It Took a Global Pandemic...

 From Paper City:

Generation Xers are generally pragmatic, independent and resourceful. We don’t require a lot of hand holding. As Cold War kiddos, our duck and cover drills had more purpose. They were not only to prepare for a possibility of a tornado ― we also needed to identify our nearest nuclear fallout shelter. . . you know, just in case.

Waiting in lines is no problem for us. We spent plenty of time chillin’ in the back of a station wagon or suburban (long before seat belt laws went into effect), waiting in those endless gas lines with our parents in the late-seventies. We queued up in lines that snaked through parking lots, and around buildings, just to score tickets to Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back.

Gen Xers have limited expectations too. We were completely satisfied to play with our Pet Rocks (which was literally just a rock), or the world’s first video game, Pong (literally a dot on the screen, moving between two cursors). The first generation of “gamers” we cut our teeth on joystick games like Frogger, Pac Man and Galaga. In other words, we are pretty easily entertained. (Read more.)

From American Greatness:

There have been societal effects from these closures that show both the good and the bad in our culture. Many question how we as a nation were so quickly willing to give up our liberties. Others find it to be a political occurrence and praise it. Others in the middle wonder how elected officials have become so tone-deaf that they can stand at a podium and destroy their friends’ and neighbors’ lives, knowing they themselves will walk away from the cameras and the press with their jobs. They also wonder whether these elected officials have ever sat with a restaurant owner who has laid off the staff, is struggling to make ends meet and is on the brink of closing forever.

People have also turned against one another — hollowed-out souls on social media who scold those they think aren’t doing everything by the book, often reporting them to authorities as well.

Small businesses, including restaurants and gyms, have been hit particularly hard by pandemic shutdowns. An economic impact report released by Yelp three months ago tracked business closures through Yelp’s customer review listings and found that nearly 100,000 businesses had permanently closed from March 1 to Aug. 31. At that time, about 66,000 others were temporarily closed. One can imagine the permanent closures will have grown. (Read more.) 

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