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Collected Item: “First week of lockdown”

Give your story a title.

First week of lockdown

What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?

Photo I took of empty store shelves

Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.

As a historian, the past three months have seemed more of an interesting project than reality, but I've not been sick. I know a few friends who were ill, and one mural friend who died, sadly, due to COVID19.

I wonder what the future historians will say about this period in global history. I'm very glad it's not as deadly as Ebola, or as easy to contract as first believed.

I took these photos on March 16, the day before things closed in TX. It was amazing to see so many things shut down so quickly, and my home state, Michigan, was really hard hit so I've been mostly concerned for family there.
Now that it's the middle of June I'm less concerned and just trying to do one day at a time, although it has been nice to find toilet paper again.
I even created a post for the historic site where I work discussing historic toilet paper, or lack thereof, to make history a bit more relevant. The post got quite a lot of attention.

It's odd times but I feel a bit closer to the people we talk about since their fear of disease has become more understandable now.

Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your story. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?

#toiletpaper

Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)

Barb King (me)

Give this story a date.

2020-03-16
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