Inlander 03/26/20

MARCH 26-APRIL 1, 2020 | TOGETHER, JUST SIX FEET APART

THE INLAND NORTHWEST COPES WITH COVID-19

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INSIDE VOL. 27, NO. 24 | ON THE COVER: YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

COMMENT NEWS COVER STORY CULTURE

5 9 16 33

FOOD FILM MUSIC EVENTS

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EDITOR’S NOTE

I

t’s happening all across the Inland Northwest — ordinary people are doing extraordinary things.

It’s inspiring. Even tiny gestures can make a difference. In my neighborhood, people are putting teddy bears in their front windows so that kids stuck at home — bored and/or afraid — can get outside and hunt for bears.

If the CORONAVIRUS has taught us one thing, it’s that we truly are responsible for each other. Being reckless or selfish during a pandemic isn’t about you alone — it’s about all of us. It’s about your grandma, someone’s immunocompromised child, the stranger in line at the grocery store, the homeless person on the street and the family with bare cupboards, no toilet paper and no way to make next month’s rent. Yes, that’s happening across the Inland Northwest, too.

We’ve devoted this week’s entire issue to covering the coronavirus, how it’s impacting every aspect of life and how we’re going to keep living in spite of it all. We need to stick together right now, just maybe six feet apart for a while.

— JACOB H. FRIES, Editor

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WHAT ARE YOU MOST WORRIED ABOUT RIGHT NOW, AND WHAT GIVES YOU HOPE? DON KARDONG

Founder of Bloomsday I’m worried that health care workers don’t have all the protective gear they need to stay healthy during the pandemic. That includes my daughter, a nurse practitioner. When Dr. Anthony Fauci gives an update on the situation, I’m hopeful that I’m getting good information and that “this too will pass.”

OZZIE KNEZOVICH

Spokane County Sheriff The thing I worry most about is the panic buying that is going on. We need people to go back to normal shopping patterns. The thing that gives me hope is the number of people willing to volunteer to help get our community through this pandemic.

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Director of the Washington Department of Commerce This crisis will most harm the people who already are living on the edge in a country with unacceptable inequality. I worry about the competence and character of many of our national leaders. I’m inspired when I see artisans, activists, students, educators, health care and child care workers, entrepreneurs, and quirky, diverse, nature-loving locals rallying to help others and make the future better for our region and planet.

DUE TO COVID-19, JAN, THE TOY LADY, HAS TEMPORARILY CLOSED WHIZ KIDS FOR THE SAFETY OF HER EMPLOYEES AND CUSTOMERS:

ve we’ll ha ’s safe, ening it n e h W op ry and rea big gr cial anniversa e p s h it w ions! promot

MARCUS RICCELLI

Washington state representative; D-Spokane I am very worried about the food security of our area with so many people being impacted economically. I know in the oncoming days there will likely be more people than ever struggling with hunger and our food aid entities are already stretched past the limits. I am given hope by the community’s heartfelt response to people’s needs and the willingness to support one another in creative ways.

GINGER EWING

Executive Director of Terrain I believe strongly that we need to feed people’s bellies, but we also need to feed their hearts, their minds and their souls, and I’m worried that the spaces that bring us together and connect us to community — where we raise our voices, where we feel whole — will not survive.

As for hope? Neighbors checking in on one another. Digital watch parties and serenades.

Families out on walks; volunteerism; online groups formed to share resources and support.

Crisis can reveal the best in us, and I’m hopeful that when things return to normal, some of this spirit will survive.

We asked these leaders and others to share their concerns and hopes.

Find other responses in our coronavirus coverage beginning on page 16.

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CALEB WALSH ILLUSTRATION

Living in Double Jeopardy In his 80s and male, our longtime Inlander columnist surveys the mess that is the federal government, but takes solace in our local leaders

BY ROBERT HEROLD

I

just found out that I’m in double jeopardy. I turn 82 this October, which right there puts me in a very high-risk group to get the virus. But worse yet, I’m a male. I learned today that, worldwide, the male death rate caused by coronavirus is double that of females!

Setting all this “good” news aside, in the meantime, what’s going on inside the Trump White House? I mean, the public needs to be informed, needs all the help it can get. Well, some states are now getting some help from FEMA, and supposedly money will be coming to fund some payrolls, although the when and how much hasn’t been agreed on. Who knows what the Trump administration is really doing? The New York governor complains that the Trump administration, while long on words, is way short on performance. Consider: The governors want the help of the Army Corps of Engineers, but so far no action at all. The president grumbled that he had inherited an antiquated system, yet he provided no details.

SAY WHAT?

DO SOMETHING!

“These are unprecedented, extraordinary times. So everyone has really been working together collaboratively to make sure we’re serving our community as best we can.”

Healthy blood donors are desperately needed right now. Vitalant, which manages the Spokane area’s blood bank supply, is urging donors to give blood if they can and assuring the public that doing so is still allowed under current CDC guidelines on public gatherings. Hard-hit by the coronavirus, Seattle is currently experiencing a critically low blood supply, and experts are concerned about the nation’s supply.

To make an appointment to donate, head to vitalant.org or call 877-258-4825.

Spokane Public Schools Superintendent Shelley Redinger, speaking about impacts to education as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. Find that story on page 12.

King County Executive Dow Constantine, when asked about his county’s very aggressive efforts to add more hospital beds, said that it’s not very clear that the leadership coming from the White House is capable of providing the necessary help. In other words, King County is, like New York City, on its own.

The painful truth is that our president hasn’t taken enough serious action to make use of federal resources available to ensure safety.

Oh yes, one of Trump’s major decisions was firing Obama’s entire disaster response team, which the Obama administration had created for just these sorts of disasters. As a result, on this action Trump has had no such team to count on. Nor has his administration ensured that the doctors and nurses who work in harm’s way are protected from the virus.

I’m also very concerned about the pay for the hundreds of thousands of laid-off workers, a high percentage of whom work in the shuttered service industry (all who have bills to pay). Democrats want full pay for at least three months. The proposal was made by Democratic New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, but her bill was killed by Mitch McConnell. And what else is new?

We learn that the American Medical Association has asked the federal government to get serious about protection for health care workers. So far all we have are requests from the AMA — no word back from the administration. The doctors and nurses are pleading for worker testing — with no help from the president.

Doctors and nurses are asking for several billion dollars.

Trump so far has been doing his version of the old “in one ear and out the other” routine. By contrast, the AMA speaks of the need for a new Marshall Plan.

The painful truth is that our president hasn’t taken enough serious action to make use of federal resources available to ensure safety, and along the way, he even states that the federal government isn’t into the line of work needed. In response to a question regarding the lack of federal equipment, Trump actually responded that he was not a “shipping clerk.”

One thing we can say is that the governors and mayors are stepping up. Across the country, from Washington State to New York, we are seeing governors make tough decisions, communicate with the public and take necessary action. We need that same involvement and sense of crisis from the White House. Instead, we get a mixture of sandbagging along with obstreperousness, presented in a sad sort of duck-and-cover routine from the president. n Robert Herold is a retired professor of public administration and political science at both EWU and Gonzaga University.

march 27 — april 2, 2008 n free

FROM THE VAULT

page

21

MARCH 27, 2008: With Wall Street in a panic and a huge investment bank folding, we used the cover story to examine the health of the local economy. At the time, local people weren’t too worried, but we included a list of ways to prepare yourself. No. 6? Don’t panic.

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NEWS Gov. Chris Gregoire on the state of Washington 11

muSic Hockey is back on stage this weekend 35

laSt Word Out with our Inlander prize patrol 54

MARCH 26, 2020 INLANDER 7

COMMENT | NEWSMAKERS

Q&A KAREN YAO Coeur d’Alene-based virologist Karen Yao says that the Inland Northwest should take the threat of COVID-19 seriously

BY JOSH KELETY

K

aren Yao, a 44-year-old virologist and resident of Coeur d’Alene, has experience studying viruses and disease. After emigrating to the United States with her family from Hong Kong in 1987, she went on to complete her graduate studies on viral immunology at Johns Hopkins University and a fellowship at the National Institutes of Health. Now, she works as a consultant for government agencies, nonprofit organizations and independent scientists. We called her up to see what she thinks of the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic, what lessons we can learn from other countries that have dealt with epidemics in the past, and the mindset that people in the Inland Northwest should be in.

This interview has been lightly edited for space and clarity.

INLANDER: What do you make of the U.S. response to COVID-19? Will it be effective?

YAO: The United States doesn’t have any real testing capability that is widespread for everyone. So prevention is out of the question. I’m afraid [that] the lack of testing really could be providing some kind of false sense of security for people in terms of their response. If we are able to get our testing up and running, if people can get testing easily, then you can identify who is infected and then you can identify who needs to be isolated.

The social distancing will hopefully help to delay the spread of the disease. So we won’t change the actual numbers of the people that will be infected, what changes is just the time and course that the disease will take.

But lacking testing, lacking treatment, and lacking a vaccine, the infection is still going to spread. By the time we’re seeing symptoms, the infection has already moved on. So the only thing that people can do is slow it down by social distancing.

How does the American COVID-19 response compare to measures taken by China or other countries that have seen success?

If you look at countries in Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, those countries were hit by SARS in 2003.

They were hit really hard then because that was the first time they had to handle it. But having gone through that,

what we’ve seen this time around is that they responded quickly. They put in those social distancing measures very quickly; Hong Kong was actively paying people to stay home.

These are highly populated areas [and] they are small territories. But if you look at the numbers, they’ve done a better job at controlling infections.

China has free treatment and testing for everyone. They’ve also made the testing and isolation mandatory.

Whereas in the U.S. you have to go to your health care provider and your health care provider then refers you to a testing site and then after you get your results, you may or may not need treatment. I don’t think our medical system here has the capacity to take care of everyone.

There are 30-some-million people in the United States who don’t have a regular health care provider. So those people are not going to be tested in the first place and if they did get tested and find out that they’re positive, they may not want to go to the next step and get treatment because they can’t afford it. I think those two factors together, the hurdles that you have to go through to get tested and then the cost of treatment, might have a huge impact on our ability to actually fight the virus.

How should people in the Inland Northwest think about this pandemic? Why are government-ordered social distancing measures so important?

This is going to be something that is long term and won’t be over in just a few weeks. Treatment, it’s not there yet, and vaccines, it’s a year away. Those are very real projections that we have to be prepared for. What I’m seeing right now is that our local communities are actually coming together to organize ourselves to actually

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help each other. On the local level, people are starting to do a lot of that.

Without those [social distancing] orders, people are not going to take it seriously. So if only certain areas are implementing those strategies, people are going to go to places that don’t have those measures. For example, Washington state had social distancing measures, closing down bars and restaurants, so a lot of people came over to the North Idaho area to go to the bars and restaurants. That’s not really going to help in controlling the infection. It’s going to have to be more of a statewide or nationwide practice at this point. Having those messages come from our officials and the governor is very important versus having individuals decide “should I go out or not?” n

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JOBS

CLOSED FOR BUSINESS For hundreds of thousands of Washington state workers, the governor’s orders mean unemployment

BY SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

W Many restaurants around the region have closed. Some, like the Wandering Table, are offering take-out.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

hen Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced on March 15 that he planned to drastically slow the spread of COVID-19 by temporarily closing restaurants and bars to anything but take-out, it was hard to imagine just how many people that could impact.

State economists were able to help shed some light on the scope of just how many people were instantly impacted statewide: tens of thousands in the Inland Northwest, and hundreds of thousands statewide, just in the hospitality and service industries.

That picture got even bleaker this week, as Inslee announced a stay-home order Monday night, March 23, to take effect on Wednesday.

“This is Washington’s ‘Stay Home, Stay Healthy’ order,” Inslee said in a broadcast to state

residents. “We’ve been very clear on the need for everyone to stay home. And while most Washingtonians are doing their part, some still don’t grasp the seriousness of this pandemic.”

The order will close all nonessential businesses, excluding places like grocery stores, doctor’s offices, child care, gas stations and pharmacies, among others. Restaurants can continue offering to-go orders, and businesses that are able to can have their employees work from home. Under the order, people are not allowed to leave their homes except for essential things like purchasing food or going to the doctor. All gatherings, from weddings and funerals to a small gathering at someone’s home, are banned. However, going outside for a walk, bike ride or gardening is allowed, as long as ...continued on next page

MARCH 26, 2020 INLANDER 9

NEWS | JOBS “CLOSED FOR BUSINESS,” CONTINUED... people follow social distancing.

Under the initial March 15 order, affecting everything from restaurants and entertainment venues to hairdressers and nail salons, places like hotels and motels weren’t required to close, but many started laying people off as events were canceled and tourism plummeted.

In Spokane, in the wake of the NCAA tournament and other large event cancellations, the Davenport hotels laid off hundreds of staffers and announced the temporary closure of four of five hotels.

Many restaurants switched to take-out if they could, but still laid off serving staff, while many bars shut down completely.

A total of 24,000 people work in motels, hotels, restaurants and bars in Spokane, which LETTERS is lumped in with Send comments to regional statistics for editor@inlander.com.

Stevens and Pend Oreille counties, says Doug Tweedy, an economist with the state Employment Security Department. Tweedy analyzes data for Ferry, Stevens, Pend Oreille, Lincoln, Whitman and Spokane counties.

Statewide, there are about 288,000 workers in those hospitality areas.

But that doesn’t include the many retail workers impacted by this week’s order. In Spokane, there are another 40,000 people who work in retail, of which about 5,000 work in grocery and beverage sales that will be able to remain open during the stay-home order.

Statewide, a total of about 391,000 work in retail, of

Most retail stores have been told to close as Washington switches to only “essential services” remaining open. which about 68,000 are in grocery and beverage sales.

“These are the storekeepers, so vehicle sales, parts dealers, furniture, garden supply, health and personal and general merchandise,” Tweedy says.

I

daho’s governor still had not ordered public gathering places to shutter as of Monday, but people were encouraged to distance themselves, and some cities including Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls opted to issue

ALICIA HAUFF PHOTO

their own orders shuttering bars and restaurants except for to-go orders.

The wider picture of how many jobs will be impacted statewide and nationally is bleaker still, with everything from tourism to the arts collapsing with shelter-in-place orders coming out in many cities and states.

By June, Washington state could be looking at a permanent loss of nearly 120,000 jobs, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. The nonpar-

NEWS | ASSISTANCE

Emergency Funds As many in Spokane face unemployment and the health care system is stressed, community grant funds are set up to respond

BY SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

M

ore than a million dollars in grant money is nearly ready to go out to Inland Northwest nonprofits, organizations and individuals, as various charitable funds team up to ensure those who are most impacted by COVID-19 are able to get help.

Some grants will be available for individuals to apply for, while others are for organizations that will then use the money to help others. Here’s an early look at the resources currently available.

COVID-19 COMMUNITY RESPONSE AND RECOVERY FUNDS A power player partnership between the Innovia Foundation, Empire Health Foundation and Spokane County United Way is poised to give at least $700,000 out to nonprofits and organizations on the front line of the local coronavirus response in coming weeks.

Hosted by Innovia, two COVID-19 community response funds, one for Eastern Washington and one for North Idaho, will be granted out to organizations under the guidance of a Regional Pandemic Community Advisory Group. The advisory group will be made up

10 INLANDER MARCH 26, 2020

of government officials, education workers, health care workers, and first responders who are best poised to know the immediate needs and those who are working to solve them, says Molly Sanchez, director of grants and community engagement for Innovia.

“We’re looking at supporting nonprofit organizations, churches, and other community-based organizations that are working to meet the most immediate needs of vulnerable populations,” Sanchez says. “We want to start [handing out checks] within the next two weeks ideally.

That may be ambitious, but we definitely understand the need for immediacy.”

SPOKANE ARTISTS & CREATIVES EMERGENCY FUND

Professional photographers, musicians, graphic designers, visual artists and creatives supporting themselves through gig and freelance work can apply for up to $500 from a new emergency fund being managed by Spokane Arts.

The fund, seeded by at least $25,000 from Spokane Arts, as well as community donations (those can be made at spokanearts.kindful.com/artistrelief) is open to applica-

tions from people who can show that the gigs, booth sales and other events they’d planned to make money from have been canceled, says Melissa Huggins, Spokane Arts executive director.

“That funding is unrestricted, there are no strings attached,” Huggins says. “Individuals can use that for whatever their most emergent need is, whether that’s paying rent, buying medicine, whatever their need is.”

Creatives can apply for funding at bit.ly/2WBCa2r and the application link can also be found at the bottom of the donation page asking for community support.

The emergency grants are also separate from Spokane Arts’ SAGA awards. A round of $42,000 arts grants will be handed out on April 1, and the organization has another $100,000 to award in the next rounds to happen this year, Huggins says.

