Rolling the dice two years later

While the date of September 11 has been in our heads for 20 years, the date of March 11 has been in our heads for the last two.

March 11, 2020 is the day we point to when it comes to this COVID-19 pandemic. Travel to Europe was denied, sports and entertainment were canceled, celebrities became infected. It was the day when the pandemic went from it might happen to it is here.

I wrote about where I was on that day a year ago in a previous column at the Big Ten Tournament. That night was one of the strangest press conferences I have been a part of.

The two years that have followed have been an interesting study on how people handle adversity. For me, I had the same choices many Americans had. My income took a hit as work in the journalism industry was torpedoed. Even my wife’s job suffered and she worked at a hospital for crying out loud. The options were rough, file for unemployment or keep swinging with the work I had.

Being the gambler, I chose the latter. I wrote several odd stories for the newspapers I worked for at the time. At first, I wrote about the spring sports teams and how they were hoping to have a season. That shifted to writing about a boutique that was trying host a prom in the summer after prom was canceled. I even wrote about a cross-country runner who ran up the same hill near Mooresville all day for a virtual record.

Despite all that, it was not enough work to justify sticking around. It eventually led me to accept the job here in Linton. COVID-19 brought me to Greene County.

If there is a moral here I would probably says it’s better to roll the dice than to go into a bunker when trouble rolls in if you can afford to take the chance. It took me way too long to learn that.

Plenty from the last two years have been controversial or just failed to make sense. One of the few consistencies though is that you can always bet on yourself.

Nathan Pace is the Sports Editor for Greene County Daily World and can be reached at npacegcdw@gmail.com. His “Low Budget Sports Show” airs weekly on Facebook Live.