some of it's
fun stuff, but it also includes multiple news sites. So
(02:10):
pretty much every morning I'm looking at the Boston Globe,
the New York Times, the Washington Post, UH, the Atlantic,
and Slate. Those are things that I look at every morning.
And so I am really sure that in the early
days of what was happening in China, I was at
least aware that something was happening, and then I started
keeping very close tabs on it because of my own
(02:32):
planned travel that was coming up in March. UM. I
want to talk about that in a minute. Oh, I'm
eager too. I do, because there are a lot of
questions that I know people have had and I'm I'm
curious what your thoughts are. I feel like I kind
of knew there was something brewing, and then it became
(02:54):
really really obvious because I went to l A for
the podcast words and came back with the worst flu
of my life. And that was in January, and of
course everyone was like, did you catch that weird virus
that came over from China? And I'm like, I don't
think so. Um, I don't know. We had no idea
(03:16):
really anything about it at that point on us soil um.
I will say that I have never taken a week
off of work because I couldn't move before, which that was.
But there are also a lot of gross flues that
went around this year, so yeah, it could have just
been one of those. I don't have any idea and
(03:36):
never will. Yeah. I know multiple people who got like
a diagnosed confirmed with a test influenza this year, many
of whom had also gotten a flu shot UM, so
that like wasn't necessarily a predictor of whether people were
getting the flu or not. The one time that I
have had influenza as an adult that's the sickest that
(03:59):
I've ever been in my adult life. Wait a minute,
you've only had the flu once? Yes, only well as
an adult, Like I'm not like to forget everything in
my childhood only one. I feel like I gotta stop
licking things. I've had bad colds before, and I might
have had bad colds that I described as the flu,
(04:20):
but once I'd actually had the flu, I was like, no,
that was a whole different thing. I think I did
miss an entire week of work. I'm also pretty sure
I got it from someone who came to work with it,
which I have not quite forgiven them for um like
that was it was. I was very it was a
very frustrating time to be sick. I missed the birth
(04:41):
of a friend's baby because I was at home with
the flu. There was no possible way I could go
see them in the hospital. Like that was just my
own personal frustration. But yeah, that's that's the sickest that
I've ever been as a grown adult. Yeah. I've had
one other flu that was a close second to the
one I had in January, which was actually back in
(05:01):
two thousand. I've had others in the interim, but I
wanted to. Like it was literally the new year turnover
to two thousands. So while some people were still having
y two K panic, I was like, will food ever
go down again? Oh? No, panic going on. I had
a runner up upper respiratory infection one time that made
(05:21):
me almost as sick um and I missed three or
four days of work. But that was a different thing,
Like that was a bacterial upper respiratory infection that I
was on antibiotics for, not influenza. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever I
had in January was just I was like a limp
rag of a human. At one point I got really
ambitious and thought I was gonna go make myself something
(05:41):
to drink, and about fifteen minutes later, Brian walked in
the kitchen and just kind of found me slumped into
the sink. It was like, what did you do it?
Let's get you back to bed. But I'm fine now.
Uh So enough about that. When did you realize that
this was like a significant thing. That's so that's a
(06:03):
weird question. It is because um, I back in April
of nineteen bought tickets to go on the Jonathan Coulting Cruise,
which was scheduled to depart from Fort Lauderdale, Florida on
March seven. UM. So, especially in February and March, I,
(06:29):
like I a lot of other people I know, we
were keeping a really close eye on what was happening,
especially as cruise ships started to make headlines for having
huge outbreaks and quarantines on board and things like that.
So we still went on this trip. We went on
the trip UH knowing that there were serious things happening
(06:49):
in UH, in China and in Italy and in some
other like specific parts of the US UM but like
we had done sort of this really calculated risk assessment
for ourselves to figure out, like, okay, what what are
the odds of their being an outbreak on our ship?
