Free Fall

By BOB BURNETT

There’s a classic routine featured in the early silent comedy films. Action begins when a worker digs a big hole and walks away, leaving no warning sign. Next, an innocent walker falls into the hole.

The denouement takes one of three forms: In the first, the walker falls all the way through the earth and exits in China. In the second, the walker falls onto a trampoline and bounces out of the hole. The third outcome is when the walker falls for awhile and then lands on something, such as a coal car or an underground river or a (fat) policeman.

Here in California, as a result of the pandemic-inspired shelter-in-place order, we’ve fallen into a hole. Many of us are in free fall.

I’m not afraid of falling all the way to China. But I know people who are: restaurant workers who don’t know when they’ll get another job and can’t pay their bills. Or gig workers ...

On the other hand, I don’t expect to quickly bounce back. We’ve been sheltering in place for three weeks and don’t know when it will end. But I do know folks who are carrying on with their (more or less) normal jobs: government employees, healthcare workers and folks in essential trades.

I’m going to be falling for awhile and don’t know where I will land. Will it all end pleasantly, like swooping down the slide at a water park? Or will I land on the COVID-19 monster that sucks the air out of our lungs?

Bob Burnett is a San Francisco Bay Area activist and writer. He can be reached at bburnett@sonic.net.

From The Progressive Populist, May 15, 2020

Populist.com