Richard Swerdlow: Days of Yore

It seems like ancient history now — the way we lived way back in the days of yore.  But it was only February.  Richard Swerdlow takes a ride in a time machine.

Like a lot of people, I have a tottering tower of newspapers I haven't gotten around to reading, but don't want to toss just yet. Since sheltering-in-place has provided an unexpected block of free time, it was an opportunity to catch up on last month's backlog of Sunday New York Times. So, I grabbed a February edition and settled in.

Things have sure changed since February. Flipping through the entertainment sections left me shocked — not at the scandalous subject matter of the films, but at the concept of going to a movie. Did dozens of strangers actually sit right next to each other for hours? Being one of the thousand people crammed into a Broadway theater together bordered on insanity. And with a seating capacity of 3,800, the Metropolitan Opera seemed like a petri dish.

The sports section was worse. I practically dropped the paper in disbelief.  The Knicks playing at Madison Square Garden, with a seating capacity of 19,812. A jaw-dropping photo of the crowd at last year's Duke-Syracuse NCAA Carrier-Dome match-up with 35,000 spectators. Did we ever really live like this?

Page after page of the style section displayed ordinary events that now looked astonishing — crowded parties, weddings, museum openings. The news section photos had me cringing — people hugging, shaking hands, sitting together, protesters marching shoulder-to-shoulder.

Reading last month's paper, I had a strange feeling that I'd had this experience before. Finally, it dawned on me — learning about Pompeii in high school. Pompeii was a bustling Roman city in 79 A.D. when a volcano erupted, burying the city in lava, instantly freezing it forever, allowing scholars to study how everyday life was lived in a long-gone era.

I folded the paper, and sat at the kitchen table, thinking how life in February is nearly unrecognizable in March. Reading about regular life from only a month ago now feels as exotic as an archaeologist studying Pompeii, amazed by a frozen snapshot of the everyday lives of an ancient and extinct civilization.

With a Perspective, I'm Richard Swerdlow.

Richard Swerdlow is a San Francisco teacher.