COVID-19 ARTIST TRUST RELIEF FUND

Another option for artists is the COVID-19 Artist Trust Relief Fund, open to artists throughout Washington state.

The fund, seeded with an initial $250,000, is offering need-based cash grants of between $500 and $5,000. The grants are unrestricted in order to help artists with: lost wages and earnings; loss from event, performance, and conference cancellations and school/community-based education closures; reimbursement for travel loss; medical expenses; rent and mortgage payments, food, utilities and other living expenses.

Artists must be at least 18, Washington residents, and may be of any discipline, but curators, organizers and producers aren’t eligible. Applications can be found at artisttrust.submittable.com/submit.

tisan think tank points to forecasts by major banks, including Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan, with the middle-of-the-road projections between them predicting about 5.25 million jobs will be lost around the country by this summer.

It won’t be clear until later this week just how many people had applied for unemployment due to the governor’s March 15 order, in part because some people were expected to be using up sick leave first, and in part because those statistics take a little more than a week to be compiled for release. With the March 23 stay-home order, unemployment is likely to spike further still.

While application numbers still weren’t in, the state’s unemployment site had more than a half-million hits on Monday and Tuesday of last week alone, when a normal amount of traffic would be closer to 30,000 hits.

Forecasts were still in the works and ever-changing, but in looking at King County, which has been the hardest hit and took measures ahead of the east side of the state, you can get an idea of how things are going to look here, Tweedy says.

Looking at initial unemployment insurance claims, which are a leading indicator for the future, Tweedy says that King County had 1,500 claims for the last week of February, which jumped to 5,000 for the first week of March.

“That was still before some of the business shutdowns,” Tweedy says. “That’s a big jump.”

The state will have more official projections for what we could expect later this week, as data for the first few weeks of March is compiled, he says. But already, we know that 2,000 of those claims in King County for the first week of March came from the food and beverage industry.

When asked if this could be similar to what we saw with the Great Recession in 2008, Tweedy says it’s really very different.

“It’s much different,” Tweedy says. “It’s a health event, so it’s really hard to project, because we don’t know what the spread of the virus will be. I couldn’t even hazard a guess right now.” n

SPOKANE HOSPITALITY WORKERS EMERGENCY RELIEF FUND

Many different GoFundMe pages have been set up, including the Spokane Hospitality Workers Emergency Relief Fund, set up by Ted Munat. The fund had raised about $5,800 of its $20,000 goal as of Monday evening. Organizers were still figuring out how and when people who work in the service industry, who nearly all were laid off last week with forced statewide limitations and closures of restaurants and bars, could apply.

USBG BARTENDER EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

The United States Bartenders Guild has started a national Bartender Emergency Assistance Program to help bartenders suddenly without work as cities and states shutter their work to slow the spread of the virus.

Bartenders don’t have to be members of the union to apply for the assistance, but they do need to document their financial need and the hardship they’re experiencing. The guild’s website has been experiencing high traffic, so if the application doesn’t work, applicants are asked to try again later or wait another day.

Applications and information available at usbgfoundation.org/ covid-19-response.

We’re Spokane. We’re not about to let coronavirus change who we are.

Sure, we’re doing everything we can to keep friends and neighbors safe. But we’re also going above and beyond. We’re ordering takeout from local restaurants and bars. Shopping online with local retailers. Checking in and helping, rather than checking out and complaining. Now, more than ever, it’s time to Support Spokane.

Learn more at: dowtownspokane.org/support-spokane

RESTAURANT OPPORTUNITIES CENTERS UNITED

The national nonprofit Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, which started in the wake of 9/11 to help hospitality workers whose jobs were impacted, is offering small assistance grants to hospitality workers impacted by coronavirus shutdowns.

The organization is offering $500 grants to hospitality workers who’ve had hours slashed or lost their jobs and is also offering links to other small funds that have since been set up.

Find information on those grants at rocunited.org/stop-the-spread/ coronavirus-support. n

downtownspokane.org

MARCH 26, 2020 INLANDER 11

NEWS | EDUCATION

Schools Out For… How Long?

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What Inland Northwest schools look like in these “unprecedented times”

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efore school closed, Nicole Henrichs wanted to address her students — to discuss what the next six weeks would be like, and to tell them she cared and would think about them.

She didn’t get that chance. While Gov. Jay Inslee’s order to close schools allowed a transition day before the closure took effect March 17, West Valley closed a day early due to its link to a positive COVID-19 case. And for Henrichs, a kindergarten special education teacher there, missing the chance to say goodbye was more than just about how to plan for distance learning.

“For a lot of students, school is much more than education,” Henrichs says. “Parents are depending on child care and meals.”

Washington students have been torn away from classrooms in an effort to stop the spread of coronavirus. It separated teachers like Henrichs from their students, leaving them with a murky understanding of what’s expected during the hiatus. Schools aren’t equipped to quickly transition to online learning, and many students don’t have the resources to do so.

As Spokane Public Schools Superintendent Shelley Redinger notes, it’s “uncharted territory.”

Schools are striving to quickly set up some kind of distance learning, yet they’re also providing those essential needs of child care and food to the community.

“These are unprecedented, extraordinary times,” Redinger says. “So everyone has really been working together collaboratively to make sure we’re serving our community as best we can.”

THE SCHOOLS MUST GO ON

The Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction earlier this week delivered this message to schools: Learning must continue.

“We have an obligation to our students to provide them with opportunities to continue their learning during this pandemic,” writes state Superintendent Chris Reykdal.

What that looks like, exactly, is a bit of an open question, Reykdal says. “We should avoid assuming that continuity of education outside of a typical school building can only occur through online means.” It can also be done through printed materials, phone, or some sort of combi-

nation.

In Spokane, many teachers gave students packets of homework to do over the break, and in the immediate days after the closure checked in on them. Some teachers held video chats with students.

This week, many school districts ramped up what they provided teachers. West Valley uploaded weekly resources for each grade level, for instance. Central Valley School District says that starting this week, teachers will begin “posting authentic academic engagement opportunities” online.

Not all students have access to those opportunities at home, however. On Monday, the Spokane Education Association posted on Facebook that while “teachers want to teach,” it’s difficult to guarantee that every student would be able to receive an education through distance learning.

You can’t send lessons to kids who are homeless.

Schools recognize this. Spokane Public Schools is deploying more than 1,500 laptops to families, which they can sign up for if they don’t have computer access. And in a letter to families, Central Valley Superintendent Ben Small says they will be loaning Chromebooks to students who need a device.

Equitable learning “is not a new issue,” Redinger points out, but one that schools have been trying to eliminate for a while. Redinger notes, too, that Spokane — with a relatively high percentage of special education students — will try to support those students at home during this time.

Spokane has a short-term plan for the next few weeks, she says, but also a long-term plan should the school closure be extended through the end of the school year. She notes that they’re making sure high school seniors are able to get all the credits they need to graduate.

But distance learning, she knows, can’t replicate a school environment.

“What we’re concerned about as far as learning is the mental health of our students, and the social isolation, and making sure that they feel cared for and that someone is checking in on them to make sure they’re OK,” Redinger says.

CHILD DROP OFF

When Inslee announced the closure of schools two weeks ago, he made sure to direct them to provide child care for first responders and health care workers. Otherwise, school closures could hinder the efforts to fight COVID-19.

But if kids are congregated at schools for child care, what was the point of closing schools?

It’s a question schools are trying to balance.

“It’s really hard, because we’re trying to balance social distancing — keeping everyone safe — and then offering child care. So a lot of it is making sure that we have small numbers of children and that the adult-to-child ratio is pretty small,” Redinger says.

Spokane Public Schools opened two child care sites last week for first responders. Central Valley opened four buildings this week to “last resort” child care. Coeur d’Alene Public Schools, which also closed school, also offers emergency K-5 child care on weekdays for health care workers.

FOOD TO GO

Nearly 60 percent of students in Spokane Public

Online, all the time A trusted degree from colleges serving the region for over 50 years.

ENROLL NOW! Local schools are offering free meals to any students under 18.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

Schools — which has more than 30,000 students — are on free and reduced lunch. And as the economy tanks with layoffs due to coronavirus closures, a free meal may be as important as ever.

That’s why local schools that have shut down are still opening up to give free meals to all students, if they need them.

“We’re making it so it’s really easy: It’s a bag, we’re gonna hand it to them — no, they don’t have to touch anything — we’ve all washed, sanitized, we’ve got our gloves on,” says Doug Wordell, director of nutrition services for Spokane Public Schools.

“We’re maintaining a safe production for families and hopefully they bring kids in and get a good nutritious breakfast and lunch.”

Last week was the first day that Spokane Public Schools began offering grab and go meals for any child — whether they attend Spokane Public Schools or not from 11 am to 1 pm. The district has opened two dozen sites, and Wordell says the plan is to expand to more schools. Central Valley, meanwhile, opened 11 sites.

One of the first sites to open in Spokane was at Garfield Elementary. On its first day, it offered sacks of food, each with breakfast (yogurt, fruit, vegetables and milk) and lunch (a sandwich, fruit, vegetables and milk). Those needing a meal can drive by and pick one up or walk by.

On the first day, almost all of the sites in Spokane Public Schools ran out of the sacks they’d prepared and had to make more.

“Hunger doesn’t take a break,” Wordell says. “It doesn’t take a break in the summer, it doesn’t take a break in emergencies.”

Wordell says the district will have to overcome some challenges with the supply chain. Lunch meat, for instance, is low.

The district may start serving cold pizza or cold burgers that kids can microwave at home.

John Richey, a parent of two Garfield students, says he heard about the meal site via email. He brought his two kids to the meal site as soon as it opened. Before the school closure, he had recently quit his job to start his own business. This week, he says, has felt like a “long weekend” so far.

“It’s a little stressful, just the uncertainty of not knowing what’s going to happen,” Richey says of the school closure.

Francell Daubert, an office manager at Garfield, volunteered to help distribute food to families. She has her own two kids who are now at home because of school closures, but she wanted to help out however she could.

“It’s what we need right now,” she says. “I’m not a part of the vulnerable community, but I want to make sure those of our staff and families who are have something. And if I’m healthy enough, I can give it to them.” n wilsonc@inlander.com

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NEWS | COMMUNITY

Chipping In Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Spokane residents and businesses are stepping up to help the community weather the storm

BY JOSH KELETY

N

othing brings people together like the stress of a disaster or crisis, some argue. In Spokane, it appears that the theory holds true. Local businesses and individual residents have rallied together to help ensure that their neighbors make it through the COVID-19 pandemic. Call it Spokane’s own antibodies.

The efforts range from the small scale, like the residents who are picking up and delivering groceries for immunocompromised households, to larger initiatives, like local grocery stores operating shopping hours exclusively for seniors and other people who are vulnerable.

For some, rolling up their sleeves and getting involved helps them deal with their own stress about the pandemic and the havoc that it is wreaking on people’s lives.

“For me to handle my own anxieties and the fear, the best thing I can do is to help,” says Ileia Carolyn Perry,

14 INLANDER MARCH 26, 2020

Royal Upholstery & Distributing is gearing up to potentially supply masks to the Spokane Fire Department. a 37-year-old client relations executive at a litigation support company. “If you give people a task, they feel more productive and united and part of the community and I think it helps dispel some of the fears and anxieties that we might be feeling.”

On March 12, Perry founded Helping Spokane County Get Through COVID-19, a Facebook group for individuals seeking or offering assistance related to the pandemic. In it, people post information about the latest government-ordered social distancing measures, what stores still have certain products in their inventory, and times for Facebook live story hours for kids.

And so far it’s been a smashing success, Perry says, garnering over 6,500 members.

“It wouldn’t be a successful group if people weren’t willing to donate and share and be vulnerable and ask for assistance,” she says. “I’m very surprised because I want everyone to treat everyone with kindness and courtesy and that was one of my biggest concerns that we would have lots of distractions from rude and political posts and everyone has kept it very kind and courteous and united.”

Stephanie Moore, a 38-year-old stay-at-home mom, has been using the Facebook group to run errands for people during the pandemic. She checks the discussion thread several times a day when she is heading out to see if she can help anyone either by grabbing stuff from her own pantry or buying it at a store. Recently, she’s dropped off toilet paper and paper towels to a woman who couldn’t leave her house because she’s immunocompromised, baby wipes to the mother of a newborn baby, and food to a friend helping out a neighbor.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

She also takes steps to keep goods as sanitized as possible before she delivers them to residents.

“If I get things from my pantry, I just wipe it down and put it in a bag,” she says. “And then when I get stuff from the store, I do grocery delivery or pick up so I don’t go in the store. And then I have hand sanitizer in my car.

“It made me feel a little better and have a little bit of control over what’s going on,” Moore adds.

S

imilarly, local businesses are stepping up. Dry Fly Distilling, for instance, is producing free hand sanitizer for high-risk facilities and personnel like nursing homes, first responders and clinics.

A number of local grocery stores, including Rosauers and Huckleberry’s Natural Market, are offering special shopping hours exclusively for people vulnerable to COVID-19, like seniors, pregnant women, and people with disabilities and underlying medical issues.

“We had our first shopping day for seniors and atrisk populations this [past] Thursday and it was met with open arms by our seniors,” says Jeff Phillips, president of Rosauers Supermarkets. “We had a waiting line of people at 7 o’clock to get in but it was very well organized and people were able to spread out.

“I think almost every location that we have had the same experience,” he adds. “I think the rest of the community will respect that seniors and those who are compromised need that time and space to shop safely for their needs.”

Both Rosauers and Huckleberry’s are holding their special shopping times from 7-9 am on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

A

dditionally, about a week ago, State Rep. Marcus Riccelli (D-Spokane) began to work with local donors, nonprofits and businesses to create Spokane Food Fighters, an emergency meal delivery service intended to serve those who are now jobless as a result of business closures.

“We know a whole bunch of people are going to be food insecure over the next couple of days from being laid off, being less mobile,” he says. “So this is something that we thought we could do to provide emergency meals.”

Maurer Law, the SmithBarbieri Progressive Fund and Spokane Teachers Credit Union are among some of the donors to the initiative, and partner restaurants like No-Li Brewhouse have helped to provide the meals. Riccelli estimated that 79 meals were delivered on Monday.

“Our capacity is really going to be based on the funding stream that continues to go in,” he says.

“I’m confident that we can raise the money but also the volunteer capacity.”

Royal Upholstery & Distributing is also gearing up to potentially supply masks to the Spokane Fire Department personnel.

Krista Featherstone, owner of Royal Upholstery, says that they were approached by the fire department about making masks for them.

“We were approached by the Spokane Fire Department about our ability to make masks and were asked to come up with a prototype and we did,” Featherstone says. “They are desperately searching for a backup plan for when the real masks run out.”

Their mask prototype wasn’t made to any medical specifications, but first responders are looking for “any sort of vapor barrier,” Featherstone says. The shop has stockpiled materials if they need to make the masks in quantity.

“We’re not looking to make money,” she adds.

“We’re just looking to help the community and keep our guys employed.” n joshk@inlander.com

+

Now on Inlander.com: National and international stories from the New York Times to go with the fresh, local news we deliver every day MARCH 26, 2020 INLANDER 15

The message at Spokane’s Lewis and Clark High School. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

16 INLANDER MARCH 26, 2020

The numbers don’t lie.

More than 30 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Spokane County, more than 2,000 statewide in Washington and more than 100 deaths. But the numbers don’t tell the full truth either. Numbers are clean. They have the appeal of being distant and antiseptic. But they can’t tell stories, only tally them.

The death toll can’t communicate the grief and the anxiety. The unemployment figures won’t show the anguish of a chef who poured his life savings into his new restaurant only for COVID-19 to starve him out of business. Those graphs on the epidemiological curve won’t tell the story of nurses who might have to tell sobbing family membrers that there aren’t enough ventilators available to save their dad.

That’s up to us. To communicate just how destructive the coronavirus has already been on Spokane means showing the lives of the people who’ve been shaken by it: the produce company president that has to scramble to reinvent his business; the unemployed mom who now has to homeschool her autistic child; the laid-off bartender who’s unable to visit his mother in a quarantined nursing home. These are are our neighbors.

These are readers. These are the people we’re all trying to save. (DANIEL WALTERS)

DOOMED TO REPEAT IT

BIRTHDAY IN QUARANTINE

Local historian Logan Camporeale lives in the past to learn about our pandemic-pocked present

In one day: quarantine, a birthday and unemployment

L

ogan Camporeale, a historian with the city of Spokane’s Historic Preservation Office, has been thinking about the past.

“I was just trying to make sense of what was happening, feeling somewhat defeated by the social distancing measures we were going through,” Camporeale says.

So he did what any history buff did: He turned to history.

