The COVID Chronicles

When we last left our intrepid museum staff, they were trying to discern the person who had pronounced the ancient Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times.” Perhaps there would be a way to reverse the curse if the source was located. After nearly two months of quarantine status, there was desperation on their part to resume life as it had been.

As they were grappling with this problem, word came down from on high that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. This caused great joy in the staff as they hoped it would be the headlight of an oncoming locomotive. This would indicate a miracle as the train had stopped coming to town nearly 40 years before and the tracks had been torn up for decades. If miracles were in the works, perhaps they could get in line for one.

Alas, this was not the case. As they investigated further, it was found that the ghost of Diogenes of Sinope had brought his lamp to town, still looking for an honest man, but having found the task too overwhelming in this day and age, had hung the lamp on the Rough Rider monument in the courthouse plaza and left town. County officials, fearing that the presence of the lamp would cause a social distancing nightmare, removed it and in so doing, extinguished it. Thinking that the lamp looked old and hoping that it might contain a genie with an unused wish, rubbed it until most of the patina was gone. Not getting their wish, they took it to the museum because it “looked old.”

At the museum, they found the gates closed and a sign that indicated that you needed to call to make a delivery. This they did, summoning a close relative of a genie, a museum curator. Upon telling the curator their story, the curator indicated that it not only had most of the original finish removed, but also that the attribution was dubious and thus it did not fit within the museum’s collections mission statement. Learning this, the county officials left the lamp at the gate and went their way, thus creating a Corona “dump and run.”

While all of this was transpiring, the other staff received word from on high that a sacrifice must be made to facilitate reopening the facilities to the public. Wondering if a mouse might satisfy the edict, since mice were known to make their way into some of the buildings, a search was made for traps. It was then brought up that this was the wrong time of year for mice to come indoors. This came as a disappointment to the chief curator as he wanted to extract vengeance from all mice for one having eaten the emergency chocolate bar imported from Canada. Someone mentioned that a chicken might suffice and that two of the living history interpreters were known to have chickens.

While trying to decide whom to ask for a chicken, word came down from on high that this was an important sacrifice and that it demanded everyone’s attention. The staff wondered if it would be one of them.

And so, we leave our museum staff to ponder the question of what the sacrifice might be. Come back next week for the continuing saga of our museum staff in The COVID Chronicles.

Unfortunately, dear reader, there is no next issue. The staff learned that the sacrifice was events and that among them was hosting the 2020 ALHFAM Western Region meeting in October. We hope that 2021 will see better times with less uncertainty. With that in mind, we would hope to host the meeting next year.

Mick Woodcock

Chief Curator and ALHFAM Western Region Rep.