Living in West Virginia has been interesting as this whole pandemic thing has developed. In the early stages, I think we replaced March Madness, and watching the Mountaineers, with updates on whether we could be “national champions” and be the last state with a case. As the weeks have worn on, we’ve watched as lots of out-of-staters have come out here trying to hide from the disease, raising tensions with the locals, to the point where the Governor has started closing campgrounds (based on talking with friends and what I’ve seen locally, probably overdue).
You see, in many (most?) of these small towns, things run on thin margins. The grocery store isn’t set up for a band of refugees from the eastern metro to come out and stockpile their vacation home, so they can hide out for a month. The hospital isn’t set up to manage a wave of infections caused by someone from out of the area that wanted a “corona-vacation”, when there weren’t any infections before - and folks weren’t taking trips out of state to begin with.
This is the double edged part of living out here. Friends of mine have joked that they “have been training their whole life for this, just stay on the farm, start the garden, and wait for it to clear out”. But it also means that the margin for error, for sickness, for extra cost, isn’t there. Lucky for us, we generally find our own way through times like this - we’re used to shortage, we’re used to “making do”, and we tend to prefer to “socially distance”.
Love y’all, and talk soon.