He remembered that back when he worked for the Museum of Arts & Culture, he curated an exhibit about Spokane during World War I. When the war ended on Nov. 11, 1918, he recalled, Spokane Health Officer John B. Anderson had to give people permission to gather together to even celebrate. The 1918 flu pandemic, after all, killed more Americans than the war did.

Camporeale dug back into Spokane’s diseased history from 102 years ago, compiling what he learned on his blog at thelocalhistory.com.

He tracks the progress of influenza in Spokane in a timeline day by day, highlighting how it’s mirrored Spokane a century later under the coronavirus outbreak.

And yes, back then there was social distancing: Headlines blared “Close all Schools and Theaters in County: Dr. J.B. Anderson Finds 100 Spanish Influenza Cases in This City.”

Back then, there were skeptics and rebels: “Not a speck of honor to silly men and women who are risking life and health uselessly just to show they are ‘not scared a bit,’” the Daily Chronicle read.

But Anderson was given incredible power, Camporeale noted: When the guy in charge of Washington Water Power’s streetcar system kept packing the streetcars full of people during the epidemic, Anderson issued a warrant for the guy’s arrest.

For those hoping today’s current bans on large gatherings will be lifted quickly, history says you’ll have to be patient: Comporeale notes the closures lasted almost three months.

And there lies one of the differences between then and now, Camporeale says. Back then, we were used to sacrifice.

“These people were literally just finishing a world war,” Camporeale says. “It seems like these people in 1918 in Spokane would have been sort of accustomed to being asked to have their lives changed drastically.”

Today? That kind of radical change comes as more of a shock.

— DANIEL WALTERS

P

ete Franz was working at Brick West Brewing Sunday, March 15, when his sister Stephanie texted him. It was her 41st birthday, and their plans to have a small celebration with his mom that day weren’t going to happen as they’d hoped.

“I get a text from my sister saying, ‘By the way, Alderwood is now quarantined and they won’t let visitors in or out. And [mom] was crying on the phone, you should probably call her when you get off work,’” Franz says.

His mom, Tanya, had a stroke in mid-February, and has been recovering in Alderwood Manor, a nursing home. Usually, she helps care for Stephanie, who was born with spina bifida and requires a wheelchair and round-the-clock assistance. But the two have been separated for weeks.

Tanya had been looking forward to making her daughter’s birthday special and had planned to leave for the day, so Franz headed to Alderwood to see what was up.

“I found out it was all locked up, so I called my mom from the parking lot,” he says. “She’s really hard to understand right now because she’s got slurred speech.”

He explained he wouldn’t be able to get her out, but offered to get the gifts she’d planned for. That included the ice cream cake they enjoy every year, and buying his sister some nice headphones and new sweats to wear in bed, as she had only just recovered from her own bout in the hospital in January. It was really important to his mom that his sister get a comfy outfit.

“At the end of that conversation, she broke down crying,” Franz says. “It was just this awkward, half muscle wail. My God, it just sounded horrible.” She hung up, she was so upset.

He took pictures that afternoon, but because their mom doesn’t have a smartphone he’s unsure when she’ll be able to see them.

Later that night, Gov. Jay Inslee announced all bars and restaurants would be closed except for to-go orders, meaning Franz’s job as a bartender would likely be in jeopardy. But he says he was more worried about his family than his own unemployment (which was cemented Wednesday).

“All I could hear over and over in my head was my mom crying on the phone,” he says. “She’s always been strong, raising four kids on her own and taking care of

my sister, and like the most positive person I know. So that’s the hardest part.”

In an attempt to get Stephanie into long-term care, he had to admit her to the hospital on Tuesday. So now both women are in isolation and he can’t visit either. He’ll likely have to clean out their apartment as he’s not sure they’ll be able to return.

“They’ve never known anything other than living together,” he says. “That’s where my emotion comes from is empathizing with how they feel.”

— SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

SAFE PLACES After she was laid off from two jobs in 24 hours, Jacy Martinez attempts to build stability at home for her son

J

acy Martinez is trying to build a fort. In the living room, as her 3-year-old son crawls through a play tunnel, she scrounges up blankets and drapes them over the couch, then slides in chairs to prevent it from collapsing.

The last couple weeks, however, it’s felt like everything else has collapsed for Martinez. Within 24 hours, Martinez lost both of her restaurant jobs in Spokane. Her boyfriend lost his job days later. And she’s seen their 3-year-old son Kenzo, who’s autistic and non-verbal, already regress in the week he’s been away from his preschool and therapy.

It was something they weren’t prepared for at all.

“Everything just seemed to happen overnight,” Martinez says.

It’s not like she can go find another restaurant job — if she did, there’d be no child care available. And to top things off, she was denied unemployment.

In between all of that, Martinez has been tasked with homeschooling Kenzo. His teachers gave her a packet that included activities that fit under his individual school plan. Building a fort was one of them. Others included puzzles, teaching him to make eye contact, and mimicking sounds she makes. It hasn’t been easy — it’s one thing to go down the list of what to do in the packet, but quite another to integrate the skills into everyday activities.

The hardest part, however, is that Kenzo benefits from consistency and stability, and he just lost that. She worries for the long-term impact on his development.

“Having those few safe places taken away has been extremely hard,” she says, “as well as worrying about all his progress he may lose.”

Martinez sees how it’s already affected him: He has a harder time eating meals. He now won’t sleep without his mom there. And more often, he gets frustrated, which è

MARCH 26, 2020 INLANDER 17

CORONAVIRUS “SAFE PLACES,” CONTINUED... can trigger self-harm like biting his hand or banging his head.

“Every day has been a struggle on its own for me, and I know for him as well,” Martinez says. “He doesn’t understand why he can’t go to school or therapy — the few places that understand him.”

For now, at least, there’s a fort.

— WILSON CRISCIONE

DUTY TO SERVE A local public defender isolates himself from his family at home to keep serving his clients in court

J

eremy Schmidt, a 37-year-old public defender, lives on a 100-acre farm near Mount Spokane with his wife, children and parents. While he and his family technically live in seperate house than his parents, the two homes are connected by a shared room.

But now, they live in total isolation from one another despite living on the same property. He’s afraid that he may contract COVID-19 during his work as a public defender for Spokane County and subsequently infect his parents.

“My kids say goodnight to their grandparents through the door every night because we can’t physically be in the same room with them,” Schmidt says. “We chose that as long as I’m still being exposed to the jail and the courtroom, it’s just not worth the risk.”

Schmidt works for Spokane County’s Counsel for Defense, a small indigent defense office that primarily represents defendants accused of serious felonies, like murder and robbery. While county courts have suspended trials and out-of-custody hearings in an effort to keep people from coming to the court house amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, hearings for in-custody defendants held at the jail are still proceeding. And Schmidt and his colleagues are still coming into the office everyday to meet with clients held in the jail and represent them in court.

He and his colleagues “use a lot of hand sanitizer,” but that doesn’t do away with anxiety about COVID-19.

Additionally, their office is physically located in the court house, and people “walk in everyday” looking for legal help.

“It’s scary,” Schmidt says. “We’re still going into the jail and meeting with people and everytime we do it we’re worried, ‘Are we bringing it in with us? Are we making it worse?’ … But you can’t abandon our clients when no one else is going to do anything for them.”

Some of Schmidt’s clients have had their trials pushed back, meaning that they’re slated to spend more time in jail until their cases get resolved. And while the courts have moved to release some inmates due to the potential of an outbreak in the jail, many won’t get out.

“Now they’re looking at months more potentially in jail during a situation that is highly volatile and dangerous,” Schmidt says. “We are right now in the thick of trying to figure out can we get people out, get them out of the way of this impending internal pandemic because once it hits the jail it’s going to be a nightmare.”

— JOSH KELETY

18 INLANDER MARCH 26, 2020

The scene at the drive-thru testing site at the Spokane County Interstate Fairgrounds.

WHEN THE BISHOP CANCELS CHURCH How Spokane Bishop Thomas Daly wrestled with the moral dilemma of canceling Mass for coronavirus

L

ately, Spokane Bishop Thomas Daly has found himself thinking about Charles Borromeo.

Borromeo was a saint who spent his last days in Milan during the plague in 1576, driving himself deep into debt as he tried to feed tens of thousands in famine, staying in the midst of the sickness even as other leaders had fled.

“The church has been through plagues and epidemics and outbreaks for centuries,” Daly says.

But he’s also well aware of the fact that many of the church’s most powerful aid during a normal natural disaster — the ability to bring people together into one spot, to give them comfort and community — carries the danger of spreading the coronavirus.

And so Daly had to answer the question: “Do you cancel Mass?”

There was “the reality of so much unknown and the fact that people were dying,” he says, yet there was also the obligation the Catholic Church has for “caring for people and not running from them and abandoning them.”

At first, he balked: Daly’s an old-school Catholic, the sort who’s decried church leaders who bend too quickly to fit in with the rest of society.

“I talked to a bishop in California, who’s had a similar experience,” Daly says. “He kind of looked at the priests who are wanting to, you know, ‘cut and run,’ and he found them to be basically guys who that’s their approach to a number of things. Kind of a more selfish approach.”

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

Initially, Daly held off on a full-scale cancellation and was flooded with thank yous, with parishioners telling him things like, “‘We feel that we can take proper precautions, but don’t cut off the sacraments from us.’”

But days later, he changed his mind: Talking to people he trusted who were worried about hospitals being overwhelmed, he felt he had to say, “You know, for the good of the people we’re going to end the public masses.

“One priest told me, ‘It must be like an occupied country where, you know, the occupation force is this disease,’” Daly says. Maybe, he speculates, it will shake us from our “complacency.”

— DANIEL WALTERS

JUGGLING ACT Married professors — one from Gonzaga, one from EWU — find themselves going suddenly online

T

he stress during the coronavirus crisis can come from myriad directions. For South Hill couple Drew Ayers and Karen Petruska, those stresses are generational, parental and occupational.

Both are professors at local universities, she in communications at Gonzaga and he in the Department of Theatre & Film at Eastern Washington University. Both schools’ decisions to take all classes online have the couple scrambling to quickly turn classroom lessons into internet instructions, and they both worry about how that will work, and how they can help assuage their students’ anxiety and stress.

“I’m an introvert already, so this doesn’t really bother me,” Ayers says of working from home. “The lack of routine does, though. I do like going to campus in the morning.”

The couple also has to figure out the best way to care for their two kids — 4-year-old Henry and 18-month-old Margaret — who had their preschool and day care close.

The couple has a babysitter a couple days a week, Ayers

says, “but part of this is financial. We pay tuition for preschool and day care, we can’t pay for a babysitter every day, too.”

Petruska figured some of her Gonzaga peers could share child care, but then the advice to social distance came down. So instead, she and Ayers juggle work and parenthood to a whole new degree.

“We try to divide up the day,” Petruska says. “One works in the morning, one in afternoon, so the other can be with the kids while the other one works.”

There just aren’t a lot of options, Ayers says, “if we’re both going to teach like we’re supposed to.”

The couple also has to consider when they’ll get to see their families in the Midwest again. She’s considering buying plane tickets for Memorial Day, just to have something to look forward to. He’s worried about his 95-year-old grandmother who lives in an Iowa nursing home.

“Her time is coming sooner than later,” Ayers says. “They won’t let anyone visit. What if she dies? If she does, can I even go? Can there even be a funeral?”

“I have a sister who’s a scientist in Seattle,” Petruska adds.

“She’s like, ‘Drew can’t go. He could bring [coronavirus] to his parents, or he could bring it home [from the funeral].’”

It’s a lot to consider, something they do between work, taking care of the kids and family walks and playtime in the backyard.

— DAN NAILEN

THE FIRE AND THE PLAGUE A fire caused Ian Pickett to leave rural Stevens County. Coronavirus brought him back

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B

ack then, the disaster was a local one. In August 2018, a fire ripped through the community of Kettle Falls, setting ablaze nearly 300 acres and sending hundreds of displaced residents to a local Red Cross shelter.

Stevens County resident Ian Pickett had his home destroyed.

For the last year and a half, as his home has been rebuilt, he’s been down in California living with family.

But this time, the disaster’s global. In California, in the midst of the coronavirus, Pickett says he was watching people begin to panic, and the government begin to lock everything down.

“We figured our best chance would be to ride out the storm on our own property in Washington where we could at the very least provide for ourselves off the land,” Pickett says. “If we have to be here forever, that’s what will happen.”

He’s calling during a trip to Spokane, when his cellphone gets more reliable service than up in Stevens County.

“I mean, they want us to practice social distancing, and I can’t think of a better way than to be on my own property,” Pickett says.

While the house is still under construction, he has his trailer up there. He’s turned a shed into a living space.

“We have our own spring and we have the ability to hunt if we need to, fish if we need to,” Pickett says. “If things became really bad, obviously, this is the best place to be.”

After all, he never liked being around a lot of people.

“I’ve been practicing social distancing my whole life,” Pickett says.

Still, even in rural Stevens County, you still have to deal with the occasional obnoxious neighbor, like the “very ornery bear” who sometimes shows up to scratch trees or tear up his trash.

But being on his property on Wednesday, he felt more relaxed than he’s been in maybe a year.

“We’re overlooking the lake,” Pickett says. “It’s been beat up è

+

Now on Inlander.com: National and international stories from the New York Times to go with the fresh, local news we deliver every day

MARCH 26, 2020 INLANDER 19

CORONAVIRUS “THE FIRE AND THE PLAGUE,” CONTINUED... quite a bit by the fire, but it’s fairly tranquil.”

The trees remain charred. The fire has left wounds that will take decades to heal. But with time, spring comes and you begin to rebuild. And, in those moments, there’s a whisper of hope in the breeze.

— DANIEL WALTERS

SYMPHONIC SHUTDOWN James Lowe, the Spokane Symphony’s music director, says closures could completely change the orchestra’s model

J

ames Lowe should be in Spokane right now.

Since becoming the music director of the Spokane Symphony last year, he’s been splitting his time between the Inland Northwest, Finland (where he conducts the Vaasa City Orchestra) and his primary residence in Scotland. He was supposed to be here for last weekend’s party announcing the symphony’s upcoming season, and conducting a masterworks concert the next weekend.

Since then, the remainder of the orchestra’s 2019-20 season has been canceled, and he’s holed up in his home in the Scottish countryside.

His fiancée, Charlotte, has been gardening a lot, and they just had a delivery of wine come to the house.

They’re concerned that the pandemic could delay their spring wedding, though Lowe admits it was going to be a small affair anyway.

“But I’m mostly worried about our musicians in the orchestra,” Lowe says. “It’s this feeling that there’s something out in the world that none of us can do anything about. … In moments like this, music is usually what people turn to, but we’re entirely shut down right now.”

Symphonies around the country are following suit, and once everything goes back to normal, Lowe wonders if they’ll merely go back to the old way of doing things.

“The old-fashioned model of the symphony orchestra is we put on a concert once a week, and you’re very lucky to come, and thank you very much,” he says. “I think that was changing in any case, and I suspect this crisis now will speed up that change. The old model will be pretty untenable when we all go back to work.”

And of all the classical artists, the one he turns to in difficult times is Beethoven.

“He led a terrible life with heartbreak and with death, and yet his music is full of incredible hope,” Lowe says.

“No matter what happened to him, he always ended it on a note of hopefulness. There’s a resilience to the human spirit that I look to, and I think we can rely on that to get us through whatever’s coming.”

— NATHAN WEINBENDER

20 INLANDER MARCH 26, 2020

The sign greeting drivers on Interstate 90 on Tuesday.

THIS SPUD’S FOR YOU How a clever potato-related adjustment in their business model saved jobs at Duncan Produce

L

ast Tuesday, Casey Duncan, president of Duncan Produce, called his crew — about a dozen people — into the break room and gave them a version of the coronavirus talk everyone has been hearing: We’re sorry, we’ll do what we can, but layoffs are coming.

He laid out a new part-time schedule, but promised they’d still be getting paid, for at least the next three or four weeks.

Duncan Produce, a family-run produce manufacturer, preps and sells potatoes, carrots, cabbages and onions to distributors and restaurants.

When restaurants shut down and went to take-out-only last Monday, the crisis was existential.

“I told my crew I’d do anything I can to make sure they have paychecks,” Duncan says. “I’d even be willing to sell my personal car to keep their paychecks coming.”

The next day, he called one of the farmers who supplies him.

“I told him I wouldn’t need any spuds or onions for I don’t know how long,” Duncan says. “He told me, ‘Casey. People gotta eat.’”

And that’s when the epiphany hit. Due to the spate

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

of “panic-buying,” grocery stores have struggled to keep their potatoes and onions on shelves. So why not, perhaps, sell directly to the consumer?

The public had a crazy amount of demand. He had a crazy amount of supply. And just like that, he changed his business model. Instead of just selling to distributors that sell to fast-food joints who cook the french fries to sell at the drive-thru, he’d become a drive-thru himself.