What are the odds of our not being able to
get home at the end of the trip, like all
this stuff. And when we left, the guidance that we
(07:13):
were getting from like pretty established reputable medical people was
wash your hands, don't touch your face, stay home if
you're sick, And we felt pretty okay about going. We
got on a ship and we left on March seven.
On March eighth, the U. S State Department said US
citizens don't get on cruise ships, and we were like
whelp uh uh. And then it got worse from there
(07:41):
because then on the eleventh the pandemic was declared and
what happened. I mean, it was a fun trip the
whole trip. It did feel like coronavirus was present on
the whole trip. There was a huge focus among everyone
about washing our hands. We were sharing our song tips
for what song to sing while you're washing your hands.
Like the crew of the ship seemed extremely focused on
(08:05):
making sure that everyone stayed healthy. But after that pandemic
declaration and then the ban on flights from Europe and
all this other stuff, like everything became way more serious
than it had been, and there was nothing we could
do about it. Like we had already left the only
port where we anybody could feasibly have gotten to an
(08:27):
international airport to go home. Um, we had other weird
things that happened because of weather that that that changed
our whole port schedule, but like we were just on
the ship, there was nothing we could do about it. Um.
People who live in hub cities in the US were
like offering up crash space to people who were on
the cruise from Europe who were worried that they couldn't
get home. Like the whole thing just became a whole
(08:48):
lot more urgent. Um. We had left on the trip
prepared to go home, to come home and self isolate
for fourteen days, like out of an abundance of caution,
and we were just sort of prepared for that possibility.
We were not at all expecting to get home from
the cruise and have the entire uh community where we
live essentially being on lockdown, like I was not. It
(09:12):
was not a thing that that we were like expecting
ourselves two out of an abundance of caution, keep ourselves
away from other people too for fourteen days. We were
not expecting that to be the increasing guidance of more
and more cities all around the country. I will say
I was surprised that you went on the trip, yeah,
because I don't think it's a secret and that I'm
(09:33):
outing you to say that you deal with some anxiety
we've talked about on the show before. I was really like,
there's no way Tracy's getting on that boat. Um. And
it was a little bit interesting. But I'm glad you
talked about the fact because you were a smart person
and your beloved Patrick is also very smart, and that
you had this very thoughtful risk assessment because I remember
(09:56):
seeing like people on Twitter talking about the Joco Cruise
and being like, I can't believe anybody got on that boat.
And I'm like, wait a minute, Like one everybody has
to make their own decisions about anything, and to the
boat was still running. It wasn't like the boat said
we don't really want to do this and you guys
like stormed the captain's quarters and made him do it.
It was a functioning ship. Yeah, we did get off
(10:18):
the last cruise for at least a month when we
got off the boat. Um, But yes, I I kind
of compare it to I don't know if I've talked
about it on this show as much before, But for
a really long time, I was terrified of airplanes, like
I had been uncomfortable with them, and then I had
(10:38):
a bad experience and I did not get on a
plane at all for more than a decade um, and
like I would have nightmares when they were air travel
incidents in the news, Like it was just a whole
huge thing. Um. And I knew rationally that being on
a plane was much safer than being in a car,
and that there are like whenever something happens on an airplane,
(11:01):
it makes huge headlines, but most of the airplanes are fine.
And that was also how I sort of felt about
the cruise, like there were some cruise ships that had
huge problems, but most of the cruise ships were fine,
and so um I also made that decision under like,
(11:22):
if if we had had the same direction that we're
having now, like if everybody was social distancing and needing
to stay six ft away from other people and all
that stuff, we would not have gone on the trip.
