Welcome to my new series, COVID-19 Stories. This tumultuous year has upended our lives and I’m asking people to share their experiences. I’d love to share your story on A Girl In Gotham: everyone is invited, regardless of their residence. You can get in touch with me via e-mail.
I’m launching this project with my mom’s story. My mom, LaVonne Hill, lives in Frederick, Maryland. This interview was conducted on September 18, 2020, in Ocean City, Maryland. It has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Before the pandemic, I went off to work, came home, did laundry, took care of Dad. I went off to work at the Candy Kitchen, four days a week; I did serve a lot of people. Right before the pandemic—we were rolling on Easter when this all started, so the store’s full of people [and] chocolate rabbits.
I had to get up those four days, and out the door, working from 10 – 2. It says 10 – 2 but it was usually 3 or 4. Then when the pandemic came, everybody in town was steam cleaning their house. They were deep cleaning, clearing years of clutter.
Dad and I thought about that, and then we thought, “If we die in the pandemic, we’ve wasted all that time cleaning.” I don’t want to do that. I’ve got things to do. I’ve got my puzzles, I can read.
Before it all started, I was able to load up on library books. Thanks to [your sister] Annie! I had six or eight library books. That was luck.
Annie told us in January [to prepare]. …By the end of February, a lot of new books came out. For one thing, there were a lot of new books I wanted to read. But I thought, “If we really are going to be on lockdown, I should put as many of these on hold as I can. I can always return them, and the lockdown won’t last longer than a month.” I thought I’d be back selling Easter candy.
I thought maybe Annie had overreacted. There’s your lesson. When Annie Hill says something, believe it, and listen to it.
I did puzzles because Dad watches movies and such, and I don’t enjoy those movies, so I did puzzles during that time.
[I did clean during that time.] I did the blinds, I did the draperies, the kitchen counters. You can’t tell it now. I don’t really have an interest in cleaning. And we did the kitchen windows. We ran out of Perfect Glass! Once or twice a year we take the windows down and out [and clean them]. But I lost interest in cleaning. The orange Fabuloso took the markings off the toaster oven and that’s when I was pretty much-done cleaning.
I stocked up on groceries on Friday, the 13th. Safeway has Five Dollars Friday, and they had Clorox wipes. I got enough for a month, four containers.
All the puzzles sold out everywhere. I did that cupcake one, then the snowman Christmas one, in that order. And then I went down to the basement and I found all kinds of puzzles, and that’s when I shipped them off to [your cousin] Ivette. [Your cousin] Christopher got half a dozen.
My daily life, sad to say, was very peaceful. Because you don’t have to go anywhere or do anything. We went to Lowe’s once, looking for Perfect Glass. We both went in, during senior hours.
Most of my pepper plants I got through the mail. The farmer’s market was rigid with their masking and their distancing, a good eight feet apart. They marked lines in the grass, and you couldn’t touch anything, which is hard to buy a tomato. So then we’d go to Safeway once a week or so and stock up on whatever we saw, but not yeast. Bacon was hard to find, and raspberries. Off and on—daily things, you’d think wouldn’t be hard to find. You can forget about buying a can of Lysol or those Knorr soup mixes or dips.
I’ll tell you, I saw toilet paper I’ve never seen in my life, and then I saw White Cloud! It went out of business before you came along. It came in blue, green, and pink. That was in the days when toilet paper was colored, and then one day I went to Safeway and it was on the shelf. Toilet paper was something I bought when I was stocking up, but I only bought one package.
It was like preparing for a blizzard, make sure you have milk, sugar, and flour. I made boska too, so Dad could learn how to make it. I think he suggested I make half a batch, and we made it in February because Annie said we have to make it earlier. And then Dad said if we make half a batch, he could help. He said, “I’d be a good kneader.” I used to make it on my day off [when we were first married] because I worked weekends.
The worst thing was I thought I’d never see Annie and [your nephew] Raymond. You were here in February, and you left us with it. I had it around Valentine’s Day and I took a couple of days off of work.
Did you routine change after Memorial Day, when George Floyd was murdered, and the weather began to change?
We already weren’t going anywhere. Dad was really irritated. You sit there, watching someone choked to death and you can’t deny that it’s wrong.
Frederick did have some protests, but we knew we weren’t going out into a crowd. There was one at the Sheriff’s office and Dad would have liked to have gone. That guy [Chuck Jenkins] is a jerk. He dines with Trump. He’s at the White House every other month or so. I’m always mad about Jenkins.
It was very peaceful. He did come out and talk to them, of course, he denied everything they said. At least he did come out and talk. They marched around and he left. It’s what you’d call a peaceful protest, which is a constitutional right.
People came to Ocean City for Memorial Day. If Maryland reopened, it was Stage One. Frederick stayed closed when Maryland reopened as well—not as long as Montgomery or Prince George’s County—but maybe a week or two.
Candy Kitchen opened with curbside only just before Father’s Day. It was only from 10 – 3, I think, and then they decided to change it 12 – 5, getting people coming home from work. But people aren’t going to the office, they’re the last ones to come back. You’re not going to go down to the State Department and see a lot of people going to work. In terms of city employees or county employees, trash collection continued. Two weeks is a long time in terms of trash.
I do payroll when no one’s there. Certainly not when customers are there. I think some of the Easter Candy is still there. [The owner] said to take what I wanted. When they reopened it should have been 75 percent off. People were not able to get their Easter Candy. When we knew it was going to close down, we got a lot of phone orders. I filled a lot of Easter orders. I have a lot of chocolate bunnies in my house.
We voted mail-in in the primary. I think Hogan mailed it out to everybody. This time Hogan sent to everybody, everybody who is registered, a form to request a ballot. Isn’t that a waste of money? I think we mailed them. We went to drop them off at the election center and the box wasn’t there—it was weeks in advance.
I’m going to drop my ballot off at the election headquarters. I think there’s going to be eleven boxes around the county with cameras, for tampering. All of these boxes are supposed to be emptied each day.
I notice people wear masks at the store and at the pharmacy. But walking around Frederick, it’s half and half. The rule is you have to wear it if you’re not six feet apart or not able to observe that distance. But in downtown Frederick, you’re not able to observe that distance. How do you know someone isn’t going to walk out of a store right in front of you?
This is certainly going to go on for the rest of this year. If Dr. Fauci says to take the vaccine, we will. I hope people with common sense will. I think we will have anti-vaxxers who won’t want to take it “just because.”
We were very careful about where we went. If we were going to Annie’s, we weren’t going to make any silly mistakes. You’re not going to find us walking through the mall. Dr. Fauci says the worst thing you can do is eat in a restaurant. You’re not going to see me there any time soon.
I went through the back door at Hallmark! Hallmark has appointments now. I have an appointment for next month, too. You don’t have to pre-order, but I did. I went and there was no one else there. If you wanted to look at something, they’d wipe the box down when you were done. If you had any questions, you didn’t have to worry about asking anybody.
I’d like to go back to the library and I’d like to go back to Barnes & Noble, to browse. I’d like to come to the beach without a mask.
Don’t you think if we shut everything down, everybody at the same time, it would have been much better?
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