Consumers could drive up and his crew — wearing gloves, of course — would sell them potatoes directly.

He put out a post on Facebook at 4 pm, laying out a deal that put Costco to shame: 50-pound bags of Russet potatoes for $15 each.

“Wednesday exploded,” Duncan says. “We sold a whole truckload of potatoes and most of the inventory I had on hand.”

And people just kept coming.

“Some people are taking it into nursing homes, taking it to their elderly neighbors. Some of it’s going to help out for those school lunches they’re going to be doing,” Duncan says. “We went from almost having to lay most of my crew off, to the next day telling them they have to work overtime.”

— DANIEL WALTERS

HANDLING IT The owner of Iron Goat scrambled to shift his business to an online model during the statewide shutdown

“I

was not expecting it all.”

Greg Brandt’s response to Gov. Jay Inslee’s statewide shutdown last week is one that many local business owners share.

CORONAVIRUS

“I just went into scramble mode when we heard about it,” says Brandt, co-owner of Iron Goat Brewing.

It was scramble mode, but not panic mode. He quickly started to build a delivery website for his brewery.

He was still working on it as we spoke late last week.

“Before I started the brewery, I used to work building shopping websites,” he says.

“It was a little clunky at first, but I was able to implement a website pretty quickly.”

The website is fully operational. Brandt says to-go orders and deliveries are picking up. But it’s still not busy and we’re still in the middle of a global crisis. Brandt estimates total sales have dropped at least 50 percent.

There’s also a mass shortage of aluminum cans right now.

Breweries around the region are running low on 32-ounce crowlers — which have become a popular to-go option. For that reason, Iron Goat has started to fill 22-ounce bottles on demand.

Through all this, though, Brandt remains hopeful.

“I think we’ll get through this,” he says. “We’ll figure it out.

We’re all in the same spot.”

— DEREK HARRISON

THE LONG FLIGHT HOME Peace Corps volunteer Dan Ritz was pulled out of a country that didn’t have the coronavirus to return home to one who did

T

he day before Dan Ritz left Timor-Leste, a tiny island nation north of Australia, he shaved his beard. It was an act of dramatic symbolism.

“It was my Peace Corps beard,” Ritz says. “My not-in-America beard.”

For two months, he’d been living out a dream, teaching English with the Peace Corps on the island.

“I love the country,” Ritz says. “I loved the people. I want to go back.”

That ended last month, when all the Peace Corps volunteers in TimorLeste got their evacuation order.

Blame coronavirus. It wasn’t because of a local outbreak; back then, not a single instance of the virus had been diagnosed in Timor-Leste. But the country was on edge. Ritz says protests broke out opposing the construction of an isolation center to house an Italian man who was suspected of having the virus.

“The police used tear gas to disperse people who were protesting on the street,” Ritz says. “It got really hostile to foreigners.”

That was part of the reason for the evacuation, says Ritz, who stresses that he doesn’t speak for the Peace Corps. The bigger reason, he says, was that the Peace Corps wanted to bring the volunteers home before air traffic stopped.

And so Ritz left his dream job, embarking on a grueling fourday journey home, through eerily vacant airports and sparsely populated planes, from one of the only countries in the region that didn’t have the coronavirus, to an American state that was crawling with it.

And when he got back to Spokane, back to his parent’s house, he started getting a sore throat. Maybe, he thought, it was that he didn’t drink enough water on the plane. Or maybe...

“I’m a little bit sick right now,” Ritz says. “And I’m kind of afraid, because my dad’s about 60 — I’m questioning if I should be in a hotel or something and not at home.”

— DANIEL WALTERS è

GETTING TO KNOW COVID-19 WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Which is it — COVID-19 or coronavirus? Here’s the deal: COVID-19 is the illness associated with the coronavirus (technically known as the SARS-CoV-2).

IT’S NOT ALIVE, BUT IT’S NOT DEAD

While the coronavirus is not “alive,” it is resilient and it can remain infectious just sitting around on various surfaces: four hours on copper, 24 hours on cardboard, up to three days on plastic and stainless steel. New studies are also showing it can also remain in the air for up to three hours, though most of the time it falls to the ground more quickly.

Wiping down purchased items or anything you are bringing into your home with a disinfecting wipe to reduce chances of contact with a left-behind virus is not a bad idea.

SHOW ME THE SIGNS

According to the WHO, symptoms of COVID-19 can appear at any time from one to 14 days after exposure to the virus. During that time, the person may unknowingly be spreading the virus.

When symptoms do develop, they can vary widely.

About 15 percent of patients who test positive will suffer severe health problems, while some people who test positive report no symptoms. Most people who test positive do report fever or respiratory symptoms.

But other less-obvious symptoms are slowly becoming apparent. In one study of 204 patients, half of the patients reported symptoms such as loss of appetite, diarrhea, vomiting or abdominal pain. “Digestive symptoms, such as diarrhea, may among the presenting features of COVID-19, in some cases may arise before respiratory symptoms, and on rare occasions is the only presenting symptom of COVID-19,” according to a study released by the American Journal of Gastroenterology.

Loss of the senses of smell and taste is also emerging as a significant indicator of infection. Loss of smell or taste has been reported by people who have tested positive but otherwise have no other symptoms, according to the American Academy of Otolaryngology. They recommend anyone experiencing those symptoms get tested.

CAN I GET A TEST AND HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE?

Drive-thru testing opened last week at the Spokane County Interstate Fairgrounds. If you are experiencing symptoms of fever and a cough, the Spokane Regional Health District asks that you contact a screener via phone or virtual visit prior to going to the drive-thru test center.

Testing is open from 10 am-8 pm, 7 days a week until further notice, based on resources.

Most tests done in Washington are being sent to the lab at the University of Washington. They have to be physically transported to the lab and put in the queue.

The test itself takes some time to run and that all means that getting results back to doctors and patients has been taking several days.

Despite persistent rumors, there is no test kit that is approved for at-home, DIY testing. Efforts are underway to bring blood tests that just involve a fingerstick that could offer a rapid response, as well as reduce the need for supplies related to the current nasal and/or throat swab testing procedure.

A new test that takes just 45 minutes for results has been approved by the FDA but is not widely available to the public.

WHEW! THE TEST WAS NEGATIVE!

Though false-positive tests are extremely rare (i.e., the test shows you have coronavirus when in fact you do not), false negatives (the test shows you don’t have the virus when in fact you do) are a different issue. Several factors can complicate testing, including the testers’ ability to access the remote part of the throat in “twitchy” test subjects. Variations in the amount of virus present can also be a factor. Some patients are testing positive, then negative, then positive again.

According to the FDA, “A negative result does not rule out COVID-19 and should not be used as the sole basis for treatment or patient management decisions.

A negative result does not exclude the possibility of COVID-19.”

All of which illustrates, yet again, the importance of social distancing.

TREATMENT

There is no FDA-approved treatment as of press time.

There are four treatments under clinical investigation by the World Health Organization as part of a large global trial called SOLIDARITY. One treatment is an antiviral medication called remdesivir; one treatment involves a pair of anti-malaria drugs called chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine; one is a combination of two HIV drugs, and the fourth treatment is a combination of the HIV drugs plus interferon-beta. Remdesivir was used to treat the first patient in the U.S. in Snohomish County and is considered by some to be the best potential therapy.

SOCIAL DISTANCING

In the U.S. today, social distancing means staying at least 6 feet away from other people, and in groups of 10 or less.

In short, “I’m asking you, and you may say I am pleading with you, to stay home unless it is necessary for you to go out,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said last week. “The penalty is you might kill your grandparent.”

If you do need to get outdoors, taking a walk is OK as long you try to maintain at least 6 feet of space around others.

— ANNE McGREGOR

MARCH 26, 2020 INLANDER 21

CORONAVIRUS

HAPPY HOUR’S OVER Local bartenders out of work worry about their futures and the fate of their industry

T

wo weeks ago, Beth McRae’s bar was open and all was, for the most part, pretty normal.

Between doing the bookkeeping and marketing for Berserk, the downtown Spokane bar she co-owns with her husband and two other business partners, McRae was also tending bar part-time at Hunt and Eyvind.

By March 16, McRae wasn’t working at all.

As it sweeps across the U.S., the coronavirus pandemic is simultaneously wreaking havoc on the hospitality industry. While Washington Gov. Jay Inslee mandated that all bars and restaurants close to in-person service for at least two weeks, many in the industry, like McRae, are bracing for a much longer stretch of unemployment.

“When the ban hit, we were actually having a business meeting because we knew it was probably coming since other states had already done it,” McRae recalls.

“About five minutes into the meeting, Inslee announced the closing, and I immediately thought ‘this is a good call for Washington state.’ At the same time, it’s terrifying as a small business owner.”

Adding to the avalanche of bad news is the fact that just days before the governor’s order, McRae had cut her hours at Hunt and Eyvind over concerns she’d be exposed to the coronavirus. McRae has lupus, an autoimmune disease.

“I had talked to Crystal [Bertholic, Eyvind and Hunt’s bar manager] the week before and told her that with a compromised immune system I am going to start taking time off to get out of the public. But that was fine then because my husband was still working,” she says.

McRae is now weighing whether she should apply for disability benefits. She hopes to bring in a little bit of income selling vintage clothing on Ebay.

“I have a feeling this is going to be extended to midApril at the earliest, so it’s a little scary,” she says. “We can’t get unemployment as owners. Fortunately, we have some savings, but still, you never know how long it’s going to last.”

Before a statewide shutdown, the Spokane Arena was scheduled to host the NCAA Tournament March 19-21. through the Spokane Hospitality Workers Emergency Relief Fund organized by local social services worker Ted Munat, with help from Bertholic, who’s Barnard and McRae’s boss at Eyvind and Hunt.

“There is a lot of unknown right now,” Barnard says.

“I’ve been in the industry for so long and I’m very qualified for it, but not qualified to do much else.

— CHEY SCOTT

UNTESTED Cindy Wendle, who ran for Spokane City Council president, was one of many Spokanites who got sick, but couldn’t get tested for coronavirus

I Cabby Barnard (above) works alongside McRae at Hunt and Eyvind in addition to stints at local spots Tiny Tiki and Pacific Pizza. Barnard’s husband, Tyler Aker, is also in the industry.

Barnard went from working 40 hours a week to zero, while Aker is getting between four and five hours a day at Pacific Pizza doing carryout orders.

“So there’s a little bit of income coming in, but nothing close to what we need,” Barnard says. “We don’t have savings.”

In the meantime, she applied for an emergency assistance grant from the United States Bartenders Guild National Charity Foundation, a nonprofit supporting the hospitality industry, but won’t find out if her request was accepted for another month. She also applied for aid

22 INLANDER MARCH 26, 2020

f only a couple hundred votes had gone the other way last November, Cindy Wendle would have been Spokane’s council president, facing the gauntlet of tough decisions as the city combats the coronavirus.

But she still experienced the virus’s impact first hand: For starters, she had to make the long drive to Boise State University to pick up her son last week after the university shut down as a result of the coronavirus.

And then, on the ride home, she started feeling sick.

“I thought it was just allergies.

And then you start running a fever,” Wendle says. She woke up, and she was aching. Her cough kept getting worse.

The responsible thing, she assumed, was to get tested for the coronavirus. So she called up her insurance company. She had all the symptoms, she says.

“They’re like ‘Yeah, ‘We don’t have to test you,” Wendle scoffs. “What!?”

DEREK HARRISON PHOTO

One reason she was told she didn’t qualify for a test, she says, was that she hadn’t been exposed to anyone who had tested positive.

“But if nobody’s getting tested, then nobody knows,” Wendle says. “And then nobody else will get tested, because they don’t know that they’ve been around somebody that’s maybe positive.”

Her son was sick the week before, and he hadn’t been tested either. Instead, she put herself in quarantine and waited.

“I don’t even want to go through a drive-thru,” Wendle says. “I don’t want to get anybody sick by handing off anything.”

By Monday, she says, she was feeling better physically. And while more coronavirus testing kits have arrived in Spokane, Wendle worries that we’re still not testing nearly enough. Because there are consequences to not knowing, as they make drastic decisions that impact businesses, the economy and livelihoods. Her husband is the executive director for the Hutton Settlement, a group home for children that’s funded by rental revenue from local business properties. It’s not just mustache-twirling landlords who suffer when people can’t pay their rent.

“Small business owners and their employees are depending on us,” she wrote on Twitter. “Data is everything. Testing should be #1 priority right now along with getting hospitals medical supplies.”

— DANIEL WALTERS

STAYING CONNECTED One Logan Elementary teacher holds a virtual story time during school closure

I

f there’s one thing Marcus Potts knows his third-graders love, it’s story time. Every day, before school closed down because of COVID-19, Potts would read them a

passage from a fantasy book called Fablehaven.

“The kids were loving it. We were plowing through the book, making good progress, and I thought, ‘Gosh, we’re going to finish this book,’” says Potts, a teacher at Logan Elementary in Spokane.

“I didn’t want to lose that.”

So last week, despite not being able to physically see his students, Potts started recording a passage from the book every day from the comfort of his home. He then uploads the audio file for his students to access. It’s like a virtual story time.

“It’s sort of a connection point for us,” Potts says.

The school closure hasn’t been easy, Potts says. Potts says his third-graders aren’t always as responsive as he’d like. Not all of them have computers at home, and he hasn’t heard from one of his students at all since Gov. Jay Inslee ordered the shutdown.

The virtual story time, he says, is one way to retain a sense of normalcy for those kids. He also held a Zoom video-chat meeting with several students.

“I hadn’t done that before, and neither had they,” he says. “And I was like, ‘I’m gonna try and do it.’

Once everybody who was trying to get in got in, I was able to see these kids’ faces, and they saw other kids’ faces, and it was everything. It was the whole reason you go to a school building every day.”

Potts says everyone’s still feeling out the technology. If he wants to start teaching lessons, there will need to be some kind of structure and accountability virtually. Potts says this experience has made him more empathic for parents. He’s now home with three kids of his own, as his wife still works during the day.

Any time his kids are doing learning activities, he says, it’s been a blessing.

“That’s given us, in a way, a lifeline to managing their behavior and being excited about the day,” he says.

That’s what he’s trying to offer his students, too, however he can.

“It’s super challenging to create a new normal in this time,” Potts says.

— WILSON CRISCIONE

THE VIRUS AND THE DRUGS

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Paul McNutt relied on Narcotics Anonymous meetings to stay sober — but then the coronavirus canceled them

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pokane resident Paul McNutt remembers what it was like to break free from meth.

“I called up my best friend,” McNutt says. “He helped me detox on my mom’s living room floor for a week.”

It was brutal. At first, all the pain that he’d been self-medicating away came back tenfold. But eventually, his mind began to clear. He knew that he needed to figure out a way to maintain that sobriety. But when every cell in your body is crying out for a chemical, avoiding it takes constant, persistent vigilance. That’s where Narcotics Anonymous came in. Three times a week, McNutt would go to meetings with a group of other people.

“I’ve been going to NA for two months now,” McNutt says. Two weeks ago, he officially got his 60-day Narcotics Anonymous key tag.

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CORONAVIRUS “THE VIRUS AND THE DRUGS,” CONTINUED... relapsing almost feel inevitable. And then, most of the Narcotics Anonymous meetings that he’d been relying on had been canceled, due to the coronavirus.

“It was extremely disruptive to lose that whole community,” McNutt says. “I was so completely lost. My parents went over to meet with all the other siblings, so I had the house to myself. I was just walking in circles around the house. I didn’t know what to do.”

But one thing saved him: A Narcotics Anonymous pamphlet with numbers of other people in the group he could call for help. He reached out to one of the guys who chairs the meetings, who led McNutt through the Serenity Prayer — the one about changing the things you can, but accepting the things you can’t.

“I was able to work through it, without a relapse,” McNutt says.

Today, McNutt is happy to report, several Narcotics Anonymous groups are still meeting, though with either a limited number of attendees or by video-chat.

“If things get bad, I got people to catch me,” McNutt says.

— DANIEL WALTERS

UNHAPPY ENDINGS A senior year that should be full of proms and parties and joyful school activities gives way to uncertainty and lost opportunities for these LC twins

I

f all was normal, Sam Morehouse and his twin brother Jack would be motoring toward the finish line of their senior year.

They would have just finished competing together at the state debate competition in Seattle. The saxophoneplaying Sam would be getting ready for an upcoming band festival and knee-deep in rehearsals for his role in Lewis & Clark High School’s spring musical. Jack would be pulling together the spring section of the school yearbook, having ascended to editor this year after working on The Tiger ever since he was a freshman. And both 17-year-olds would be making plans with friends for prom night, graduation and their “senior all-nighter,” and deciding on colleges for the fall.