Um if the state of things on the day we
got back had been in place a week earlier, we
wouldn't have gone, and a lot of people that I
know wouldn't have gone. But it wasn't and everything seemed
(11:43):
a lot more manageable when we got on there, and honestly,
we felt I heard this among so many people who
were on that trip with us. We felt a lot
safer on the cruise ship, where everyone we ran into
was making a determined effort to wash hands and stay
away for or like not touch other people, like not
get into people's personal space, and to try to keep
(12:06):
everybody on boards even healthy. We felt so much safer
in that environment than we did getting off the ship
and going to the Fort Lauderdale Airport where somebody in
Terminal three, gate F ten was coughing and coughing and
coughing and coughing all over their tablet and all over
their table and not even bothering to cover it. And
I was like, I feel like I have just undone
(12:28):
the last week of care aboard the cruise ship by
being around this inconsiderate person who was not even covering
their mouth. Yeah. Um, alright, on that peppy note, We're
gonna pause for just a second. Uh, and when we
come back, we're gonna talk a little bit more about
viewing this through the lens of history. So, Tracy, I
(12:56):
feel like the moment when I realized that this was
going to be a thing that was written about in
history books is literally and it occurred to me beforehand.
But when I was like, there's no way this is
not going to be a significant event that gets discussed
and analyzed four hundreds of years was when it was
(13:16):
declared a pandemic. But the World Health Organization, that's not
something that gets declared a whole lot on occasion. And truthfully,
I mean some of that is my own insulated ignorance, right, Like,
there are certainly epidemics that happen in other places, um
and outbreaks, but it is again that's sort of selfish
(13:37):
thing of like, ohh this is right on my doorstep, um.
But then when you start to look out with a
wider worldview, you realize it is on everyone's doorstep, especially
because this is so highly contagious and one of those
things that people can be passing very very easily without
showing any symptoms. Just one of the reasons that I
mentioned that in our pet and co for episode, that
(14:00):
was something that that was being established as a real
thing about contagion when he was working and I, of
course you I wrote our episode on the influenza, so
you have studied that. But it is one of those
things where I think we can't help ourselves, and I'm
(14:21):
sure anyone else who studies history, who is a professional
historian cannot help. But consider what this is going to
look like in the future. Yeah. I know a lot
of people are really reluctant to try to make predictions
based on the past, but it's like there are also
parallels that we can see in the past versus things
(14:45):
that are happening right now for sure. It's so we
are going to have that eighteen flu episode as a
Saturday Classic. UM. I haven't really listened to it in
a while, and I just sort of skimmed through the
outline and it was one of those things that I
looked at and I was like, Wow, if we were
recording this episode now, there are various things, um that
(15:06):
like might have been approached differently, because I know I
One of the things that you sort of see floating
around on Facebook and Twitter and whatever is people who
feel like everyone is overreacting, um and saying things like like,
the nineteen eighteen flu killed, however, many millions of people
(15:27):
and this is not that, and it's like, well, okay. Also,
the nineteen eighteen flu lasted well into nineteen nineteen. We're
only a couple of months into all this, Like, you
can't really compare what's happening in this moment to what
happened well over a year into a totally different pandemic.
But at the same time, there were lots of communities
in nineteen eighteen who were doing things like canceling public
(15:50):
gatherings and trying to adjust public transit schedules so that
they wouldn't be as crowded and like similar steps to
some of the things that are happening right now. UM.
And so I've seen more things recently about like how
cities that canceled all their public events faired the nineteen
eighteen flu versus ones that didn't. Uh. Yeah, I mean
(16:11):
I think those are pretty predictable. UM. Probably data sets, right,
like lower incidents of contagion when people are not exposing
themselves to everything. UM. I recently, as you know, did
a ted X at Emory University, and the whole premise
(16:32):
of it was that we are often in many ways
reliving things in history that are reliving things that are
very similar to what has gone before in history. And
in that case, I use several examples. UM. I talked
a little bit about the butter versus margarine thing and
how in some ways that is similar to what you
and I have talked about, uh, with the beef industry
(16:54):
today being very chagrined about sort of the the evolution
of plant based meat substitutes that are getting more and
more like beef, and so they're similar litigation type issues
going on UM, as well as a couple of other
historical examples and My whole premise was that if we're
cognizant of the fact that we are living through things
(17:14):
that will be viewed by future historians, we might become
a little bit more thoughtful about our choices and about
these little sort of messages that we're sending to the
future about how people live today and how they they
chose to handle things, and whether or not they looked
back and learned from history rather than just forging ahead
without thinking about things in that way. Uh, that all
(17:36):
happened before this. Um. That talk was at the very
beginning of February, So the coronavirus existed, but was not
at this level. I think at that point there was
still probably a perception among the a lot of the
American public. I don't want to presume on anybody's um behalf,
(17:59):
but that this was going to be a thing. We knew.
