Posted on by Anne · 2 Comments

Covid’s Creep to the Country

I think I’ve mentioned that where we live is fairly rural.

As with some rural communities, there may be some sense of insulation from the effects of Covid-19 as it sweeps around the world. In fact, someone I know was teased a few weeks ago at a local gardening store when he told the cashier that he would load his own mulch in order to maintain some social distance. “A CUSTOMER IS COMING TO THE LOADING AREA,” she announced over the store’s loudspeaker. “BUT HE DOESN’T NEED HELP BECAUSE HE WANTS TO SOCIAL DISTANCE!” There was chuckling. This person now buys his mulch from the Lowe’s in Rocky Mount.

(About ten days after this interaction this same establishment went to curbside-only service. No more loitering in the garden store, y’all!)

And indeed, today’s Roanoke Times reports only 16 cases of Covid-19 in Franklin County, with 19 in Bedford County just across the lake.

However, a large population of our neighbors are retired and are very respectful of the threat that the coronavirus presents. You see some folks wearing masks in the stores, and appreciate businesses’ attempts to distance their customers.

The Burnt Chimney Post Office is not playing around.

We are supporting our small businesses with take-out orders and only venturing out when we need to. But if we went to our windows to bang pots at 7 pm in support of health care workers, I don’t think anyone would hear us.

When I talk to friends in the DC area or our daughter in New York, it is clear that they are living in a world that seems very different, even if I suspect strongly that it is not.

Posted on by Anne

A New Look at New York

It may be no surprise that I’ve had New York on my mind lately.

And ironically enough, the week after we moved our girl from Alabama to North Carolina, we jumped on the train for a long-planned trip to the Big City itself.

The real drivers for the trip were our friends Colleen and Brett, who had taken the Amtrak from Roanoke to New York previously and were enthusiastic to do so again. And for someone who says he would never relish living there, Brett did an amazing job planning the trip, for which we are grateful.

Those guys started the day out early; the Amtrak leaves Roanoke at about 6:30 am. Jim and I joined them an hour up the road, in Lynchburg, and we picked up more friends, Michelle and Steve, just south of DC. A bloody Mary or two, and the attention of a fellow passenger — a bored and sassy nine-year-old traveling with her parents to go see Aladdin — made the hours zoom by.

Brett, Steve, and Jim in the sunshine on the Highline

In fact, the weekend zoomed by as we roamed around the island of Manhattan. We walked on the Highline and had lunch in Chelsea Market.

Hello, yummy

We saw a couple of shows!

We climbed all over the Vessel in Hudson Yards.

We checked out Little Italy, Chinatown (we were there during the Lunar New Year and it was fun seeing folks hustle around to get their supplies for the festivities), and the Housingworks Bookstore Café.

And, oh yes, Times Square, Top of the Rock, and even the M&Ms store.

It was a dizzying couple of days, made more fun by chatting with the many international visitors in our hotel and with the warm, funny, kind New Yorkers all around us. With the thought of our girl’s impending move (she found an apartment over the weekend!) looming in the back of my mind, the trip made me anticipate it — in a good way — even more intently.

Cora’s worst nightmare: tourist parents
who don’t leave

I ♡ New York? Indeed, I think I do.