Instead, they’re at home watching a lot of movies and TV shows, taking walks and engaging in more social media than ever to stay in touch with their friends.

“Facetime has become my best friend. I’m using Snapchat more than I usually do,” Sam says. “Just looking at social media more in general.”

Both boys say that things were pretty normal right up until the state declared schools closed until late April.

Their friends were talking about the “what-ifs” even before they were sent home — What if there’s no prom?

What if there’s no graduation? — but now those questions seem more like truths. Barring a dramatic shift in the trajectory of the virus and a renewed ability to gather in large groups, there won’t be a prom or graduation — at least not in the traditional sense.

“I’ve been wondering if I’m going to start my college career online and at home,” Sam says. “That would be really weird.”

While most of Sam’s activities are on hold, Jack is working with his yearbook team online to pull together the book — minus about 30 spring-focused pages — before a deadline at the end of April that coincides with when (best case scenario) the boys would be able to go back to school.

24 INLANDER MARCH 26, 2020

Twin brothers Jack, left, and Sam Morehouse.

“I heard from the [yearbook] publisher that some schools around the country have just canceled their yearbooks,” Jack says, “but we’ve been working on them for six months already … Generally, the feeling is, we can get this done.”

Both Morehouses recognize the seriousness of what’s happening, but that can’t keep them from sensing what they’re likely missing out on the rest of this school year.

“The prom thing hasn’t been that big a deal. I’ve been to a couple of school dances, it’s not that hot a ticket,” Jack says. “But graduation is probably not going to happen, and that’s weird. I ordered a cap and gown and spent a lot of money on that.”

“It feels like everything was going full-throttle,” Sam says. “And now it’s suddenly stopped.”

— DAN NAILEN

GOING OLD SCHOOL Emily Jones introduced her three daughters to “pen pals” as part of their shift to education at home

E

mily Jones knew when she got word that schools were closing that she needed a plan for her girls.

The 39-year-old mother of three knew that left to their own devices — literally — her daughters would be fighting and maybe forgetting any positive habits they’d picked up in class. They were already disappointed by a canceled Disneyland vacation and school field trips put on hold,

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

not to mention the virus-related stress of the unknown.

“They were all really struggling,” Jones says. “They were bummed.

“What can I do?” Jones thought, considering options for 13-year-old Lucy, 10-year-old Poppy and 8-year-old Evie. “I’m not going to worry that much about them missing school. I need to have something to put in front of them and say, ‘This is what we’re doing.’”

Jones recalled growing up in the pre-social media ’90s and hit on an idea — pen pals. She contacted some college friends who also have kids, and during the first days of no school, her kids put pen to paper.

“The first day, they did not like it. The first three days we were just having to battle behavior stuff,” Jones says. But after a few days of writing letters, “they’re doing it, and I’m seeing them not hate it.”

There were some hiccups, like discovering a lot of friends don’t have envelopes or stamps, so she created email accounts for the kids she can monitor, and lets them write online to some of their own friends, as well as the pen pals she connected them with.

The kids are used to having their parents at home; Jones is a photographer and actress, while her husband Zac Jones has worked in user-interface design from home for a decade. But with a potentially lengthy stretch of social distancing ahead, Jones knew she wanted to quickly get her kids into a new routine using their brains for more than watching TV. That starts with waking up at normal school time and brushing their teeth, an effort that “gets us out of

CORONAVIRUS our natural tendency to be sluggish.” They spend time without devices outside, and have regular sessions writing letters. After a couple days of complaints about being bored, “they actually started talking to each other.”

“I think it’s great for them to learn it’s OK to be bored.”

— DAN NAILEN

BLURRY VIEW

DELAY OF GAMES

Z

In an instant, Spokane Sports Commission’s Eric Sawyer watched sports tourism go from invincible to non-existent

“G

od, where do I begin?” Spokane Sports Commission CEO Eric Sawyer says. “Basically, I’m working in an industry that doesn’t exist anymore right now.”

Sawyer is not a doomsayer. He’s the ceaseless optimist, the twinkle-eyed salesman perpetually selling Spokane on the magic of the world of sports and selling the world of sports on the magic of Spokane.

He’s been damn good at his job, too — recruiting countless sporting events to come to Spokane, and cheering on the cascade of economic prosperity that resulted.

And lately, for him, it seemed like every one of his dreams were coming true, culminating with the vision he’d been pursuing for the last 25 years — a massive sportsplex capable of attracting huge economic events to Spokane.

“I was riding high,” Sawyer says. Then, everything from the Pacific Northwest Qualifier to Bloomsday to March Madness was canceled.

“March is probably the biggest month that we have for sports in our community and you can just basically kind of wipe out the whole month,” Sawyer says. “In economic development numbers, that’s over $20 million of economic influence that we just lost.”

During the recession, sports tourism actually grew.

But this time it’s different. Right now, there is no sports tourism industry. Sawyer is struggling to figure out ways to make sure there’s still a sports commission.

“We’re just looking at ways to cut our budget so we can stay afloat as an organization,” Sawyer says. “It’s somber, you know, there’s no question, we all worked really, really hard to get these things to come into the community. And you basically have to say, ‘We can’t do them.’”

So lately, in the isolated quiet that has descended upon so many of us, Sawyer has time to read.

He’s pouring through all those articles about sports tourism that he’s saved over the years, reading information on the industry.

But the cruel Twilight Zone twist is that, in this moment, all that research and all those expert opinions are obsolete, an artifact of a past where people were allowed to attend big sporting events.

At least, for now.

Someday soon, Sawyer hopes, he “can turn loose the racehorses again” and start competing for the big sporting events that can resurrect Spokane’s economy.

— DANIEL WALTERS

Instead of heading into his busiest season, Spokane wedding photographer Zach Nichols is heading into uncertainty ach Nichols figures he makes the vast majority of his annual income between May and September, when his clients take advantage of the natural beauty of the Inland Northwest as a backdrop of the most exciting day of their lives.

Even now, weeks before wedding season typically takes off, the 28-year-old Spokane photographer would normally be slammed with shoots for engagement photos, working with couples from near and far documenting their happy coupledom as they lock down details with wedding venues, caterers and dress shops.

“Typically this is prime time for engagement photos, before wedding season really kicks in, because people want to do them on weekends and I’m usually booked on weekends with weddings [later on],” Nichols says.

“I’ve had to cancel a lot.”

While Nichols considers himself lucky that he has a couple of small, elopement-style weddings in April that are still on the books, there’s a lot of uncertainty when he reaches out to couples who hired him for their summer nuptials. With efforts to flatten the coronavirus curve limiting large gatherings, and no way of knowing when those limits might be lifted, looking ahead even just into May is impossible. “I’ve been talking to people about, ‘I’m human, you’re human. All of us can get sick,’” Nichols says. If something happens and the bride or groom or other parts of the wedding party have the virus, he asks, what’s the plan?

So far, most of his wedding jobs for this summer are taking a wait-and-see approach. And even though Nichols doesn’t consider himself someone who gets too stressed, he acknowledges that losing too many of his typical 25-30 summer wedding jobs, each paying between $2,000 and $4,000, would be a hit for him, his wife and his 19-month-old.

“As a wedding photographer, you take one away, it’s a big percentage of your income,” Nichols says.

The silver lining? Nichols has some savings to try to weather the immediate future, and a career he believes will always be in demand.

“Weddings are never really going to go away,” Nichols says. “If weddings are canceled, next year will be even more crazy.”

— DAN NAILEN

THE END OF THE BEDSIDE CONCERT One more consequence of the coronavirus: No more songs for kids in the local Children’s Hospital

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ekah Lindsey takes requests.

Sometimes, the local realtor will sing songs

from Frozen II or “You’re Welcome” from Moana. Other times, she’ll sing the Beatles or Justin Timberlake. At the request of one teenager, she performed Nirvana.

But generally, as long as the lyrics aren’t inappropriate, she’ll sing whatever patients in the Sacred Heart’s Children’s Hospital want her to sing.

Every Tuesday, Lindsey joins two other musicians with the Songs for Kids Foundation to perform for patients in the oncology department, the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and other places in the hospital. And she believes those experiences her group delivers, little moments of joy amid the suffering, really do make a difference for both patients and their parents.

“We’ve had people say, ‘Oh my gosh, they haven’t smiled in two weeks, thank you so much!’” Lindsey says. “It’s healing for us as well.”

But thanks to the coronavirus, those children’s concerts have ended too. They’ve worn masks during flu season and done hallway concerts for patients who didn’t have a good immune system. But because the coronavirus was so easy to spread, they couldn’t justify continuing.

It was the right move, she says, but also represented a deep loss.

“I miss seeing their faces, having them singing with us, and just lightening their day,” Lindsey says. “We didn’t really say goodbye. We’ll be back, but I don’t know when.”

It’s already scary for kids to be in the hospital. She says she can’t imagine how scary it is to be in the hospital during a pandemic.

But maybe, she says, there’s a way to continue performing.

“It’d be cool if somehow we — I didn’t think of it until right now — if we could do little remote concerts,” Lindsey says.

In fact, just a few hours later, Lindsey sends the Inlander a text with the very tentative possibility of good news: “I just learned that Songs for Kids is looking into setting up virtual visits for the kiddos using Zoom.”

— DANIEL WALTERS

TO SPIN OR NOT TO SPIN The owner of Resurrection Records talks about the challenges of closing a storefront amidst a pandemic

I

t was only a couple weeks ago that Resurrection Records, the small vinyl shop on Northwest Boulevard, was packed all weekend, both with local customers and out-of-towners who were here for Tool’s nearly sold-out Arena show.

Now the city’s musical landscape looks totally different.

Music venues have closed and concerts have been canceled, and it’s possible that brick-andmortar music stores could be next. Resurrection owner Mike House had planned on business continuing as usual, but now he’s wondering if he should close the doors completely. è

MARCH 26, 2020 INLANDER 25

CORONAVIRUS “TO SPIN OR NOT TO SPIN,” CONTINUED...

(On Monday, when Gov. Jay Inslee announced a stay-athome order, that debate became moot.)

“I’m kind of reconsidering what I should do,” he says.

“I’ve been really careful about sanitizing every surface after someone leaves. I sanitize the whole counter and the pens I touch and the phone people use to sign for their credit card transactions.”

But sorting through records is a distinctly tactile experience, and touching a lot of surfaces is something that we’ve all been encouraged to avoid lately. House says he’s been reaching out to other record store owners — in Spokane and in his native California — about their plans.

Some are limiting hours, as well as the number of people allowed into the store at a time. One of his vinyl distributors has closed temporarily, which means he can’t stock certain titles for the time being.

Business has slowed a bit, House says, but a lot of his regular customers are still making their weekly stops into the store.

“Now it’s OK, but when people start running out of money — that’s when it’s gonna be weird,” he says.

He can pivot to online-only sales if he has to: It’s something he’s been doing for almost 11 years under the Resurrection label.

“I’ll deliver stuff to people for a small charge, depending where they live,” House says. “I’m happy to meet up with people and sell them records.”

— NATHAN WEINBENDER

MEALS ON WHEELS As more seniors isolate, volunteers ensure they continue getting hot meals to their door

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n a sunny Friday morning, March 20, retirees Keri and Dan Barham arrive at the Greater Spokane Meals on Wheels office in Spokane Valley to hear the latest instructions on how to safely deliver meals to seniors in need.

Usually, they and other volunteers gather inside for some social time and coffee before a van arrives with hot meals for their route. Today, everyone stands outside in the parking lot, socializing in small groups of two or three in the fresh air.

If requested, the volunteers will drop off meals at the door, step back and wait for the senior to come pick it up.

An essential part of their service is making sure people are OK. If no one answers, someone will call the senior or their emergency contact.

The Barhams have been volunteering with both the Greater Spokane location, which serves much of the county, and the downtown Spokane Meals on Wheels program, for the last two years or so.

“When I retired I wanted to find some way to give back,” Keri says. So two to three times a week, Dan drives, and Keri walks the hot meals up to seniors’ front doors.

Meals are delivered hot, Monday through Friday, with frozen meals dropped to some people on Fridays so they can be warmed up over the weekend.

“It’s nice to meet some of the older people that you may be the only person they see all day,” Keri says. She usually makes sure to chat for a minute at the door with those who want it.

“But every stop is pretty brief now,” she says.

She and her husband still plan to volunteer for the time being, but they’re also somewhat nervous about

26 INLANDER MARCH 26, 2020

Keri Barham volunteers to delivers meals to seniors with Meals on Wheels. going out too much with increasing concerns about coronavirus spread.

Before this, Greater Spokane Meals on Wheels was serving 1,000 hot meals each day between home delivery and congregate meal sites, which are now temporarily closed, says CEO Jeff Edwards. That number could actually go up as more seniors stay home and sign up.

“We view our services as essential so we cannot shut down,” Edwards says.

— SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

NO MORE WORDS Mead High School’s Jordan Mattox won the state’s Poetry Out Loud competition, but COVID-19 stole her chance at the national championship

I

t started as just another assignment as a freshman: Mead High School English classes require students to take part in the national poetry-recitation competition known as Poetry Out Loud.

Competing came naturally. After all, Jordan Mattox lettered in varsity soccer, track and basketball before she was even done with her first year.

And she’d always liked poetry.

“One of my favorite authors is J.R.R. Tolkien, and he has a lot of poetry in his writing. I like Shakespeare, too,” Mattox says.

“Once you find a poem that resonates with you, it sticks with you.”

As a freshman, Mattox won her class Poetry Out Loud competition and continued to perform poetry until this year when, as a junior, she won the Eastern Washington regional in Spokane. On March 4, her family drove to Tacoma’s Museum of Glass — “before the whole lockdown situation” — and she ended up winning the statewide Poetry Out Loud competition.

Her reward should be a trip to Washington, D.C., in late April to compete for the Poetry Out Loud national title. Instead, she’s holed up like the state’s other students, trying to stay busy alongside her older brother — home early from his sophomore year at WSU — and two younger siblings.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

“I’m really disappointed, but I know it’s a safety thing,” Mattox says.

She’s still training in case somehow the high school track season happens in some form, but mostly she’s at home, doing a lot of reading. “It’s been really weird,” she says. “Usually I’d go out and meet with a few friends to study together.” Her parents, though, are adamant about social distancing, since “they know that’s all we can do.”

Perhaps Mattox’s favorite poem — “It Couldn’t Be Done” by Edgar Albert Guest, which she recites in her competitions — can serve as inspiration right now. It reads, in part: “There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done, There are thousands to prophesy failure, There are thousands to point out to you one by one, The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin, Just take off your coat and go to it; Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing That ‘cannot be done’ and you’ll do it.”

— DAN NAILEN

SUDDEN CRISIS A construction worker and father moved into a new apartment. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic left him without work and broke

M

oving into a new apartment can feel like a big deal, especially when you’re doing it for the first time. That’s how it was for 32-year-old JP Purnell, a Spokane Valley-based construction worker and father of a 6-year-old boy. He moved into a new apartment on March 15 after spending a few months at a friend’s place following a break-up.

“I was super excited. Everything was going really well,” he says. “This is the first time that I’ve had my own place.”

But over the course of that weekend, Washington state was quickly going on a statewide lockdown to slow the spread of COVID-19. On March 13, Gov. Jay Inslee ordered schools statewide to be closed. Then, on Sunday night, all bars and restaurants were largely shuttered.

Purnell’s employer, a friend of his who runs a small residential construction outfit, told him that weekend that local demand for construction jobs had dried up. There wasn’t any more work.

Suddenly, the $600 a week that Purnell was bringing in from the construction job was gone. And with his son now at home all day because schools are closed and bills piling up, he doesn’t know how he’s going to make ends meet.

“I’m super stressed about how I’m going to pay the bills and everything and I can’t buy any food either,” Purnell says. “I saved up to get a place and then that took all the money moving into it and now I’m kind of struggling.”

He’s on food stamps, but the money won’t get refilled until early April. And a message to his landlord about his situation has gone unanswered.

“My account is overdrawn and all that stuff right now,” Purnell says. “I’m really concerned because I have nowhere else to go.”

So far, he’s relied on food banks and donors responding to posts in local Facebook groups to get food. But he doesn’t want to rely on the generosity of others in the long term.

“I don’t like relying on anyone else, it makes me feel bad, makes me feel bad as a parent,” Purnell says. “But I don’t know what else to do right now.”

— JOSH KELETY

JAIL DEATH TRAP One Spokane mother worries that the jail holding her son will kill him

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or 69-year-old Spokane resident Carole Dillon, living through COVID-19 isn’t just a question of keeping herself safe. She has to worry about the well-being of her son, an inmate at Kootenai County Jail in Coeur d’Alene.

Her 40-year-old son, Gabriel Dillon, was booked last October for failing to report to work release — a violation of his probation stemming from several misdemeanor convictions, including theft and resisting an officer.

