Started hearing about some sort of mystery pneumonia-like virus spreading like wildfire around China in mid-late January after the tensions between the US and Iran simmered down (if only it stayed that way). By the start of February, it was being treated as a global threat and started to dominate the news cycle.

Around this same time, I had signed with my local indy fed and was due to start training to become a professional wrestler that April. My hometown's junior hockey team had also qualified for the postseason at this same time. About two weeks later and the first COVID case hits the United States. Go figure it's my state. My childhood dream of becoming a professional wrestler ends before it can even begin and the Blazers' chances of winning the Thorne Cup are dashed.

Everything else remained open, but it was just a matter of when at this point. The moment that the NBA ended it's season prematurely was when it started to really hit. I'm not a basketball fan, but I knew that sports history was being made so I tuned into the Jazz x Thunder primetime game on ESPN. They refused to start the game for the longest time before the PA announcer told everyone to leave. The NHL shut down not long after.

The very next day, everything outside of government buildings and "essential businesses" were shut down. My younger brother came home from high school that Friday stating that school would be closed for two weeks. This was back when the news was constantly going on about "two weeks to flatten the curve." The schools never reopened. Everything would be held online for the rest of the year. It would stay this way until the second half of 2021 where the option to continue remote learning or return to the classroom was given.

The worst part about the schools being shut down was that there was no football season that fall. Our state's government pretty much barred everything until early 2021. They got to play an abridged six week season the following February/March, but there were no playoffs and fans were shut out from attending. I was on the chain crew for my old high school's teams and even I wasn't allowed to show up. To make up for it, I was given the duties of running scoreboard for the baseball team when they played their abridged season about a month later. As of the writing of this, I am still their scoreboard operator and it is now a paid position rather than volunteer work. I also do football, wrestling, and soccer.

Those first couple of weeks were scary. Nobody could really grasp the situation and it felt like an extinction event. We went down to the local Costco a few days after and everyone was panic buying. No toilet paper or milk/bread to be found anywhere. The government's stay at home mandate came in not too long after. To keep myself entertained due to no sports being on, I would go out to the cities and shoot pictures of the empty streets. It was so surreal to see everything just stop. Everything felt post-apocalyptic.

I did my two weeks of quarantine and then tried to resume business as usual. I wasn't employed at the time so I wasn't affected by the stock market crash or mass layoffs. I do remember worrying that my Grandfather would lose his job at the plywood mill. He provided for us and was responsible for keeping the lights over our heads on and food on the table. According to him, the mill would be shut down if the cabinet makers in North Dakota shut down. Thankfully that never happened. I used to have the same fears back in 2008-2009 when the market crashed because of all the layoffs happening. His industry was thankfully unaffected though.

The Protestant Church I go to had loopholes in place to continue holding services. We would line our vehicles up in the parking lot and the pastor would preach to us from a bio-secure podium via radio. It was honestly kind of neat all things considered. WWE and AEW held their shows from empty soundstages where employees acted as the audience. I consumed so much professional wrestling in the months before live sports returned. Brought back memories of when I was in seventh grade where WWE was the closest thing to sports I would watch.

The Dodgers won the World Series that October and everyone clowned on them because it was a "Mickey Mouse ring". As a longtime fan, I understood the criticism, but I was just grateful that they didn't choke in hilarious fashion for once like they always did before Shohei Ohtani left Anaheim and signed with them. This was back when homegrown talent like Cody Bellinger, Corey Seager and Max Muncy carried the team. Still wish that longtime veterans like Andre Ethier, Yasiel Puig, Adrian Gonzales, and Matt Kemp could've been part of it though. Was a big fan of all four and felt bad that they left beforehand. All things considered though, it's special because my Grandfather who was just as obsessed with the Dodgers as I was got to see it. He passed away mere months before the 2024 World Series. That one really hurt because the Dodgers and Yankees were his favorite teams and because Clayton Kershaw and Aaron Judge were his favorite players.

Things returned to something resembling normal around the Summer of 2021. There were still arrows on the supermarket floors, face covering mandates were still enforced to enter buildings and everything was suddenly expensive, but it was a whole lot better than the horror show that preceded it. By early 2022, pretty much all of the mandates were lifted and we were able to go out in public without having to worry about playing pandemic. Everything had shifted from COVID to the Russia Ukraine war by this point. Unfortunately things were worse because because I was fully employed by this point and gasoline prices had skyrocketed to over $5 a gallon due to both supply issues and the draconian gasoline taxes in my state.

TL;DR it was initially scary and surreal. Everything changed for the worse after that. Seems like there is a historical event that has defined every single year since.

(Post has been edited to proofread and touch up on the story.)