The more things change…
Our leaders have often categorized this pandemic as unprecedented, leaving us embarrassingly unprepared, with few resources to ward off its ominous effects. But there were pandemics in the past, some with the awful power of unfettered disease that changed the face of Europe and Asia. If you examine the tales that history tells, there are some parallels and some differences between then and now.
The big one, the one most have heard of, is the Black Death, or the Bubonic Plague. This epidemic decimated the populace and the economy of Europe. One third to more than half of the people died, left the fields and crafts untended and changed the way our ancestors organized themselves socially and economically. Some historians credit the plague as creating the end of the Feudal System. You remember that? Kings, Vassals, serfs, the three-field system, seen in movies starring Alan Ladd and Tony Curtis. This pestilence was caused by a bacteria, Yersina pestis, thought to have arrived in Europe on fleas which lived on rats from central Asia. I don’t think the rats walked to Europe from central Asia. You get the similarity, though? Today’s outbreak was caused by Covid 19, a virus originating in China, which, according to those who know, arrived by jet plane via Europe.
In the mid 1300s the kings, vassals and serfs didn’t know what was happening to them. They often quarantined (quarantine is an Italian word that means to isolate for 40 days) themselves in their houses or entire villages. They blamed the scourge on select groups of people and just about everything else including something called a miasma. How did they try to cure it? Well, they rang bells, beat on metal pots, practiced bloodletting and rubbed onions, herbs and snakes on the awful looking and painful buboes (infected lymph glands). They drank vinegar, ate crushed minerals, arsenic, mercury and old sugar syrup. They thought that sitting very close to a fire would drive away the disease, and those who thought the plague was God’s response to loose living flayed their backs with whips. Millions died.
Today is not so different. While we know a lot more about pathogens that cause disease and have scientists working on treatments and vaccines, it boggles the mind to think that, in the 21st century, we are still casting about trying odd cures for the malady. Vinegar vs disinfectant; sitting close to a fire vs. sitting outside in sunlight; arsenic vs. hydrochloroquine…1347 vs 2020. Sigh…
And the pundits are telling us that nothing will ever be the same, that this pandemic will change a lot of what we consider to be normal. We will have to live our lives differently after we control the pandemic. But, while we are still in the thick of it, I have tried to find ways to be as normal as I can. For comparison’s sake, I did some research on what was normal 700 years ago. I did try to find out how the gals in the 14th century, hiding in their huts from Yersina, managed their daily toilette but, apparently, despite quite a bit of descriptive writing about the plague, not much was known about grooming during the epidemic. And today?
Here’s a case in point:
Today I went shopping, on the day allotted for those born in an even year, for … should I admit this? Hair color.
No one who knows me actually thinks that the color of my hair is natural. It changes color pretty often, but those colors have been applied by professionals. This is largely because, 40 years ago, my sister Kathleen and I, on a sunny day in my mother’s Florida back yard, had two gin and tonics and got the idea that our natural brunette hair was boring. The result was so disastrous that we had to go to salons to have it fixed. And so, the history of coloring my hair began.
My Covid 19 grooming strategy is base line. I’m not all that concerned with being stylish. I have been conscientious about getting dressed in acceptable clothing every day, even applying some lipstick. This morning, I looked in the mirror and scared myself. Egads…who is that harridan? My hair, a veritable “did you put your finger in a light socket” look, was indescribable. The Pantone color wheel did not have a word that would describe it. Looking like a human is a base line that I won’t cross.
So, having never, since that ghastly attempt a lifetime ago, colored my hair, I am carefully reading the instructions, consulting the gurus on YouTube and hoping that the results won’t be life altering in a bad way. Not having people point at me when I pass by … six feet away, of course….will be the acceptable default.
I am now stopping my typing to gather the stuff I will need to complete my mission. What color will my hair be? Your guess is as good as mine.
I guess it’s better than rubbing a snake on a bubo.

Ann Ferro is a mother, a grandmother and a retired social studies teacher. While still figuring out what she wants to be when she grows up, she lives in Marcellus with lots of books, a spouse and a large orange cat.