62. The Young

 Day 12 of quarantine

I talked on the phone with grandson Trey yesterday. His symptoms are gone, my quarantine is almost over, and we are making plans for a steak dinner on Monday night. 

 

The phone call was troubled. Trey’s 20, and, according to him, his cohort—classmates from his aborted first year of college—is not taking Covid-19 seriously, not concerned that the disease has anything to do with them—even when they are infected! I told him that there were 23 new cases in Union County one recent day, and wondered whether any of his classmates were among them. He didn’t know, but maybe.

 

We middle-aged and older Americans concerned about the strength and impact of this pandemic don’t talk much about the young. We wonder why our contemporaries continue to refuse masks, march in parades and go into or tend stores without them. We argue with preachers who demand full churches and wedding planners who want big crowds, and we laud the Navajo who are taking care of their elders and the health care professionals everywhere risking their lives to make the rest of us safe.  

 

We worry about the “economy” and parents struggling with online classes, but I hear little about the 15-20 year olds condemned to them. They should be traveling the world and trying things out; we’re asking them to stay home, go to high school and college online, and find work as grocery shelf stockers, gas station attendants, or Amazon warehouse workhorses. 

 

When the young do get sick, it’s no big deal. Young and healthy, the Covid slips by them with a few days of no smell and no appetite, and then is gone. They’re cavalier; we don’t give them a thought.

 

Seems to me a perfect opportunity to give them work with purpose, to enlist the young in actively fighting Covid-19 and addressing conditions that promote it. They could work drive-through test sites, haul water on a reservation. Instead of pizzas, they could deliver meals on wheels, groceries and mail to the frightened and shut-ins in their own communities. Or help in classrooms to spread elementary students into smaller pods.

 

We could ask them what they’d like to do to make the world they’re about to inherit better. We should at least be talking to them. 

 

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