My COVID Year

It's been a year since COVID entered our lives.

I hope you used this year wisely, but it's okay if you did not. No one alive on this earth had experienced a pandemic before, so for the most part, there was no wrong way to approach it. Well, if you denied the experts, refused to follow health protocols, and were generally a jerk about it, then, I guess that was the wrong way to approach it. This post is actually for the people who did their best to make the best out of a very bad situation.

I guess my COVID year started getting serious when I canceled an appearance at the Lubbock Laugh Off and canceled a Nightmare day with Keep Lubbock Beautiful. Both decisions were heart-breaking and I hope I can rebook those events soon.

Right before the lockdown, folks started stockpiling a bit. Some were real jerks. I was not part of the toilet paper mob, but I bought a couple of months worth of dog and cat food. I knew I'd be okay, but I wanted the pets to be taken care of.

Then the lockdown hit and the very first day I started filming videos. This first video was me attempting to make tortillas. I went on to showcase my collectibles, my albums, and other mementos I've picked up over the years. It was my goal to keep my friends distracted and engaged.  I assisted my angel of a wife as she made hundreds of masks and we baked bread for our friends.

Things got better enough there for a while that we were able to open up Nightmare On 19th Street safely and give people a chance to go out. We had TOP NOTCH safety protocols and I think we served as an excellent example of how you could be safe and life could go on at the same time.

Things got dark again when the hospitalizations went over 15%, but by that time I had learned about grocery delivery and didn't mind popping in myself here and there in the early morning hours. I guess I should mention that I continued doing videos 3-4 times a week to keep everyone's spirits up.

Then my friend died. I'm just going to leave that right there because I don't want to talk about it. I hope it wasn't too much that I included her picture(s), but my heart still hurts greatly from losing my friend.

After some time we were able to relaunch the morning show with comedian Chrissy Covington and we became #1 all over again. I still do videos twice a week with Sunday morning "church" becoming a thing. I'm two COVID shots down and have started getting together with other folks who are fully vaccinated.

So that's a brief history of me. I may have even jumbled all this up a bit, but pandemic time is different from real-time. I feel like I am coming out of this thing a much, much better (but sometimes sadder) person. I hope you used your time wisely and if you didn't, that's okay too because there was no rulebook for this.  You will come out of this year stronger, no matter how you handled it. be proud and continue to be safe as we come out of the end of this thing.