It was already affecting China very heavily, and Italy to
a degree I think had started to hit the the
statistics in the news. But I think there was a
perception that, like this is happening in those places, it
will peter out before it gets here. Yeah, And I think,
(18:20):
um some of that perception may have been fueled. I mean,
some of it's probably wishful thinking, and some of it
is just not being connected and tuned into what all
was happening. UM. But I think it might have also
been fueled by other epidemics, not pandemics, that have happened
within people's memory, like stars or ibola, that were um
(18:48):
really uh like like emphasized in the news, and that
in some places people got really panicky about, and then
those did not blossom into global pandemic in part or
like in some cases it's because like the way the
disease spread did not turn out to be as as
(19:09):
contagious as was expected or or whatever. But in a
lot of cases it's because medical professionals and communities took
steps to stop the spread of the thing. Like we
took actual steps to stop all of these diseases, and
and that kept them from becoming pandemics. And one of
the points that I've seen made um over and over
(19:29):
and in this particular pandemic that we're living in, is
that when you take the kind of steps that are
necessary to stop the spread of a disease like this,
the goal is the disease doesn't spread, and you save
a lot of people's lives. But the way it will
be interpreted is they said this was going to be
a nightmare, and it wasn't a nightmare. Obviously everyone overreacted. Um,
(19:54):
it's not really that everyone overreacted. It's that the correct
steps were taken to stop the thing, and we stopped it.
It's that they reacted appropriately. Yeah. And then also, honestly,
I'd rather overreact have it not turned out to be
uh as much of an issue then not react and
have it have a death toll in the millions. Yeah.
(20:15):
I feel like it is one of those things where
we have all seen the footage of the people on
spring Break being foolish. Uh. There is also that perception
of and I wish I could time travel a little
bit and see how this will be written about by
future historians. There is that perception among a lot of
(20:36):
people of only old people and young people and the infirm.
So I'm fine. One, that's kind of sucky because you're
saying that those the elderly and people with pre existing
conditions are not worth worrying about. And two, that's not
the case at all. We're seeing more and more instances
of people who appeared perfectly healthy who do not survive this. So,
(21:00):
I mean, my I don't know that I would say
it's a fear, but I have to sort of shake
my head and be a little chagrined that there are
going to be a lot of reports in the future
of how very foolish we were on mass. Yeah. Well,
and that's where, UM, some of the historical parallels that
come up for me in all this. I mean, there's
(21:22):
the obvious parallel of previous pandemics, but then there are
also things like the Great Famine in Ireland and how
one of the reasons that the Great Famine in our
Ireland was so bad was that UM, Parliament took this
very lacey, fair attitude towards the whole thing, and rather
than taking steps that could have saved people's lives, it
(21:46):
was more like those aren't the people that matter though, UM,
And some of the stuff that has been going around
among politicians here in the US as of when we're
recording this, which is March at ten thirty seven in
the morning, UM has a similar tone, so like, well,
the people that matter will be okay, and uh that's
(22:10):
not okay. Uh. Yeah, I mean there is this growing
discussion right now about whether or not it is more
important to save the economy by kind of letting this
thing run its course and potentially kill off a lot
of people so we can get businesses back up and running, which, um,
to me, is very troubling. There are clearly some people
(22:33):
who support that line of thought right well, apart from
the moral implication of that, We've also seen in previous pandemics,
like with the Black Death in in Europe which killed
such a huge proportion of the population that economic effects
of that afterward we're devastating. It was like, there wasn't
enough labor to bring in the harvest. And if there's
(22:56):
not enough labor to bring in the harvest, like people
are not eating and so um. We actually got a
question about that one time. We made a comment about
the labor shortage after the Black Death, and someone was like,
I don't understand how that works, Like if there weren't
as many people to feed, you don't need as many crops.