He’s struggled with homelessness, opioid addiction and traumatic stress disorder. And now he’s being housed in a unit with three other inmates in the middle of a global pandemic, Carole says.

She’s concerned jail staff aren’t taking enough steps to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the facility, which typically houses between 300 and 400 inmates on any given day.

“You know that it’s just a matter of time before all those people are going to be infected,” Carole says. “They need to be releasing people that are low-level offenders so that they don’t die in prison just because they committed a misdemeanor.”

As of last Thursday, the Kootenai County Jail was screening inmates at booking for COVID-19 symptoms and then giving those who are symptomatic a mask and quarantining them, according to Chris Wagar, a jail sergeant and spokesman at the jail. People who show symptoms will be quarantined in one of four negative airflow cells that can house two inmates each, he says.

But Carole says the measures aren’t sufficient, since people can be infected with COVID-19 and not show symptoms and theoretically get missed during the screen-

ing at booking. She called jail staff to get answers, but wasn’t satisfied with their protocols, citing the fact that the incubation period for COVID-19 is thought to last as long as 14 days in some cases.

“They say they’ve got a plan, but this plan is crap.

It’s no plan at all,” she says.

Carole also wants the jail to start releasing low-level offenders to clear space, similar to what the Spokane County Jail is doing.

“These guys in these jails, if they’re not violent they should be released,” she says. “And they’re just sitting ducks right now.”

“If he was in Spokane, he wouldn’t be in jail,” she adds. “It’s pretty draconian.”

— JOSH KELETY

NO COOKIES FOR YOU With Inland Northwest Girl Scouts unable to deliver cookies, their biggest source of revenue sits in warehouses

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irl Scout cookies come to the Pacific Northwest pretty late compared to the rest of the country.

Right around the end of February and beginning of March, after many of the other 110 nationwide councils have finished their sales, the Girl Scouts of Eastern Washington and North Idaho start knocking on doors, hitting up their parents’ co-workers, and setting up booths in front of grocery stores to sell boxes of cookies.

It’s something that the organization touts as building entrepreneurship in girls, and it’s also the main funding mechanism for activities.

In fact, for the Council of Eastern Washington and North Idaho, which covers all of Washington east of the Cascades and Idaho north of Moscow, cookie sales bring in 70 percent of annual revenues, says council CEO Brian Newberry.

But this year, just as girls were ready to start getting the boxes customers had preordered, and the extras ordered to sell in front of stores, the coronavirus started spreading.

Newberry was forced to make a tough call: Cookies have to be put on hold.

That means about 600,000 boxes of cookies are sitting in warehouses in Spokane and the Tri-Cities, waiting for when distribution seems healthy and feasible. Until then, revenue collected upon cookie delivery won’t be available for the various summer camps, day camps, and STEM programming the council puts on, not to mention activities the cookies fund for individual troops.

“I wasn’t here in 1933 when our council opened, but it’s not a far leap to say depending on how things turn out — we don’t know, the last chapter of this story hasn’t been written — but today, March 19th, is one of the most dire challenges our council has faced,” Newberry says.

“We’re really in a bind right now.”

Last year, the Inland Northwest council was number three out of the 111 total councils in the country in their ability to deliver cookies, Newberry says.

“We’ve just never had a torpedo at our revenue stream like this in so dramatic a fashion,” he says. “Our girls are counting on this.”

But he points to the strength demonstrated by Girl

Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low, who once said, “The work of today is the history of tomorrow, and we are its makers.”

“Juliette Gordon Low was a tough lady,” Newberry says. “We’re just hoping we can weather this, and again, Girl Scouts can have sunshine tomorrow.”

— SAMANTHA WOHLFEIL

TICKING TIME BOMB In the already overcrowded Spokane County Jail, correctional officers are bracing for COVID-19 to strike

L

ast week, officials met with inmates in the Spokane County Jail to discuss protocols in the event of the worst-case scenario: a COVID-19 outbreak within the already overcrowded facility. Inmates could be locked down in their cells for an extended period of time, officials said.

In response, inmates asked if cleaning supplies could be more readily available on the floors, says Tyler Olson, a 37-year-old correctional officer who has worked at the jail for 15 years.

“The prevailing concern to them was, ‘Can we clean more? Can we be more proactive?’” he says.

It was indicative of the tense atmosphere within the facility, where both inmates and staff are on edge due to the pandemic roiling the outside world.

“Everyone is super aware of what they’re exposing themselves to. Everyone wants to be as safe as they can be, given the job that we have to do. That goes for staff and inmates,” Olson says.

While the facility has adopted some measures to prevent an outbreak, such as screening new inmates and staff entering the jail for symptoms, the threat isn’t assuaged. There’s a limited supply of protective equipment and cells where symptomatic inmates can be quarantined, and both staff and inmates regularly cycle in and out of the facility.

Besides, correctional facilities, by design, force people to be in close quarters.

“The practice of social distancing is almost impossible to do because obviously we have to search everyone who comes into jail, so the staff is literally touching everyone who comes in here,” Olson says. “We let 46 inmates out at a time and they’re not in a big enough area where you can have a six foot [distance]. That’s just kind of the nature of the beast.”

He sees reports of COVID-19 cases in other detention facilities across the country and fears that it’s only a matter of time before Spokane County has to grapple with a similar scenario.

“The chances of COVID-19 coming into this building are pretty good, just because of the traffic that we have,” he adds. “Our officers are putting ourselves at risk of contracting a virus just by doing an intake on a person.”

Correctional officers are afraid to come to work.

Some joke about riding out the pandemic at home by using accumulated sick time, Olson says. But it’s never serious. There’s an “all hands on deck” mentality.

“When the going gets rough, we keep going,” he says.

“We’re doing the best we can with what we have available to us.”

— JOSH KELETY

MARCH 26, 2020 INLANDER 27

CORONAVIRUS

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

CAULDRON OF WORRIES A

couple of nights ago I opened a book and began reading aloud to my kids. My 10-year-old son interrupted me by resting a hand on my forearm.

“Mom,” he said, “I’m scared.”

I asked him what he was scared of, but I knew even before he answered: Coronavirus.

I closed the book, rested it on my stomach. H— settled his head on my shoulder. “I’m not worried about getting it,” he said. “I’m worried about you getting it.”

H— knows I’m on immunosuppressants for multiple sclerosis, powerful drugs that stave off disease progression but also make me more vulnerable to illness. Even before the pandemic, our household was big on handwashing and coughing into our elbows. But I’ve also been guilty of minimizing the issue, not wanting to worry my children with it. I allowed them to go to school the last day it was open; I went to work at Wishing Tree Books despite my husband’s desperate pleas for me to stay home. I didn’t want to admit — especially to myself — that I’m in a high-risk category. To do so felt selfish, melodramatic. It wasn’t until I was there at work, nau-

28 INLANDER MARCH 26, 2020

seous with fear over every transaction, that I realized how reckless I was being, that ignoring my vulnerability was, in fact, a selfish act.

I kissed H—’s forehead and told him, “I’ll probably be okay. But this is why the quarantine is important, even though it’s hard. We’re trying not to overwhelm the hospitals. That way, if I need help, or if anyone we love needs help, they can get it quickly and efficiently.”

The immunosuppressant I’m on, Ocrevus, lists upper and lower respiratory infections as two of its most common side effects. I have infusions every six months.

My last one was on March 1. I fought to get the infusion scheduled. After an insurance change and a neurologist removed from practice, it was an ordeal. Those of us with chronic illnesses are accustomed to the boring ritual of phone calls, of being placed on hold, of being told we’ve done something in the wrong order, of being told to call one place only to be told to call the other place back again. As a writer who loves absurdism, I can’t help but feel mildly amused by this Sisyphean task of managing one’s care. What a triumph it was when — finally — I

On being an immunocompromised mom during a pandemic

BY SHARMA SHIELDS received my infusion at the cancer clinic. Over the last year infusions have greatly reduced my MS symptoms, especially the fatigue, which for me has been the most onerous of symptoms.

But then a week ago I read on MS Trust that people on disease modifying treatments (DMTs) such as Lemtrada and Ocrevus should consider delaying their next infusion; the risk of pneumonia is too great.

The National MS Society argues against this, noting the increased potential for infections but urging everyone to discuss with their physician any changes to their DMTs. They were careful to remind us that if you stop a DMT, disease progression continues. A lot of times, disease progression continues, anyway, DMT or no. I’m nagged by the thought that what might help me might also end up killing me.

It’s naïve to say that I’m not afraid of death, but for a long time now I’ve held a private belief that with death comes a profound peace, and I like to think I will face my end bravely. But when I think of my children, I grow panicky. I agonize over the thought of their distress, their

sorrow, their pain, anguish I won’t be able to kiss away or offer to carry for them.

They are amazing children, so sensitive and bright and kind and funny. They are completely different from one another and completely extraordinary. I continue to learn about who they are every day, these intricate, wondrous beings. I worry that there is so much love I haven’t yet given them, even though I spend most of my day pouring it into them until they roll their eyes and laugh and say, “Yeah, Mom, we know you love us, you tell us all the time.” Their teasing me about this calms me, reminds me that even as flawed of a mom as I am, they believe in my unconditional love for them.

That night with my son, I told him, “I’m scared, too. And I’m so good at worrying. I’m an expert at it! Why don’t you give me your worry tonight and I’ll stir it around with my own worries and you can relax a little?”

me yet, but I’m weary.

After tending to the children, giving them breakfast, feeling relieved to see my daughter up and eating, I allow them to watch TV and relax. Then I find my husband, who always offers to carry my worries for me, and I talk to him and cry.

I’m scared. I’m overreacting. I’m in love with my family. I’m bewildered. I want to help the whole world heal, not just from this but from everything, all of the harm we cause one another, because look, too, at all of this wild, out-of-control, miraculous love. What if L— worsens, needs to be hospitalized? What if both of us, my husband and I, are hospitalized, too? What if both of us die? What then?

My husband has had pneumonia three times. I worry he’ll get it again. I worry and worry and worry.

My husband listens closely and gently reminds me not to get too ahead of myself. He assures me we’ll get through this.

When my fears reach their zenith, he tells me that no matter what, the kids will be okay, because they are amazing, they are loved, and they will need to be resilient because, at some point, resilience is a part of growing up. Like with anything, we handle what comes because we are given no choice but to handle it. I know this as well as anyone. It occurs to me that I’ve never been comfortable with the letting go.

My husband plans a trip to the store to get a thermometer. We have no choice but to wait and see. We stir our worries together because these worries mean we care. What an amazing thing it is to be alive, to be in love, to be a mother, to be so fragile in these temporary bodies.

Those of us who are immunocompromised are already acquainted with the panic and mystery of our mortal bodies.

This is familiar territory for me in many ways, but the fear is sharper today, more vivid. And so, too, is the love.

I’m marveling at all that we are, our entity as opposed to our identity, our heightened awareness of all that matters to us.

I take a deep breath.

I hope I can keep taking them.

Into this cauldron of worries I pour my whole heart. n

What an amazing thing it is to be alive, to be in love, to be a mother, to be so fragile in these temporary bodies.

My son smiled, snuggling into me. I watched his shoulders visibly release. He handed his worry to me and I gobbled it up. My 7-year-old daughter, sensing the uplift in the mood, ran and grabbed a funnier book for us to read, and then we cuddled up in my bed, howling with laughter over Junie B. Jones. The kids scooted off to their rooms and they fell sleep easily.

I stayed up too late, stirring our worries together. I thought about things too long and too hard. For those of us who like to establish control, who like to know what to expect, nights are particularly grueling right now.

This morning at 4 am, my daughter came into my room. “I miss you,” she told me, as she often tells me when she’s worried or sad. I groggily stumbled with her back to her own room. It felt like a gift to lie down next to her in her twin bed, to be close and still. But a few minutes later she sat upright, gasping, and said she needed to vomit. We went to the bathroom. I stayed with her for an hour while she was sick, my hand on her trembling back. At her request, I read Greek myths to her to pass the time. Finally we made it back to her bedroom. Her head and body were hot. I turned the house upside down looking for a thermometer and failing. I wondered where she would have picked up a stomach bug. She’d had mild diarrhea earlier in the day. That’s not coronavirus, right? But when I checked the internet, it said, yes, 49 percent of people with the virus begin with GI symptoms.

Now, several hours later, I have the GI symptoms, too. There is no fever for

Sharma Shields is the author of a short story collection, Favorite Monster, and two novels, The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac and The Cassandra. Sharma runs a small press, Scablands Books, and is a contributing editor for Moss.

A current employee of Wishing Tree Books in Spokane, Sharma has worked in independent bookstores and public libraries throughout Washington State.

She lives with her husband (writer and graphic novelist Simeon Mills) and their two children.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

PLAGUE DIARY A glimpse into new possibilities

BY ELLEN WELCKER

O

n day one we tried to learn the choreography to Lil’ Nas X’s “Old Town Road.”

Day two: My fourth grader did all of the math worksheets her teacher had prepared to last the next six weeks of school closure, while my first grader asked approximately one million times if he had coronavirus yet. Day three: We made cookies and promptly ate every single one. On day four we were a half an hour late to our only obligation — Skype piano lessons — which were coincidentally a half an hour long. Yes, I know everyone else is using Zoom.

I am an optimist, an overachiever, “not detail-oriented” (according to my spouse), and have long believed in the immunity-boosting social power of germs. Needless to say, I am having a come-to-Vesuvius moment with myself, as I suspect many of us are.

This is hard! I want to absorb my children suddenly home all day and keep their brains, hearts, and stomachs full while coming up with creative new approaches to my job and looking out for friends and neighbors and donating to artists, musicians, organizations and businesses that are the bedrock of our community, being available for my students, and being kind to my mom, a competent, healthy 72-year-old who now finds herself under lock and key with me, her very own private slightlygrumpy social-distance police.

I am looking at my notes from this week and they say things like “9:15 am: morning meeting” and “10 am: huge fit” and “noon: even more basketball” and I feel like hugging everyone with a 10-foot pole.

I am thinking of my friends with cancer. I am thinking of loved ones with other health complications. I am thinking of those who live alone, or who are in the midst of moving, trying to graduate high school, switching jobs, getting divorced. I am thinking of musicians and artists and restaurant workers who without warning do not know where their next paycheck will come from. I am thinking of the people who had to lay them off. I am thinking of the organizers and commu-

nity builders who have faced challenge upon challenge and now this. I am thinking of the homeless.

People in detention centers and prisons. The food insecure. Those who work to serve them. Those who work to serve us all — health care workers and bus drivers and grocery store clerks. How can we take care of them? Of each other? Of ourselves?

I hope we get through this. I hope we are never the same again.

There is an opportunity here, though I am not trying to be overly optimistic and indeed I don’t feel that optimistic. People are going to die. People have already lost and will continue to lose their jobs, their livelihoods, their homes. This affects us all.

This is the unfortunate genius of a virus that knows no borders. As a writer obsessed with boundaries real and imagined, I can’t help but think about the amount of time our president has spent on his stupid xenophobic border wall (among other things). How often have we said “no one is immune” and meant it the way we mean it now? I am filled with awe by the magnitude, speed and scope of affliction that a tiny virus can wreak.

Yet, if we step outside of the catastrophic effects of all of this unfolding, the tumult in our daily lives — there remains an opportunity to live our lives in ways that just a week ago seemed unimaginable. Driving less. Slowing down. Sharing resources. Caring for our elders. Health care for everyone.

Safety nets for all. Real collaboration to slow the climate crisis of which this is a part. The list goes on. We are seeing the first glimpses of this possible new world today. n Ellen Welcker is the author of Ram Hands (Scablands Books) and The Botanical Garden (Astrophil Press) and several chapbooks.

She lives in Spokane and online at ellenwelcker.com.

MARCH 26, 2020 INLANDER 29

CORONAVIRUS IN THEIR OWN WORDS

THE LANGUAGE OF PANDEMIC I do not want to forget this language

BY CMARIE FUHRMAN

I

have tried to become fluent in the language of the Nez Perce, NimipuutÌmt. It is not the language of my ancestors, the Southern Ute, but it is the language of the landscape I find myself in, the deep gorges and rolling hills of West Central Idaho, the Snake and Salmon river breaks.

I wanted to learn Nez Perce for a myriad of reasons, but most important to me was to learn the names of flora and fauna, that I might greet them by those names, hoping that by doing so, I might help to repair something that was broken when English was forced upon them, upon us.

