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