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March 28th, 2024

Insight

The weekend when we all had enough and went back outside

Petula Dvorak

By Petula Dvorak

Published May 12, 2020

  The weekend when we all had enough and went back outside


Joshua Davis, 10, Bryce Pitcher, 11, and Bruce Pitcher, 50, head out to catch rockfish at the hour that Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, reopened state parks and boat ramps for fishing at Sandy Point State Park in Maryland. Washington Post Photo By Petula Dvorak

The light wind picked up that familiar, salty-muddy smell of the brackish Chesapeake Bay, and Bruce Pitcher felt, for the first time in weeks, like himself again.

"That's what we do - we fish," he said, looping the bowline through his Bayliner's starboard cleat as he was about to launch on Thursday, the first time in weeks. "That's part of being a Marylander."

This was the weekend across America when folks busted out all over the place, trying to be themselves again, trying to shake the Netflix-and-rot, honey-do stupor that's been their coronavirus ferment.

Mobile phone data analyzed by the The Washington Post showed that most Americans are still at home, but the end of April was the first time folks began moving again.

You could feel the movement over Mother's Day weekend, when parks were buzzing and beaches from California to Maryland had people strolling, swimming and surfing.

And, after eight weeks of solitude, our household finally shared an outdoor picnic with another family on separate tables, six feet apart. We let the boys throw a football to each other.

The Americans outside this weekend weren't the guns and flags and rebellion folks, not the politically motivated anti-maskers who've been variously called the Branch Covidians, the Flu Klux Klan or Vanilla ISIS on social media.

Instead, they were the folks who understand the severity of this pandemic, who wear the masks and stay six feet apart and sanitize, but who are also missing that little fire inside that keeps us going, that makes us unique, that gives us our humanity. That makes it OK to go back to the grind Monday morning.

As governors struggle with opening nail salons, barber shops, gyms and tanning beds (Texas) or declare victory over the novel coronavirus even as most of their infection rates are climbing (Arkansas and Iowa), Maryland's GOP Gov. Larry Hogan took a cautious baby step toward normalcy just when pandemic-weary folks needed it most.

"The whole thing has been such a dramatic experience," said Pitcher, an auto mechanic in Anne Arundel County who was laid off when business in his shop slowed down.

It was like edging open that little pressure-release valve on the Instant Pot, letting a little steam escape. And it was perfect.

Hogan opened Maryland to golfing and tennis, outdoor fitness instruction, recreational fishing and hunting, recreational boating, and horseback riding. These activities are outdoors and relatively safe, but nevertheless he urged folks to keep staying apart, to keep sanitizing.

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On beaches, people swerved wide as they walked the shores. Golfers sanitized their carts. Fishermen tromping into wetlands wore surgical masks.

When I visited some Maryland fishing spots at dawn Thursday, the day they reopened, it wasn't easy to find folks who have been obeying all the rules.

"Why do you want to know?" asked a retiree with waders up to his chest and a surgical mask up to his eyes, when I asked him if it was his first day fishing this spring.

It wasn't hard to convince him that a woman with a notepad and checkerboard Vans wasn't a fish and game warden.

"Nah, I've been fishing all along," he told me. "But I ain't telling you my name."

There were the rule-breakers, sure.

In Colorado, the rush to get out went from cautious to illegal when a cafe opened for service and packed the customers in, despite ongoing restrictions. I saw photos from my hometown where a sidewalk cafe was packed with diners, the distancing feeble.

This rule-breaking has been happening all over. But this was one of the first weekends when even the cautious, the rule-followers, carefully came outside.

That's where I found Pitcher at Sandy Point State Park. He was one of those who had stayed put for weeks. With boat ramps closed, he was high and dry. Until Thursday.

He hitched his boat trailer to his pickup within an hour of the state reopening for fishing and boating at 7 a.m. And he scooped up his son and nephew to head out for some rockfish.

Pitcher's Calvert County family had watermen, working off Broomes Island before daylight every day, making a living catching blue crabs and sea trout, grouper and white perch. He broke that tradition going into a land-based trade, his talent with engines taking him to a county farther north and to a different life. And that life gave him two things - a profession on land, and a passion on the water.

Coronavirus took both of those things away from men like Pitcher.

"I try to follow the rules. I haven't been out on the water at all," he explained, after backing the trailer down the ramp with no need for the readjustments or redos that most recreational boaters (me) are used to. He was like macho and capable "Parks and Recreation" boss Ron Swanson of the Chesapeake, complete with mustache.

"Get those lines," he told the boys, 10-year-old Joshua Davis, his nephew, and his 11-year-old son, Bryce Pitcher.

Even Bryce was getting a little sick of quarantine and Fortnite. Yup, it's so bad, a kid didn't grumble a bit when dad got him out of bed at daybreak to go fishing.

Bryce said he was excited to get out on the water and was ready to spend a day away from the addictive video game.

"Fried," Bryce said. That's how he likes his fish. And he can't wait to haul them in again.

He even told me - get ready for this - that he misses school.

But he'll be happy fishing with dad for now.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Previously:
The streets are empty, but Home Depot isn't
'Animal Crossing' is 'Fortnite' for moms. The video game couldn't have come at a better time
'This can't be the end:' How small gestures can help small businesses in a big way
Will coronavirus intimacy lead to a baby boom? Or a divorce tsunami?
This scammer called the wrong guy asking for money
High schools are starting to bet on esports --- to engage and motivate
Washington's Worst civic idea ever? Giving regular people power to issue parking tickets
Washington's city of strivers, and the places they sob
Do all those kids really like eggs? Or do they just like fame?
Trump and the 25th Amendment: Why it was written and what it can't do
The IRS seized $59,000 from a gas station owner. They still refuse to give it back
Breast-feeding case is a win for fathers, formula
Nazis flags in Charlottesville were an affront to WWII veterans. And they fought back
A 13-year-old's online fantasies turn fatal


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