But without practice and daily classes, the year I took for Nez Perce language, is leaving me. I remember only

salutations, the word for “relative,” one prayer. I recite the greetings as I walk the traditional landscape of the Nez Perce, the Nimiipuu. Hello Relative, I say to the fir tree. Good Morning, Relative, to the trillium. Good Evening, Relative, to the robin, the mule deer, the sun. Having lost the memory of their individual names, calling them relative seems a good, if not better, choice. They are, after all, relations, and a greeting of any kind is an acknowledgment. An acknowledgment of shared aliveness, of spirit, of appreciation, and, of course, our shared brokenness. Relative in its

simplest is defined as something connected, relevant or dependent on something else.

Now I find myself in a new landscape. We all do.

That of the coronavirus. And it also begs learning and relearning of a language. What before we may have said with a hug, a handshake, a fist bump, or a buss on the cheek, we are now forced to say with words and/or facial expression, alone.

My sister, a respiratory therapist in Denver, Colorado sent me a message last night that summed up her frustration: It is the hardest conversation I’ve had to have [with my patients]... And worse they hear it from a pair of desperately concerned eyes through a plastic shield of someone trying to show empathy behind layers of protective measures. These patients have

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

WADING INTO THE PANDEMIC

Constantly overreacting or underreacting

BY JOSEPH EDWIN HAEGER

1.

Sometime in February I heard about the coronavirus in the same way that I would hear about some far-off event in another country. Articles circulated online and it seemed newsworthy, but not necessarily a concern of mine.

2.

A week or so later, I read about the five coronavirus patients who were being flown in for treatment at Sacred Heart. They’re professionals, I thought. This is something Spokane is equipped to handle and is prepared for. My friend and I laughed at the panic-induced texts he got from his dad.

3.

I got a whiff that AWP (a national convention for writers and publishers) might be canceled. This year’s host city, San Antonio, saw a small outbreak and no one knew the extent of the danger. In the end AWP was a go, but a ton of writers, publishers, and presses decided to not make the trip. I saw the photos of an empty book fair and got notifications of canceled panels. My own publisher decided to sit this one out and I learned they were going to lose 20 percent of their yearly revenue

30 INLANDER MARCH 26, 2020

because of this decision. They weren’t the only ones. The #AWPVirtualBookFair ran its course on Twitter and we saw what was about to come without even knowing it.

4.

Seattle broke out.

I began reading about the growing rate of infections and deaths. Even though we’re on the opposite side of the state, I couldn’t help feeling the same innate fear and panic all Washingtonians felt with this news.

5.

Co-workers began making the active choice to quarantine from home.

One morning, I saw the libraries were shutting down that weekend. I paced my office, yammering to anyone who’d listen about how the schools were next. They had to be. It only made sense. My prediction was they would push it to spring break and then call it for the year. Get to a good stopping point and then, well, stop.

6.

Christian, a bearded friend of mine, told me he was going to have to shave. He’s had a lumberjack beard for 10-plus years.

“Why?” I didn’t think it had anything to do with COVID-19.

Maybe he was bored. About once a year I shave my

face out of boredom. (Of course when I do, I look like a naked mole-rat. I’ve since learned to leave a mustache.)

“If you have to wear a ventilator mask. For respiratory issues with the coronavirus.”

Oh.

7.

That afternoon the schools announced Monday would be their final day until the end of April. I began pacing the office yammering on to anyone who’d listen about how the post offices were next. The only thing missing was my THE END IS NIGH sign.

8.

That night, I shaved.

Christian sent me an infographic with the appropriate facial hair for this crisis. Basically: no hair on your chin. I decided on the Zappa. Marc Maron has it and I’ve been told I look like a younger, slightly less attractive Marc Maron. I busted out my clippers and took off the beard. The mustache looked good, but… the soul patch. It looked like a juniper bush.

“Maureen? I have a quick, gut-reaction question for you.”

My wife walked to the doorway and, without stopping, simply said, “Take it off.”

So now I’m a guy with a thick, ironic-looking

to deal with [coronavirus] alone in their isolation rooms with no loved ones and friends to hold their hands … then there’s the overwhelming feeling of fear and guilt as you try to reach out to hold the hand of your scared, crying patient, but pull back instead because in your head you think “maintain your precautions and boundaries...” I will be forever changed by my interactions with the sick and scared over the last several days. I will never be comfortable being this uncomfortable.

Those in the health care field see every patient as a life they are obliged to save. Most, like my sister, do it with a level of care and empathy that is unconditional, as if each patient were a beloved relative.

The day after our town began to react to the news of the virus, I was at the grocery store buying, like everyone else, that which I thought I might need. The faces of my community members were grim, dull, anxious. News is that people from out of town bought us out of supplies, snowmobilers were driving their sleds on closed ski hills, and a coronavirus Facebook page, set up to help people in our county, was filling with brutal, threatening, and racist comments. I just wanted to be helpful, to reach out, the administrator of the page wrote. People disconnected, left the group, lost valuable information and fellowship. Fear often makes us react in unusual ways, the harshest and most unnecessary of these is cruelty. It translates in any language as unkindness. Something we need less of these days.

* * * One of my favorite poets, Robert Bringhurst writes, “If language is lost, humanity is lost.” I am working hard on the language of the coronavirus.

Practicing longer looks, embracing with my eyes.

Offering warm smiles. Forgiveness. I do not want to forget this language. One thing we cannot afford to lose in this challenging new landscape is our humanity.

Yesterday we hiked the Salmon River Breaks near Lucille. Two Golden Eagles kept watch over us from a sky uncut with contrails. Good Morning, my relatives. A dozen mule deer stood on a ridgeline lit and warmed by afternoon sun. Good Afternoon, my relatives. And from somewhere in the distance, a canyon wren called. I dug into memory and found the Nez Perce prayer, and from a mountain overlooking Slate Creek, I recited it. For all my relatives. n

mustache and I’ve been too embarrassed to tell people the reason is because I’m afraid of COVID-19 — but I’m almost more afraid of revealing my naked mole rat face.

little scared.

There have been times in this last week when I snapped at him and he snapped right back. I’m ashamed that I see the fear turning into frustration moments too late.

I want to be a comforting force for him, but I don’t know what to say. The inevitable unknown renders it impossible for me to tell him everything is going to be okay.

9.

On Monday, I walked into the office.

“Whoa, sweet ’stache,” Someone said.

“Thank you, just needed a change of pace!”

During our daily morning meeting we were told a mandatory work-from-home arrangement was starting that day. We had to pack up everything we needed and head home for the foreseeable future.

10.

I began pacing the office yammering on to anyone who’d listen about how the post offices were next.

My parents were coming back from Belize mid-week.

I started seeing reports that all flights would be grounded. I called to warn them, thinking to myself that they needed to get on a flight that night instead of waiting the two days as planned.

“Are you saying we need to get an earlier flight?” My mom asked.

When faced with this question directly, I felt like I had overreacted. The two articles I read were speculation. I imagined myself pacing the office, scratching at the back of my head while shouting about how the post offices were next.

“I don’t know,” I told her.

11.

CMarie Fuhrman is the author of Camped Beneath the Dam: Poems (Floodgate 2020) and coeditor of Native Voices (Tupelo 2019). She is the 2019 recipient of the Grace Paley Fellowship, a 2019 graduate of the University of Idaho’s MFA program, a regular columnist for the Inlander, and an editorial team member for Broadsided Press and Non Fiction editor for High Desert Journal. CMarie resides in the mountains of West Central Idaho. Visit her website cmariefuhrman.com.

That night my 6-year-old Abe came up to me and asked if I was scared.

“A little,” I told him. “Are you?”

He sighed. “A little.”

I didn’t want to tell him I was more than a

I saw someone online sum up the feeling: “I’m either constantly overreacting or underreacting.”

There isn’t an appropriate response to all this.

And knowing I’m not alone is a step toward something. This is a moment I can sit with Abe and tell him that it’s okay not to be okay.

That we’re in this together. And no matter the end, we’ll still be together. n Joseph Edwin Haeger is the author of Learn to Swim. His writing has appeared in Drunk Monkeys, There’s a Zygote in My Coffee, X-RA-Y Magazine and others. He occasionally tells people his favorite movie is Face/Off as a litmus test, but a part of him is afraid it’s true.

He lives with his family in Spokane.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST WORRIED ABOUT RIGHT NOW, AND WHAT GIVES YOU HOPE? ROB MCCANN

CEO of Catholic Charities of Eastern Washington We are all worried. Every time we cough or have a slight headache or sneeze … we wonder: Is this it? Is it starting for me? But imagine living with that same daily fear and at the same time being homeless or living in poverty or struggling with day-to-day survival even before this virus came to town?

The poor see the lines of full shopping carts at Costco on TV. But they don’t have Costco cards and even if they did, they don’t have the money to stock up on anything.

Imagine looking at the TV and looking at your kids and knowing that. That’s super hard.

That’s fear doubled down.

What gives me hope and what will beat that fear down is watching our staff who say no to panic and come to work in the middle of this storm to keep serving the homeless in our five shelters and the thousands of fragile seniors who rely on us to get by every single day. We are still in the game and we will stay in the game.

Catholic Charities serves the vulnerable, the fragile and those who live in fear. Well, guess what, that’s all of us right now. We all breath the same air. So my hope lies in the knowledge that Catholic Charities is going to stay in the game and serve all of us. Simple as that. The strength of any community is measured in how it behaves when times are tough and how it treats its most vulnerable members. The measuring stick is out and I like Spokane’s chances to show love, walk courageously and care for each other like rock stars. We always do. That’s what makes this community great.

CRAIG MEIDL

Spokane Police Chief I was most worried about what we saw when we first heard about this pandemic, and the empty store shelves potentially depriving others in greater need of essential items for their families. I now have hope because the store shelves are slowly returning to normal, supply is starting to catch up with demand, businesses are encouraging shoppers to take only what they need, and the community has rallied behind a single message of getting through this without politics (schools are stepping up to help feed families, government is suspending evictions, private individuals are giving grace periods on rent, and so much more).

STEVE WIDMYER

Coeur d’Alene Mayor What worries me most is the health and safety of our citizens. Particularly our elderly and our most vulnerable ones. We must protect them.

We live in a caring community. What gives me hope is the outpouring of people willing to help their community. We will get through this together. ...continued on next page

MARCH 26, 2020 INLANDER 31

CORONAVIRUS

WHAT ARE YOU MOST WORRIED ABOUT RIGHT NOW, AND WHAT GIVES YOU HOPE? MANDY MANNING

2018 National Teacher of the Year With all of the uncertainty, isolation, and insecurity with not knowing how to operate in this new reality, I am most worried for those individuals who are not self-reliant — the children and the elderly, the people who count on others to ensure they are safe, healthy and secure. What gives me hope are the educators, the community members, and the neighbors stepping up to help one another and showing that we really do care about each other. That’s how we get through this, by taking care of each other.

BEN STUCKART

Director of Spokane Low Income Housing Consortium I am most worried about the vulnerable in our society. People one paycheck away from homelessness cannot afford to have their work shut down. I am hopeful when I see people like Rick Clark collecting donations and feeding different groups each night using local restaurants.

BREEAN BEGGS

Spokane City Council President My worry is that the complexity of grasping impacts of exponential disease growth will delay social distancing. But every day I see more people grasping the real threat and taking action to protect themselves and others.

Just like St. Louis during the flu pandemic of 1918, Spokane has enough warning and thus the possibility to avoid the worst of it.

LIZ MOORE

Director of the Peace and Justice Action League of Spokane I’m most worried about people in positions of power using this crisis to advance their own agendas, fueling systems that only work for the greedy few at the top while trying to divide us against each other based on what someone looks like, where they come from, or how much money they have. Right now especially, we all should be focusing on how this pandemic’s multi-generational, heartbreaking, and devastating impacts hurt the health, safety, and financial security of working-class people, hitting hardest the people who were already most exploited or most vulnerable — particularly poor and houseless people, people of color, and undocumented people — broadening and deepening longstanding inequities across class lines.

I practice cultivating hope by listening to people courageously telling their own stories, by looking for helpers, and by noticing when people join together across all walks of life, because we care about loved ones and strangers in our human family.

32 INLANDER MARCH 26, 2020

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

PLEASE STOP KILLING PEOPLE We can’t ignore this anymore

BY JOHN T. REUTER

H

ere’s the simple truth: If you’re still going out to bars or partying with friends or otherwise refusing to practice “social distancing,” you’re directly participating in putting your own and everyone else’s health at risk.

Because of your behavior, people will die.

I’m having trouble believing a few weeks into this pandemic that people aren’t aware of this yet.

And yet it’s equally hard to believe that so many people would be so reckless, so selfish.

I think that a lot of young people — and relatively young people (i.e. older millennials, like me) — feel invincible, particularly with the early reports that this pandemic disproportionately kills older adults. However, this misplaced sense of invincibility and disregard for safety means young people are spreading and have and will fall seriously ill from coronavirus. (Less risk is far from no risk.)

That said, this behavior isn’t limited to young people on beaches in Florida or playing in parks in Seattle either. For example, last week New York Mayor Bill De Blasio violated his own official government recommendations to New Yorkers to hit the gym “once last time.”

In Las Vegas, the mayor is fighting to keep open busy casinos — exactly the kinds of spaces designed to spread this disease.

None of this is meant to blame the millions of us who continue to have reasons we must travel.

There are essential services that need to be run and people who need to go to work. It’s the job of the rest of us to minimize the risk those people face by not unnecessarily increasing social contact and speeding the spread of this pandemic.

But then you already knew all of this, right?

How couldn’t you? It feels like all the news today is pandemic coverage.

So perhaps this column is a waste of time.

Perhaps it is merely some self-righteous punditry.

But I can’t help but write it. Just like I can’t help but stay in my apartment while looking down on the streets with judgment as I occasionally see

people pass on the sidewalk without even attempting to maintain six feet of distance.

At times I feel helpless because it feels like in the face of the scale of this pandemic, how much can any of us hope to do? The tragic impact seems almost inevitable — and yet, the potential impact any one of us can have is perhaps greater than in any other national challenge we’ll face in our lifetimes.

It matters how much we can slow this pandemic in very real terms. Hospitals are likely to become overwhelmed in many parts of our country — and certainly in Washington state.

Every bed we can help keep empty leaves a spot for someone else.

Even if no person can stop this pandemic ... we can very likely prevent at least one other person from getting sick.

Even if no single person can totally stop this pandemic, through our individual choices, we can very likely prevent at least one other person from getting sick. And, because of how this virus exponentially spreads, that can have a huge impact on thousands more.

Our actions can kill people or save lives.

Please, let’s choose to help each other. n John T. Reuter, a former Sandpoint City Councilman, studied at the College of Idaho and currently resides in Seattle. He has been active in protecting the environment, expanding LGBT rights and Idaho’s Republican Party politics.

THEATER

STAGE FRIGHT

COVID-19 has forced area theaters to defer their seasons and find resourceful ways to survive the downtime

BY E.J. IANNELLI Stage Left Theater Managing Director Jeremy Whittington.

W

hen gatherings of 50 or more were prohibited across Washington state, theaters set about the sad business of closing their box offices and clearing their marquees. Until that point, there had been a vague, if fanciful, hope that their footlights would somehow remain lit.

Like so many businesses and organizations around the world, theaters across the Inland Northwest are now facing shared and individual challenges as they temporarily go dark in the interest of public health.

SPOKANE CHILDREN’S THEATRE

The Spokane Children’s Theatre was in the middle of a sold-out run of Disney’s The Little Mermaid when the new restrictions were announced. The closing weekend’s tickets will now have to be refunded, transferred or donated.

“Everything has changed by the hour. By the minute sometimes,” says Managing Director Doug Beschta.

He and his board are planning to shift Matilda the Musical from April to the end of May. That means canceling the original season closer, A Year with Frog and Toad. Given that the theater’s primary source of income is ticket sales, cutting an entire production from the lineup leaves him uneasy.

“The organization nearly shut down about five years ago.

We’ve spent the last four or five years totally revamping things to the point where almost all of our shows for this year were sold out,” he says.

“I just don’t know what’s going to happen now. Right now, we’re looking at how long can we survive? This is our 74th season, and we’re still hoping for 74 more.”

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

STAGE LEFT THEATER

Stage Left was in a slightly better position when its managing director, Jeremy Whittington, put its season on hold. The theater was between shows. Rehearsals for A Voice of My Own were wrapping up. A fairly quiet summer period ahead provided a tiny scheduling cushion.

Which isn’t to say that turning off the house lights was an easy thing to do.

“It’s something I mulled over for a few days,” he says. “Given the opportunity, any kind of actor, artist, director, designer, we want our work to be seen. So, having a full production ready to go, it was hard to make that decision.”

The decision also had financial implications. Ticket sales account for 60 percent of Stage Left’s annual operating budget. But Whittington says that a “sense of responsibility” toward community welfare encouraged him to take a bigger-picture approach.

“The day that Broadway went dark was a really a wake-up call to all arts institutions. Knowing the common phrase that ‘the show must go on,’ it’s actually kind of more important that civilization goes on.”

