I've had the following on my mind for quite a while and it's kind of a weird take, at least on the surface of things.
I'm a guy who basically has to live his life thinking two, three, four weeks ahead or sometimes longer based on what I do for living here in the world of community and provincial news. I have to remember select dates for when this may be happening or when that event is going down, and as a result, time can seem to fly by at a moment's notice.
I'll blink in May and then it'll be August. I'll sneeze in December and then it'll be March.
What eventually comes to pass is the realization that a few years have gone down the road, and I'll sometimes find myself asking how the heck did the time go by so quick, or even if certain events in our world even happened.
Let me cut right down to the chase here.
I know it might raise some eyebrows to say this because of the obvious impacts that it had on our world, but to me, it doesn't even feel like the whole Covid-19 pandemic even happened in that multi-year timeline of between 2020, 2021, and 2022. I know that many will disagree 100% on that, but I'm simply speaking from my perspective as a journalist living here in rural Saskatchewan, and to me, it felt like as if things were just put on pause for a time, which in hindsight didn't even feel that long, and then afterward, we all just resumed our lives and moved on.
Now, having said that, let me be clear that living in the midst of all that was happening at that time in our lives, I can tell you that it didn't feel like as if we were going to lift ourselves out of that whole situation anytime soon. It felt like we would watch the daily updates on the news or online, we would be told of inflating numbers of those who'd gotten Covid, and there'd appear to be no end in sight. We'd learn of new measures being introduced to try and combat everything, and new guidelines we would have to live by, and every sort of message that came across from higher ups would carry the standard "We'll get through this together" line that soon became almost as common as the everyday "Hello!"
I found myself working from home more, and I found myself going out less. I can remember going out to the movies here in town and seeing garbage bags draped over a number of seats, which were used to help inform people of which seats to avoid in order to create distancing spaces. At times, I even found myself choosing to avoid the larger big box stores, and it wasn't necessarily out of fear of catching Covid, it was because I had gotten used very quickly to being surrounded by much more modest-sized crowds of people. Give me a healthy turnout at the Jim Kook Rec Plex over a mob of shoppers at Walmart any day of the week.
That's not to say that everything that came out of the pandemic was bad or bleak.
I have many, many stories in my archives that I wrote centered on the pandemic, stories that I wrote *because* of the pandemic, and I even covered some cool and community-centered events that had to be altered due to what was happening.
High school graduation parades, for example. I can remember photographing these very cool events that took place in Outlook, Dinsmore, and Loreburn, which saw the grads being literally paraded around their communities for people to applaud and give their best wishes, or in the case of Outlook and Loreburn, community members themselves parading past the grads in some attention-grabbing vehicles that featured some impressive displays.
There was also the need that people saw to make sure that others weren't being forgotten. I can remember standing outside the Pioneer Home long-term care in Outlook in May of 2020 and watching a morning vehicle parade stroll by the many residents who were gathered to view it. We were all dealing with an unprecedented world situation, but we were also making sure that no one was forgotten due to its resulting aftermath.
Yes, Covid-19 was horrible and the tragedies that resulted from it will be something that too many families will remember, but it was also a time in our world where you couldn't help but notice the spirit of some people in the communities that we call home. Sure, some things were postponed or canceled, but other things were simply modified and actually ended up being more memorable than ever.
But looking back on it all, I find it funny and bizarre that I can think back to that time in all our lives, which was only four years and change ago, and I can almost NOT believe that any of it even happened.
I suppose it's almost a blessing in a way because we here in the smaller, rural and more spread out part of Saskatchewan did our part and managed to pick ourselves up and move on with our daily lives. But still, I sometimes find myself looking back to just a few years ago and thinking of all those annoying masks, all the ridiculous distancing we were told to do, and everything else associated with Covid-19 and I just ask myself, "Did that crazy time in our world seriously happen?"
Then I remember that my mom died during that time period and I'm hit with a sharp and painful reminder.
Yes sir, it sure did.
For this week, that's been the Ruttle Report.
