The jury is still out on what exactly will happen to our communities in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the worst public health crisis in more than a century.
Some communities are already facing the fallout of the coronavirus infiltrating into their normal way of life. Weekly newspapers are shutting down in the face of the pandemic.

Memorial Day is only four days away. However, the usual Memorial Day celebrations will be limited and the Boy Scouts of America will not be placing small American flags at the nation’s cemeteries to commemorate the fallen soldiers of the various America wars and battles.
Once again, COVID-19 is claiming yet another American tradition.

I’ll bet you never thought you would see a headline like this: “Summer is canceled.”
While that may be a little stretch of the imagination, it’s beginning to look like it isn’t far off.
As much as I look forward to summers in Minnesota, I must admit I am not with this upcoming summer.

Interesting facts about COVID-19:
COVID-19 Illnesses in United States – 1,181,885 (percentage of the population of 330 million) 0.000358146969 – Deaths 69,079 (percentage of the population) 0.0002093303.*
COVID-19 Illnesses in Minnesota – 7,234 (percentage of the population of 5,700,671) 0.00126897342 – Deaths 428 (percentage of the population) 0.00007507888.*

In these days of a coronavirus-filled world, one never knows what you’re going to find along the roadside.
In late April as I was traveling between my offices in Kasson and Blooming Prairie, I stumbled across some commotion at the end of a driveway just outside Hayfield. As I went by, I honked my horn because that’s what I was instructed to do thanks to a poster declaring, “Honk 4 my birthday.”

Just last week I was discussing some of the absurdities showing up as a result of COVID-19 with Karen Jorgensen, DCI editor. One such example came to my attention from Wayne Hendrickson. In the email Wayne had sent to the staff, was a video of a woman demonstrating the flammability of hand sanitizer.