I have so many happy memories from my childhood, memories that even after more than a few decades can still bring about an easy smile, or even an outright grin.

Memories of Christmas mornings with my brothers and sisters, trying with all our collective might not to descend upon a mountain of gifts in the living room, before the first light of day showed itself.

Memories of the last day of the schoolyear, with freedom beckoning, and endless summer days of baseball in the alley. Swimming in “batches” at Columbus Park, and getting to sleep on the back porch of the two-flat, the most coveted of berths in an age before air conditioning.

But there is one memory that come most easily and most often. The memory is seated in the annual family vacation, for many years in Sister Lakes, Michigan. Over the years my family rented cottages from two other families, who were also friends of my parents. In earlier years it was the Hayes Family on Little Crooked Lake. The cottage we rented had a name: Myrtle’s Place. In later years, and the more memorable years for me, we rented from the Clancy family on Round Lake, in a little group of family-owned cottages called Clancy’s Camp Geraldine. 

A family with eight children leaving home for two, and sometimes three weeks, is quite an undertaking. The entire week before departure was filled with preparations including housecleaning, shopping, packing, prepping the fishing gear, tuning up the old Chevy; and then finally, on a magic Saturday morning, starting out.

In those days, the one-hundred-and-ten-mile trip took about five hours, given the partially built Interstate system, and stopping for breakfast at Ritter’s Restaurant in Stevensville. My boredom with the highway travel was like most kids’ travel boredom. “Are we there yet?” has been passed from one generation of kids to another. I am guessing that some bored Roman kid in the back of a chariot asked the same question.

My travel boredom suddenly dissipated, and my excitement began to kick in when we finally reached the exit for Napier Avenue, 12 miles out from Sister Lakes. It elevated once again when we passed The Pearl Grange, eight miles out. Then another jump at Spinks Corner, six miles out. I could barely contain myself as we crossed Pipestone Road, three miles out.         

It was coming. The last landmark of mounting excitement was the Sister Lake Laundromat, about a mile from the crest of the last hill. And as the old Chevy lumbered up to the top of that last hill, you held your breath as the vista as last appeared below you.

The lake in all its sunlit glory burst into view, framed by an ageless red barn on one side and migrant workers toiling on the strawberry crop on the other. You could make out a little ice cream and bait shop on the shore called Dill’s Landing. And your young heart began to sing, because this was the beginning of vacation, that wonderful time of swimming and fishing and hiking and fireworks and that most precious gift to little boys: freedom.   

To be honest, years later, when it was my turn to drive the car as a husband and father, I had to try to conceal the same youthful glee when we crested that same hill. I wondered whether those young faces in the back seat felt like I did, both when I was their age, and in the moment.

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Since St. Patrick’s Day, our lives have been defined, and limited, by Covid-19. We are isolated, lonely, often bored, seeking new ways to fill our days. Some of us are out of work, some of us are hungry, and some of us are broke, and in need of help.

We survived the spring, began to struggle free in the summer to enjoy tented restaurants, virtual baseball on television, and smaller family get togethers. But in the absence of any clear and competent national leadership, the message was garbled. Travelling through Door County Wisconsin in July, my wife and I dined in some great restaurants with tight safety protocols in place. We felt safe. A few days later, in Sheboygan County, we found ourselves in the Wild West. Mask-less serving staff chatting you up a few inches form your face, crowded bars, groups of twenty at large tables. We left early for Chicago.  

About half the country, much of it rural or politically oriented, turned its collective back on the scientists. Wearing a mask marked the team you played for, and probably tagged you as a regular viewer of FOX or CNN/MSNBC.  A motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, bare-faced Trump rallies, ultra-right-wing marches, and countless weddings, parties, defiant restaurant owners, and small-town mayors all called it a hoax. Throw in a few state governors in denial and the gun was loaded, cocked, and ready to fire.

Now the gun has fired, is firing still. We got pretty much what Dr. Fauci and company told us we would get. We will likely see 500,000 dead by April 1^st, 2021. Almost unthinkable.

Even the most delusional of governors are now back-peddling, trying to put the genie back in the bottle; but the genie has escaped and is doing her worst, and still the deniers persist. Recently, Frank Bruni, a New York Times writer, echoed the words of a front-line nurse in South Dakota, perhaps the epicenter of delusional pandemic behavior. In describing her most adamantly delusional COVID-19 patients, she said, “They shout at us that they don’t have COVID and berate us for wearing our PPE because it’s a hoax. Only when we intubate them, do they stop shouting.” Powerful stuff.   

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In these last few weeks, I sense a slight movement upward, and perhaps toward the crest of a different kind of hill. The void in national leadership will soon end and adults are already filing into the room. Several promising vaccines are here, with more coming. The deniers will continue to deny, and surely many will resist the chance to get inoculated. But most of us will jump at it.

The crest of this new hill beckons and when we complete the first round of vaccinations, it will feel like the Napier Avenue exit, twelve miles out. And when the other vaccines come online, it will feel like The Pearl Grange, eight miles out. And when the schools reopen, it will feel like Spinks Corner was reached, six miles out.  Travel plans will feel a lot like reaching Pipestone Road, and when the pandemic drops off the front page, we will have almost crested the hill, right near the laundromat.

And what is on the other side? What great prize awaits us?

In a word, touch. What we long for more than anything is to touch again. The touch of a simple hug or handshake. The touch of a kiss. The touch of being in a crowded room, a restaurant, a theatre, a concert. The touch of a crowded ballpark, the touch of family gatherings.

We will regain the touch of human interactions in actual meetings in a room, absent the lack of tone of Zoom meetings and email strings.

We will revel in chatting with folks at an adjacent restaurant table, mask-less and carefree. And we will tip more easily and more generously, remembering how these workers took the brunt of the pandemic.

We will trade baseball talk with total strangers at a ball game, as we pass their beers down to them from the beer vendor in the aisle, and then pass their money back to the vendor.  A remarkable exercise in trust. 

Our kids will feel the touch of social warmth and comfort and happiness of a well taught classroom. That is, once they get over having again to get up early for school.

We will be less aloof in crowded elevators, unafraid to make eye contact, or trade light commentary, simply happy to be in a crowded elevator.

We will take in the joy of a family gathering, perhaps less eager to make a point, or exercise on old complaint. Happily content to be together to mark a birthday, a graduation, or a holiday. We will not have to hide our private worries about where or who you might have been too close to in the week before. 

We will rediscover the simple joys of entertaining and showing off our homes at their best. We will put out the folding chairs, the fold-up tables, the extra dishes and flatware, and the serving platters that have sat too idle for too long.

Our medical professionals will begin to relax, knowing they met the challenge. They will slowly leave behind the triage nightmare and they can return to the much more rewarding business of restoring health.      

We will see ambulances go by, and silently thank those paramedics who served throughout this time.

We will sit in Millennium Park and many other parks, and take in a concert, grateful for shared summer nights and the joy of music.

We will smile at each other as we walk our streets and pathways, silently acknowledging the simple privilege of not having to move to the other side of the road as we pass.

And those of us who are church-goers will gladly extend a hand in peace to those around us.

We are not at the crest of the hill yet, not by any means. But we are slowly moving up that hill. We will soon begin to feel our hearts glow again, slowly at first, and then increasing, as we pass the landmarks of isolation and move toward the joys of touch. It will be a Happy New Year.