Corona Chronicles
Two local museums are collecting tales of the Covid—19 pandemic
By now we’re over all of it: deserted city streets; Zoom conferences; online school assignments; makeshift masks; the quest for toilet paper; TikTok dances. But today’s hackneyed themes of the global pandemic will be tomorrow’s objects of curiosity. Centuries or even mere decade from now, subsequent generations will regard this bizarre moment in time with the same fascination that we behold black-and-white photographs and newsreels from days gone by. Like it or not, we’ve been making history, and to quote the essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson: “There is properly no history; only biography.”
In that spirit, Greensboro History Museum and High Point Museum are collecting, documenting and sharing the community’s stories from the Covid-19 era. Were you or a loved one afflicted with the virus? Have you been in the trenches among health-care workers, grocery-store clerks, truck drivers or delivery folks? Did you use the time off to paint a masterpiece, keep a diary, write a novel or tackle a home repair project? How did you and your family while away the hours? Working from a home office? Taking walks or bike rides? Cultivating a garden? Making sidewalk chalk drawings or streaming live concerts? Bingeing on a Netflix series or reading that stack of books by your bedside?
Whatever your story, feel free to share it by accessing Greensboro History Museum’s new Digital Engagement Nook, the Lion’s DEN (a compendium of archival artifacts, activities, podcasts and more) at greensborohistory.org/lions-den, or visit High Point Museum’s website, highpointmuseum.org and its social media pages for information. As you ponder your submission to one of these corona-inspired time capsules, pour yourself a “quarantini” — or now that lockdown restrictions are lifting, a “libertini” — and be sure to pass along the recipe.
— Nancy Oakley
