Let’s Hear Your March 11 Stories

You’ll be telling them the rest of your lives anyway.

That right there is video of my oldest son William, at the time just eight years old, cleaning the seats of the flight from Atlanta to West Palm Beach, Florida, that our family took on March 7, 2020. Everyone had heard of the coronavirus by then. It led every morning news telecast, it was on the front page of every newspaper, it had been discovered on a cruise ship outside California, the President was assuring the citizenry that “whoever wants a test can get one.” But it still felt distant, something that likely would reach our shores but couldn’t possibly be that bad. We were the United States, after all. Surely we’re prepared for something like this. Surely we’re all over it. But it was enough of a concern that William thoroughly and studiously wiped down everybody’s seats on the plane before we buckled in. We posted it on social media, ha ha, how cute, aren’t germs funny?

Four days later was March 11. The storm seemed to gather strength as that day went on. A hospital in Washington state had 15 deaths. Sporting events asked fans to stay home. Broadway shows started to close their doors. We watched a Georgia basketball game, the last game future №1 pick Anthony Edwards would play for the Dawgs (he shot 2-for-13), and then I made the boys go to bed. My wife was tired; she laid down to read. But I stared at the television and began to drink, beginning a routine that would last for several months. The White House announced that the President, who was Donald Trump at the time, if you can believe that, would address the nation from the Oval Office. And then he gave this speech. It was … not reassuring.

Within minutes of the end of Trump’s error-riddled, sniffly, blooper-addled, all-together-terrifying speech, Tom Hanks announced on Instagram that he and his wife Rita Wilson had tested positive for Covid-19 and Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert, who had been seen just a day earlier…