And it's like, well, sure, but if if you don't
have enough people to harvest the crops, it doesn't matter
(23:16):
that there are fewer people to feed, the crops are
not coming in. Yeah. Uh, we are going to pause
once again and have a little sponsor break, and then
we will come back and conclude our discussion about living
through history. Tracy, you had mentioned to me that one
(23:39):
of the things that you were thinking about in the
context of this discussion was um other historical events that
we have lived through in our lives that we recognize
now are historical events and perhaps did at the time,
but that this feels a little bit different. Yeah, That's
something that I've seen a lot of people say on
Twitter or otherwise express in some way that people sort
(24:02):
of are like, I suddenly feel like I'm living through history.
I'm living through a thing that's going to be in
history books. And I was thinking about, like other times
in my life that I have felt like I'm witnessing
a historical moment, and it's like my very youngest political
or historical memory. I have a vague, vague memory of
(24:23):
Ronald Reagan being elected president, and then I also have
a very shady early memory of the assassination attempt on
Ronald Reagan, and then I have very clear and vivid
memories of um like the Chernobyl and Challenger disasters. In
six I sort of have the general sense of living
(24:46):
through the end of the Cold War in the eighties.
It's like a lot of things that are more specific
moments in history, like obviously nine eleven and the dot
com bubble collapse in the housing crisis um that started
here in the US in two thousand and eight. Like
all of these things, wars that even if I knew
(25:08):
someone was serving in also felt kind of far away
from me. So a lot of stuff that felt like
either isolated or something that felt removed from me in
some way. But this pandemic more feels like a global
thing that is uh involving much of the world, and
(25:28):
I feel like it's going to involve the whole world
for a prolonged time that I am living through, rather
than something I'm kind of witnessing that's not directly touching me. Yeah. Plus,
we really have no sense of the timeline, no right, um,
And that that's the thing that has has looped around.
(25:49):
When I have talked to people about the nineteen eighteen
flu is like we know how bad that was because
the end happened and we have all the data. Yeah, yeah,
we're not at the end of of what's happening now. Um.
I also have really felt extraordinarily fortunate through all of this.
I mean, number one, you and I have jobs that
(26:11):
I was already working at home, and you and our producer,
Casey were able to pivot to working at home really quickly,
and so we're incredibly lucky in that way. My mom's
parents grew up during the Great Depression, and I remember
my grandmother telling stories about when she was a kid
and not having any toys to play with, so she
(26:31):
was playing, um with like a stick or whatever like that.
Actually might be my other grandparents who grew up on
a tobacco farm and played with tobacco sticks like they
were hobby horses or or things like that. But um, like,
I heard a lot of stories from my grandparents about
about living in the Great Depression and growing up in
the Great Depression and having just a scarcity because in
(26:52):
addition to the fact that my grandmother was growing up
during the Great Depression, she was a preacher's daughter, so
the family already didn't have a ton of money before
the Great Depression even started. Um. My dad's dad served
in World War Two and Korea and was deployed when
my dad was really little, and that was one of
the things that influenced my parents decision uh not to
(27:16):
wait after they got married to have children until my
dad was um out of the army because they got
married during the Vietnam War. And so by comparison to
all of that, like, my life has been incredibly easy.
And I know that there have been times, especially in
my younger life, when we had to be really frugal,
(27:37):
um because money was tight around our house, but we
still had food and we had a roof over our head,
and IM like I had a stable family that was
invested in my brothers and my well being. Um. So
the fact that for me personally this seems so different
from all of that, I feel like I've been extraordinarily lucky. Yeah,
(27:59):
did know. I I have noticed a number of people
talking about the people that are handling this quite well,
of which I would kind of count myself. I would
just not to say that I am not keenly aware
of the risk and danger of the time we're living in.
