Remembering the Barbers, the Wait Staffs, the Lawn Guys and Custodians

My daily walk takes me through a strip mall parking lot.  Two of the storefronts are empty--a liquor stare that closed down about one year ago.  On one end there is a restaurant that featured li9ve jazz performances.  It is shut down due to the virus.  At the other is a laundromat, which has stopped allowing people to do their own laundry, but will take in laundry to wash, dry and fold.  When they originally closed their doors they posted a sign indicating the cost of their doing your laundry was $1.99 a pound.  I noticed this morning that they have dropped that to $1.65.  I can't help but wonder about the Hispanic lawn care guys who I have often seen in the past using the laundromat.  Can they afford $1.65, much less $1.99, a pound?

In between the jazz restaurant and the laundromat there are a few other businesses:  an old family run Italian restaurant, which is offering take out only, and pushing pizza slices for lunch; a slot machine casino, which is completely closed down at the moment; a pool supply store, which is open, but enforcing social distancing and not accepting cash payments and a barber shop--now closed, but which had been operating for a few weeks after the lockdown.

The barber shop had posted a sign, "Masks Provided"--but the other day when I went past it later in the morning the one customer in a chair was not wearing one.  The shop was not supposed to be open.  But they bucked the law, and as the old song goes, "but the law won."  Today, there was a new sign written with black magic marker on an uneven piece of newsprint in the window.  "Dear Customers," it read, despite providing masks to every customer and barber, someone called the Sherriff's Dept. and on 4-25  the Sherriff's Dept. shut us down.  Although there was some confusion we didn't confuse the 'arrested'" message or the 'do the right thing or else' message or how asking a simple question can be 'confrontational' . . . .  Whatever!  We'll open, hopefully, on May 1st."

I support the lockdown--and am working from home.  I believe we need to do whatever we can to stop the spread of the virus. I think states like Georgia are moving too fast.  But I hope once the virus is contained we don't forget those who have born the economic burden.  Yes, the small business owners, but also the lawn care guys, the wait staffs at family owned restaurants, and the custodian who I used to pass as she took a smoke break outside the slot machine casino. There will be much still to be done even after the virus has passed.