Drive-by proves that isolation doesn’t have to be lonely

It was spring in Montana, so the snow only came up to my knee. My mother finished winding me into my sweater, snowsuit, boots and scarves, handed me the lard pail that held my lunch. Distance learning in those days meant the mile and a half trek to my one-room schoolhouse. At age 5, I was the whole first and second grade.

After school came the hard part. Almost always, there was a Great Northern freight train stopped across the foot of the hill and extending as far as we could see on either side. That train had come out of St Paul the day before and spent 25 hours lumbering across this northern-most railroad route in the United States. It would change engines at Troy, but it paused in Warland to make a fuel and water stop. These great trains were two or three miles long. No way around them. No matter what the weather, we waited. We were used to it. We were railroad kids. We knew the ID number of boxcars and classifications of engines the same way kids of a later generation would know the grill configuration of a Ford, or the silhouette of a P38.

Quentin Ridgeway wasn’t a railroad kid. He laughed at us, and he’d roll under the cars and strut away on the other side. One day the train suddenly started moving. I’ve often wondered whatever became of Lefty Ridgeway.

A text message reported that my great-grandson had taken his distance learning assignment into the dog pen to share his fourth-grade lessons with the family pet. We’re back in the one-room schoolhouse, but now the one room is the living room or the kitchen.

I talked with a Seattle grandma who has created a McDonald’s style playland inside her home, making a ball pit with a thousand colored balls (from Amazon). Was it hard to put 1,000 balls in the bathtub? “It was much harder to take them out when my granddaughter wanted a bath,” this grandma replied, asking that her name not be shared, for fear people would want to adopt her.

April was National Humor Month, so my eldest child (hereafter referred to as E.C.) decided to organize a fun humor event for me from her home in the Southwest. Medical reports recently have noted that depression is a big problem for older people who are alone, and she recognized that I was having difficulty with the isolation. She called Deputy Police Chief Ted DeHart in my hometown and asked if she could plan a special event to cheer her mother.

“My Mom is sad,” she said. Chief DeHart advised her on possibilities to support an 86-year-old shut-in. I’m not crazy about the description, but I haven’t touched or hugged a human person since March 15, so I guess it fits.

Chief DeHart told my daughter that there couldn’t be a parade or an event because, even in ordinary times, that would require permits. In the times of sheltering in place, it was out of the question.

Chief DeHart added, “Please remember the police department can help celebrate and support recognizing sheltered people. I want attendees to know all traffic laws need to be followed with no special considerations. And, he added, “please, don’t leave any trash behind.” Now, you would think that didn’t leave much room for cheer. And you’d be wrong.

“The result,” wrote my daughter, “was that we changed plans and ended up designing a meticulously socially distant “Cheery Drive By.”

On the last day of April at 2 in the afternoon, at the end of a driving rainstorm, the cars came around the corner and down my street. As instructed, I was waiting safely in the porch swing wearing a mask. It was not a parade. It was just 15 of my friends who happened to drive by to remind me that even though we have to be sheltering in place, we haven’t lost each other. They couldn’t stop or get out of the car, but they took time to wave and call out, “We love you and we miss you.” I laughed and cried, and I kept my mask on the whole time.

I’ll always remember my “Cheery Drive By,” just as I remember those long-ago days in Montana. We could be sure the train would finally move, heading on to Seattle, and we could go home again.

We’ll get through this, you know, with a better understanding of love and laughter and how to build a ball pit in the bathtub. And there will be parades.

Where to find Dorothy in May

Of course, she’s home, sheltering in place, but please join Dorothy on her Swimming Upstream podcast at www.itsnevertoolate.com or www.sobradionetwork.com.

• May 3:- Hollywood historian Sam Longoria and wildlife conservationist Lynn Okita.
• May 10: Justice Richard Guy - What Can We Expect From the Supreme Court?
• May 17: Generation Gap – Ray Still and Dorothy Wilhelm share ideas to make the quarantine easier.
• May 24: Making Times of Corona Work For You – Humorist, author, international speaker Dr. Patt Schwab.

NOTE: Date indicates when each show “goes live.” It’s then available until the end of time.

This story was originally published May 3, 2020 at 6:01 AM with the headline "Drive-by proves that isolation doesn’t have to be lonely."