But like, isolation is totally fine by me, um, which
(28:19):
shocks me because I am very extroverted. But I'm having
a delightful time at home. It's interesting because people um
that have this has come up on social media. I
have also been talking to my therapist about it. People
that grew up in more chaotic homes tend to be
able to ride this out a little bit more easily
without as much, you know, mental and emotional stress, because
(28:42):
they're a little bit used to it. I have said
on the show. Before my dad's career Air Force, he
was one of those people that would sometimes just vanish
for long periods of time, Like he would wake me
up in the night and be like, I'm leaving and
I can't tell you where I'm going, but I love you,
and I don't know what I'm coming back and by um.
So there's part of me that's just very used to
instant ability and like not knowing what the future holds,
(29:03):
which has been in some ways, little did I know
it was preparing me for this. It certainly made me
a very independent person, which has served me very well
at numerous points in the curve. But this is an
interesting thing in that, I think because even for those
of us, like you said, that have lived through these
other significant moments, I very clearly remember the Challenger disaster
(29:25):
as well as Reagan's assassination attempt because I thought my
brother was lying to me when I walked in the
door from school and he told me that happened. I
was like, you're a liar, um, because I was a
snooty nine year old who thought my much older brother
was stupid. Um. But one in a lot of those cases,
those were like events that happened. They may have been
a shock, but we started to move into the the
(29:47):
recovery of it pretty quickly, or as you said, they
were at enough of a distance that we were processing
it without the immediacy. This has been a phase where
seeing how people in my life are dealing with it
has been enlightening and sometimes more upsetting than my own experience.
You know, Like I I will not out anybody's stories,
(30:11):
but I have had numerous friends who have reached out
and said, like, I think I am having a panic attack.
I'm very upset. I might be having a heart attack.
I'm not sure. And and I have literally had that
from three different people, one of whom is so completely
relaxed at all times that knowing she was upset was
more upsetting to me than anything I was feeling. And
I think this is not uncommon. Right, we are going
(30:32):
to be dealing with this emotionally as an experienced group
trauma for a long time. Neither of us has children,
but like, one of the things that my friends who
are parents have talked about is how hard it is
to explain to their kids, like no, you can't go
hug your friend across the street. No you can't. And
(30:52):
there some of these kids, especially if they're in a
one child household, are feeling lonely about it. Like there,
they're used to social internet, that's an important part of
child development. And so I think we'll be sorting out
what this has really done to the globe socially for
a long time. Yeah. I similarly, like my my parents,
(31:15):
we're already really isolated before this started, um, because the
world is not accessible to my mom. Basically, it's really
hard for them to get out of the house and
do anything. And then um, as is the case with
a lot of people who get older and are mostly
(31:36):
in their homes, like there, their peer group also getting
older mostly in their homes, Like they don't get as
many visitors as they used to. So I had this
whole conversation with my dad about my mom's sisters wanting
to come visit her, and my dad and me both
feeling like that was not a great idea and trying
to figure out how to protect everybody involved if they
(31:58):
did make this visit. I like, at the same time,
I recognize that having that kind of conversation is uh,
not nearly as dire as a lot of the other
conversations I've seen people having to have about like not
knowing what's going to happen to their paycheck and whether
they're going to be able to pay the rent and
buy groceries, and um, whether the company they work for
(32:21):
is going to be able to weather this and all
kinds of other stuff. Um. So it's it's one of
those things where simultaneously I feel like I have been
incredibly lucky, like I said earlier, to be in a
place where I can mostly make this work, and I
my heart goes out to the folks who are in
(32:43):
so much of a bigger struggle and so much more
risk than I am. Um. One of my friends is
a nurse, and I am worried about her every day. Um,
And it's it's one of those things where where I
don't I don't know what's going to happen with that. Yeah, yeah,
I think instead of doing a listener mail on this
(33:05):
and one of the things that I wanted to really, really,
I'm not an expert and I'm not the first person
you will hear this from. UM, but make a note
one to thank all of the people who are deemed
essential and can't stay home, like medical professionals who are
at great risk every single day, mail carriers, the people
(33:26):
who are running take out, the people who are delivering groceries,
the people who are stocking shelves in grocery stores, the
sanitation workers, utility workers, and there are so many people
that are out there doing their jobs in very dangerous times. UM,
please be nice to them. Uh if you if you
(33:49):
can do something nice for them, great. That's tricky I
know to figure out. UM. One of the things we
had done, we ordered a bunch of cookies from a
bakery that was going to have some problems as they
had stocked up and could not do an event. And
they come in little packs of three. They're sealed from
the bakery, and so we have tried to give those
out to like our mail carrier and and FedEx drivers, etcetera.
