The yellow tape that surrounds our playgrounds in Monticello, the small central Illinois town where I live, triggers memories of crime scenes I used to stumble across as a boy in Chicago. There are no chalk outlines of bodies here, but the emptiness of the swings, slides and monkey bars is ominous to me. Coronavirus has increased my usual anxiety level, and the yellow tape forbidding kids to play outdoors is not helping.
Yet, what elevates my fear even more is the idea of opening the wounded Illinois economy too soon.
“The squeaky wheel gets the grease” is a tired but true homily. I remembered this as I watched with horror the loud reopen-Illinois protesters in Springfield and Chicago. Some of the few hundred demonstrators flew swastikas and held signs that read “Heil Pritzker!” and “Arbeit macht frei, JB.”
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s “crime”? Asking Illinoisans during the coronavirus pandemic to continue to stay at home and practice social distancing while we band together as a community and dutifully go through the five phases of reopening. For a few more weeks the protesters would be denied, well, bellying up to their favorite buffet, corner bar or barber shop. (I’m going to go out on a limb and say they were not upset about library and museum closures.)
But, unlike many countries in the world, we are still free to scream whatever word salad sprouts from our brains and even wave signs with the German phrase “Arbeit macht frei,” or “work sets you free,” the cynical phrase that awaited Jews as they arrived at the gates of the Nazis’ Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.
Down here in Piatt County (population 16,344) we have had only eight confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and no deaths as of Friday. Neighboring Champaign County (population 209,689), where more than a few of our county’s citizens are employed, has 324 confirmed cases and six deaths.
Monticello’s population is somewhere north of 5,000, large enough to be anonymous when you choose to be, but small enough to bump into a feeling of community if that’s to your liking. (I have always chosen the former.)
It’s a town of deep taproots. I have lived here 20 years, but will forever be an outsider. No matter. It’s a pleasant enough burg with little crime, plenty of friendly and helpful neighbors and everything you need within walking distance.
Unlike the bellicose protesters, we seem to have adjusted to the new normal. I can order books from our independent bookstore and have them delivered by the owner to my front door (who needs Amazon!). I buy takeout from my favorite local restaurants, where the owners come to my car. Sure, masks are required at our True Value and recommended at our County Market grocery store, but that’s hardly anything to raise one’s blood pressure. My wife visits her 97-year-old mom at her assisted living apartment by sitting at a safe distance outside while her mom sits inside behind her screened door.
My personal gripes? The mask fogs up my glasses. My hair is so long I resemble a combination of Bobby Goldsboro and the Unabomber. I have to sterilize every item before it enters our house. I miss my gym buddies, and I am tired of walking in a town that can be covered on foot in 20 minutes. Past the city limits you run into corn and soybean fields. Turn around, and 20 minutes later, you end in corn and soybean fields.
But the trash still gets picked up. The internet is reliable and plenty fast. Potable water flows from the tap and the toilet flushes. (I have traveled to many countries in the world where none of that happens.)
This week, in a narrow 4-3 decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down the governor’s stay-at-home orders there. I fear that reopening our economy too prematurely is gaining momentum with President Donald Trump’s blessing and echoed 24/7 by Fox News. No doubt it will lead to more COVID-19 deaths in Wisconsin and nationwide.
A legal fight to reopen has commenced in Illinois, too, in downstate towns such as Xenia (population 364). Attorney Thomas DeVore, who represents Xenia, among four other cases challenging Pritzker’s stay-at-home orders, said in an interview with Capitol News Illinois, “It’s irresponsible to suggest that a lone executive at any level of government — local, state, federal — wields that kind of power over people.”
(One wonders, then what is the role of any elected official? To cut ribbons and ride in a Fourth of July parade?)
I hope that a handful of angry demonstrators and a few politically motivated Republican state legislators are denied the grease and, instead, realize that even in this nation, founded on individual freedoms, there is still an obligation to the public good. Yes, the economic pain Illinois is experiencing is real and long-lasting but, speaking for the 3,800 Illinoisans who cannot speak for themselves, so is the pandemic.
Stephen J. Lyons is the author of four books of essays and journalism. His most recent book is “Going Driftless: Life Lessons from the Heartland for Unraveling Times.”
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