With the COVID-19 pandemic coming to the forefront with a number of variants these days, you really don’t understand how it can continue this way until it hits home, and despite all the shots and precautions, you can find yourself dealing with the thing.

My experience came quite innocently while having a brew one evening with several fellows with which I have become acquainted over the past several months. There was no contact between any of us, yet one person had been exposed and came up positive in his test.

This resulted in the whole group having to go through the testing process. My test came out negative. That was when thanks went up for the vaccine.

Employees were strict about the quarantine process. Trips to the dining room to pick up meals were permitted, but the meals had to be consumed in our apartment. There was no participation in group activities, and I had just connected with a Bridge group, which beat just sitting around.

Wearing of masks was resumed, which never have been dropped totally. But with people going in and out of the facility there was no way to achieve full control.

Three of the group socializing at the table were familiar with Roaring River State Park and particularly interested in the process of finding the stream’s depth. Articles in the Democrat were of particular interest to those fellows.

One of them, named Don, is a long-time lawyer in this area, and was the individual who had been exposed to the virus. At the time of our gathering, he was feeling fine and joining in the conversations.

Actually, the grounding was no big deal, since not much of interest goes on at this place.

The most disturbing fact concerned the meals, which have to be taken to our own spaces, in Styrofoam boxes. Try this for 10 days and you will learn to appreciate regular dinnerware.

As a matter of fact, I always thought Styrofoam was something that went under boat docks as a flotation device. To eat out of a box made of this material isn’t something to be recommended for extended periods of time.

But, as the Bible says, “This too shall pass.”

Shelley and Dennis, after a 10-day trip to Europe, returned to the states and both test positive for several days of testing, which cut off our supply source from the outside. While neither of them had symptoms, they were not permitted in this place until testing negative for five days.

So, as they quarantined, anything we needed was picked up by a friend of theirs and set on a bench near the front entrance, where I could retrieve it. Reminds me of prohibition days when liquor was hidden in the grass for the buyer to retrieve.

In high school days, living in Springfield, there were frequent trips to Cassville for my mother to visit her folks.

When my dad’s coworkers knew of the trip, they would frequently request some homemade stuff come back with him.

We would drive what, on want is Airport Road today, to the home of a well-known brewer, kick a few grass clumps until a bottle was discovered, retrieve some and be on our way.

Oh yes, payment was placed inside a partially rotten post.

This experience has taught me one thing, the disease is here for a while and will require caution from everyone to outrun the bug.

Our experience, as vaccinated and following other precautions is the only process to follow. Anyone who doesn’t is just endangering themselves and untold numbers with which they come into contact with.

There could not have been a more innocent group than that which could have infected me. It didn’t, but precautions and preventions take the credit for this one.

Wearing a mask has become a habit and it’s not that troublesome a thing to do. It can be easily removed when it’s safe to do so. Try it, who knows, you might save a life, and it might be your own.

Bob Mitchell is the former editor and publisher of the Cassville Democrat. He is a 2017 inductee to both the Missouri Press Association Hall of Fame and Missouri Southern State University’s Regional Media Hall of Fame.