(34:11):
If they will take them. It is not enough. It's
like a tiny, tiny gesture. UM, I hope we figure
out a way to do more, including everyone revisiting how
those people get paid, because a lot of times those
are not high highly paid positions, but those are the
people that we are realizing are essential just to keep
(34:32):
our daily lives running. The other thing that I just
want to make sure people do is to it sounds
very hippy dippy, but be gentle with yourself. None of
us really know how we will react day to day,
because some days you wake up and it's very sad
and upsetting, and other days you wake up feeling fine,
and that almost feels guilty. It's tricky. Yeah. One of
(34:56):
the things that I've noticed UM next Door for my
neighborhood has been blessedly low on racism in the time
that I've been part of UM, but very vocal about
people not picking up after their dogs. Um. I get it.
(35:17):
But suddenly the months long conversation about the dog poop
has been replaced with people saying I'm healthy and have
a car. If you need groceries, call me UM, which
I applaud in respect. I am on I think day
ten of this, like fourteen days of intentionally isolating ourselves
(35:40):
after getting off of a cruise ship. So after we
get to the end of that fourteen days, I think
my my, my spouse and I will be talking about Okay,
what what should we do now? Um? We've been banking
donations and things, but like, is there something else we
can and should be doing when we feel like we
we are less of a potential risk to other people? UM,
(36:02):
So we'll see. I also want to thank our listeners.
We recently put out a playlist of of sort of
episodes to maybe lighten the mood and make the time
pass a little faster um. And I was a little
nervous about doing that because I know that when folks
have something that changes in their podcast feed, it can
be a big deal. Um. And overwhelmingly folks have been
(36:26):
so gracious and so kind um and have checked in
on us and ask us how we are doing. UM.
And I just wanted to thank everybody for that, Yes absolutely,
and also just for you know, listening and being with
us over the years since sticking with us through this weird,
weird time UM. And I, like I said, be gentle
(36:47):
with yourself and others as much as you can and
just recognize it. We're all in this together. And I
hope that everyone who hears this is safe and sound
and makes it through as unscathed as possible. As you said,
we speak from a very very fortunate position since our jobs,
even within like the entertainment industry and media, we are
(37:10):
in a position of great fortune because we can keep going,
whereas like people that work in film and television have
had to shut down. UM. So for everyone listening to this,
know that we are very grateful for the position we
are in. We are very grateful for you, and we
hope you are very very safe, um, and that you're
taking care of yourself, uh, you know, helping others if
(37:31):
you can, and if you can't, that's fine. Just get
through and meet us on the other side and we'll
have a huge party somewhere. That's my big plan. I'm
planning the after parties right now. That's like part of
a mental health thing for me, where I'm like, oh,
the outfits I'm going to wear to these huge, huge celebrations. Yeah.
Over once it's safe for us to be within six
speed of each other, Yes, it's going to be a blast.
(37:54):
I really do. Again, want to just reiterate our thanks
and that we hope you stay safe and we will
all get through this together one way or Another stuff
you missed in history class is a production of I
heart Radio. For more podcasts from i heart Radio, visit
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
(38:17):
to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
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Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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