BLUE DOOR THEATRE

As social-distancing practices intensified prior to March 16, the Blue Door Theatre opted to cancel performances for the sake of its audience as well as its troupe.

“We didn’t want to force our players to make a decision, ‘How much do you love improv?’” says Artistic Director Frank Tano. ...continued on next page

WHERE TO SUPPORT LOCAL THEATERS

BLUE DOOR THEATRE bluedoortheatre.com COEUR D’ALENE SUMMER THEATRE cdasummertheatre.com/donate.html IGNITE! COMMUNITY THEATRE igniteonbroadway.org/get-involved-1 LAKE CITY PLAYHOUSE lakecityplayhouse.org/support SPOKANE CHILDREN’S THEATRE spokanechildrenstheatre.org/ About/Donate SPOKANE CIVIC THEATRE spokanecivictheatre.com/support SPOKANE VALLEY SUMMER THEATRE svsummertheatre.com/donate STAGE LEFT THEATER spokanestageleft.org/donate

MARCH 26, 2020 INLANDER 33

CULTURE | THEATER “STAGE FRIGHT,” CONTINUED...

With an admission price of just $8, ticket sales aren’t a major source of revenue for the organization. However, it does sustain itself largely through youth and adult improv classes, also now on hold.

One of Tano’s chief concerns is keeping the theater on people’s radar during the downtime. That’s why they intend to do what they do best — improvise — and temporarily move to live-streaming performances on Facebook and Instagram as well uploading sketches to YouTube.

“We plan to do a lot of digital content. Just to be out there.

We’ve got a number of archive recordings from previous shows that we’re going to edit for easier digital digestion. And we’re reconfiguring some new content. It’s going to be something tailormade for the internet.”

SPOKANE CIVIC THEATRE

Perhaps hardest hit has been the Spokane Civic Theatre. Upstairs on its main stage, The Humans was in late rehearsals and auditions for Funny Girl were about to begin. Downstairs in its studio space, Exile was already in rehearsal and a popular run of Cabaret had another week left to go.

“The idea I’m toying with right now is to come out of this and do a couple weeks of Cabaret, a couple weeks of The Humans and a couple weeks of Playwrights’ [Forum Festival]. We can probably get a solid run of Funny Girl in to complete the season,” says Creative Director Jake Schaefer. But that will inevitably mean sacrificing some summer programming.

Furthermore, any revised plans will depend entirely on when health authorities lift existing restrictions. The biggest source of worry for Schaefer and his counterparts at other venues is the uncertainty over when exactly that will be.

Yet, despite the nail-biting precariousness, the theaters are buoyed by the optimistic thought that audiences will be hungry for live entertainment after weeks of being housebound.

“I know for sure that after a couple of days of this, I would be driving myself crazy,” Schaefer says. “You’ve just got to hope that audiences will recognize this art form to be as authentic as we know it to be.” n

KEEPING THE ARTS ALIVE

Artists and the arts organizations that support them are particularly vulnerable right now due to their reliance on people buying art or tickets, and writing checks of support.

Whether you’re talking about visual arts or music, theater or stand-up comedy, the future is frustratingly unpredictable for folks who already just barely get by keeping the arts blossoming in and around the Lilac City.

“Oftentimes, the arts … are seen as a nicety versus a necessity, or that they’re just entertainment,” says Ginger Ewing, executive director of Terrain, the Spokane-based arts organization whose events steered nearly $500,000 to regional artists in 2019. “We believe really strongly that it’s the heart and the soul of our city. We have to feed people’s bellies, but we have to feed their hearts, their minds and their souls, too.”

By now, you’ve likely heard of some ways to help arts venues stay afloat, like giving the money you paid for tickets to a canceled event as a donation. You’ve surely seen GoFundMe accounts to help some venues’ laid-off employees, and you can buy directly from many artists online. You can also donate directly to your favorite arts organizations, many of which are also supporting artists through this crisis as well.

Here are a few organizations that could use any help you can afford: SPOKANE ARTS has established the Spokane Artists & Creatives Emergency Fund to provide small grants to artists who lost income due to canceled gigs, events and shows.

Visit spokanearts.kindful/com/artistrelief.

TERRAIN is accepting donations at terrainspokane. com, and you can buy gift certificates for its From Here store for future use at terrainspokane.com/fromhere. Tickets are also available for their July Terrain Table fundraiser at terraintable.org SPOKANE COMEDY CLUB owner BARK Entertainment has an account to help its 100 employees at four clubs survive the shutdown. Search for “Spokane Comedy Club” at gofundme.com.

The Bing in busier times.

ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

THE BING CROSBY THEATER encourages donations to the Friends of the Bing to offset losses to canceled shows via bingcrosbytheater.com.

THE NORTHWEST MUSEUM OF ARTS had to cancel its April fundraising gala, but you can buy a tax-deductible “virtual ticket” or “virtual table” to support the museum.

Visit northwestmuseum.org and hit the “2020 MAC Gala Cancelled” link.

THE ART SPIRIT GALLERY in Coeur d’Alene has its staff working for free for the next 30-60 days, but they could use donations to keep their doors open. Visit gofundme.com and search “Save the Art Spirit Gallery.” (DAN NAILEN) Any arts organizations who want help getting the word out about their fundraisers and programs to help regional artists, please email Inlander Arts & Culture Editor Dan Nailen at dann@inlander.com.

CULTURE | OPTIONS

Signs of Life You might be stuck online and at home, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t access to art to brighten your days

BY DAN NAILEN

T

erri Griffin knew she’d have to get creative when people were told to avoid large gatherings, so the artist and Liberty Gallery coordinator decided that if people couldn’t go out to look at art on the floor above Pottery Place Plus and Auntie’s, she’d make a gallery online.

Hence, the Instagram hashtag #newyearnewday2021 was born. You’ll find some of Griffin’s work there, as well as friends she reached out when she launched the project last week, and other artists who got wind of the project and were compelled to share their work with an audience largely captive at home and living online.

“We all went in our studios to do art and soothe ourselves,” Griffin says. Creating an online gallery, she adds, is a way to “inspire the artists and share with the

34 INLANDER MARCH 26, 2020

March 27 at 7:30 pm, they’ll stream The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time. Be sure to follow them at facebook. com/Spokane.Civic.Theatre to see what’s next.

READ WITH THE SPOKANE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Spokane Hobbit House hosts online story times.

ERICK DOXEY PHOTO

community.”

There are 71 posts just a few days in, and images of a wide range of styles. As you furiously bounce between news websites and connect with friends on social media, a stop by #newyearnewday2021 might just give you a salve for your soul.

“Coming together as a community is what this is all about,” Griffin says.

A NIGHT AT THE THEATER — AT HOME

The Spokane Civic Theatre had to hit pause on its current season like every theater or music venue in town, but the 73-year-old Spokane mainstay just launched what it’s calling the Civic Streaming Series. Using their Facebook page, the Civic streamed a video recording of its 2018-19 production of Mary Poppins to kick off its online experience, and on Wednesday, March 25 and Friday,

I expect if you’re reading the Inlander, you are, you know, a reader. We love you! And if you’re finding yourself catching up on books now that you’re spending a lot of time at home, why not join the Spokane Public Library’s Spring Online Reading Program. You can set up reading challenges for yourself, earn points and badges and track your time reading. It’s good to have goals!

STORY TIME WITH THE SPOKANE HOBBIT HOUSE

The Spokane Hobbit House is one of the city’s coolest (and smallest) architectural wonders, and while you can still swing by the spot at “Spokane End,” aka 3525 W. 2nd Ave., and pick a (disinfected) book from its Lil Free Library, you can also simply visit facebook.com/SpokaneHobbitHouse and join proprietor Ryan Oelrich as he leads daily book readings and coloring sessions.

GET CRAFTY

The good people at Art Salvage have what you need to keep yourself and any artistically inclined kids busy while you’re self-distancing. They have some pre-made kits and grab bags ready while supplies last, or go online at artsalvagespokane.com and order up your supplies for a curbside pickup at the shop at 1925 N. Ash. n

CULTURE | DIGEST

Designated Hitters

Bull Durham is Kevin Costner’s finest moment.

BY DAN NAILEN

F

or the sports-loving community, of which I am an annoying emphatic member, the end of public gatherings came at a brutal time.

Besides the loss of March Madness at the Spokane Arena and on TV, this is the time of year when baseball should be beginning, pro basketball and hockey should be pushing toward their playoffs, and everything from Indycar racing to horse racing, tennis to golf, should be hosting the first major events of their seasons. Some might be content watching video games, er, “esports” on TV, that’s not going to hack it for those of us who relish the Mariners’ first pitch or Stephen Curry’s sweet swish.

Some have resorted to watching replays of old games to satisfy their sportsball cravings, but that doesn’t work for me.

Instead, I’ve turned to movies. Here are some flicks you can find online to spend one of your homebound evenings while we wait for the return of SportsCenter and fresh new highlights of the day’s sporting derring-do.

IF YOU MISS WATCHING BASEBALL… America’s pastime has been the subject of dozens of movies over the years, but there’s only one I watch every year before the season’s first pitch: Bull Durham. Realistic, funny, Kevin Costner’s finest moment and a better valentine to the game than the sappy Field of Dreams.

ALTERNATIVE VIEWING: The original Bad News Bears, simply to be shocked by what they let kids say in movies in 1976.

IF YOU MISS WATCHING FOOTBALL… 1979’s North Dallas Forty offers a glimpse into the decadence of the late ’70s and an era of the NFL that’s long been forgotten since pro football became a big business.

ALTERNATIVE VIEWING: Draft Day, a surprisingly entertaining 2014 drama, and yes, more Costner.

IF YOU MISS WATCHING THE X GAMES… 2001 documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys is a brilliant look at early skateboarding culture and the evolution of the sport.

ALTERNATIVE VIEWING: Penned and directed by Jonah Hill, 2018’s Mid90s is about a lot more than skating.

IF YOU MISS WATCHING SOCCER… In what has to be one of the weirdest casting coups ever, Michael Caine, Sylvester Stallone, Max von Sydow and Pelé co-star in Victory, a semi-cheesy 1981 story of a Nazi prison-camp soccer team that uses a big game to hatch an escape. Rocky plays goalie!

ALTERNATIVE VIEWING: Bend It Like Beckham is a winning tale of intercultural friendship set among a women’s semi-pro team in England.

IF YOU MISS WATCHING CAR RACING… You could go for something like the Tom Cruise ego trip Days of

Thunder, but let’s think outside the box: Smokey and the Bandit!

Burt Reynolds was never more charming and the car stunts are great. You’ll definitely cringe at some of Jackie Gleason’s jokes.

ALTERNATIVE VIEWING: Last year’s Ford v. Ferrari has a great Christian Bale performance and some exciting race scenes.

IF YOU MISS WATCHING HOCKEY… I just rewatched Miracle, the 2004 retelling of the “Miracle on Ice” 1980 Olympic win by the U.S. men over the Soviet Union. It holds up, thanks largely to Kurt Russell as hardass coach Herb Brooks.

ALTERNATIVE VIEWING: Slapshot, if only to see Paul Newman in a series of fierce ’70s leisure suits.

PROPHET OF DOOM Fans of the classic PC game Doom were pissed (and rightfully so) when id Software announced that the latest installation to the FPS franchise, Doom Eternal, would be delayed until March 2020.

Whatever the reasoning, the wait has been worth it. Doom Eternal took the already amazing gameplay from its 2016 reboot and managed to improve it even more. More demonic hell beasts, more shotguns, more heavy metal and, even better, more story. The lore behind the Doomslayer has been consistently inconsistent for years (remember that Dwayne Johnson movie adaptation?). But, finally, fans are getting a real plot to sink their chainsaws into and it rocks. (QUINN WELSCH)

IF YOU MISS WATCHING BASKETBALL… You won’t find a better movie about life on the court than 1994 documentary Hoop Dreams, which tracks two kids with eyes on playing in the NBA.

THE BUZZ BIN ALTERNATIVE VIEWING: Teen Wolf, while not technically a basketball movie, has a wolf-boy who can definitely ball out.

IF YOU MISS WATCHING BOWLING… Televised bowling isn’t exactly scintillating stuff. But Kingpin features Woody Harrelson in high comedic form as an aspiring pro bowler, and Bill Murray as a hard-rolling villain with the best combover haircut of all time.

ALTERNATIVE VIEWING: Mystery Men is about a crew of unimpressive superheroes, including Janeane Garofalo as “the Bowler.”

IF YOU MISS WATCHING THE TOUR DE FRANCE… American Flyers is an early Kevin Costner vehicle in which brothers compete in a scary road race in the Colorado mountains, all set to a distinctly ’80s soundtrack. If you can get over the questionable fashion and Costner’s mustache, it’s pretty good!

ALTERNATIVE VIEWING: Breaking Away, which is easily the best bike-racing movie of all time. Don’t @ me.

IF YOU MISS WATCHING GOLF… Have you heard of The Greenskeeper? Former real-life baseball star and notorious racist John Rocker plays a murderous golf course lawn mower in a movie featuring ’80s cheese-metal poser Kip Winger on the soundtrack. Yes, it’s as good as all that sounds.

ALTERNATIVE VIEWING: Happy Gilmore, if only to watch game show host Bob Barker beat up Adam Sandler. n

THIS WEEK’S PLAYLIST Some noteworthy new music hits online and in stores March 27. To wit: BRIAN FALLON, Local Honey. The former Gaslight Anthem frontman’s third solo album lands in the pleasing folk-rock realm of Jason Isbell.

LILLY HIATT, Walking Proof. John Hiatt’s daughter is a songwriting badass just like her old man.

MARGARET GLASPY, Devotion. Her 2016 album Emotions and Math was amazing. High hopes for this one.

WAXAHATCHEE, Saint Cloud. Katie Crutchfield is a treasure, go find “Fire” on YouTube for a taste of her new one.

PEARL JAM, Gigaton. Some little band from Seattle, you’ve probably heard of ’em. First single “Dance of the Clairvoyants” has a serious Talking Heads vibe. (DAN NAILEN)

MARCH 26, 2020 INLANDER 35

CORONAVIRUS

AN INDUSTRY RAVAGED The region’s food and beverage industry took a huge hit from coronavirus, but there are ways we can all help

BY CHEY SCOTT

U

ntil very recently, chef and restaurateur Adam Hegsted employed about 175 people across his company Eat Good Group’s 10 spots throughout Spokane and North

Idaho.

Last Friday, he was down to just 30 employees.

The picture is just as bleak for other restaurants and bars in the Inland Northwest following state and local measures banning in-person service at restaurants and bars in an effort to slow the coronavirus’ spread.

“I’m just really, in general, worried about what we don’t know,” Hegsted says. “We don’t know when this is going to end.

Especially if you have a new restaurant or were just barely getting by, the margins were already super thin.”

When the coronavirus threat finally does pass, he predicts, we may see permanent closures of up to one-quarter of restaurants nationwide.

While many restaurants are barely keeping the lights on with take-out and delivery-only service, others have closed temporarily, hoping instead to wait out the worst and reopen when the pandemic has passed.

Some of Hegsted’s restaurants, like the Yards Bruncheon and Incrediburger and Eggs, are doing OK without dine-in customers, even though both are still down to about 30 percent of regular business. Days into the dine-in ban, he had to drastically cut operating hours for others, like the Wandering Table and Gilded Unicorn. Eat Good Group’s catering services took one of the biggest hits when event cancellations led to more than $50,000 worth of catering contracts being lost.

Unlike in Washington, Idaho Gov. Brad Little hasn’t yet, as of Monday, issued a statewide order to close restaurant dining rooms. Hegsted and other North Idaho restaurant owners made the decision to close anyway just a few days before the mayors of Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene passed emergency ordinances to do so, effective Monday at midnight. Last week, more than 80 restaurant owners in Idaho, including Hegsted, signed a letter to the Idaho governor requesting a statewide, 30-day closure and emergency unemployment benefits.

Collectively, these restaurant owners hope the sooner such widespread actions are made, the sooner the threat passes and they can reopen.

“Get the federal closure done for whatever period of time, and then rip the Band-Aid off so we can move toward normal functions,” Hegsted says. “We’re slowly bleeding out money, and all our employees are living off unemployment and without fulltime jobs, so let’s just get the [closures] done sooner than later.”

36 INLANDER MARCH 26, 2020

Brittney Parent prepares a take out order at Umi Kitchen & Sushi Bar. YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

F

or another local restaurant group, the story is much the same. Nearly 90 percent of staff for the Goodwin Group’s six Spokane restaurants have been temporarily laid off, says Food and Beverage Director Jory Hustad.

Because neither serves food, Volstead Act and Press bar are both temporarily closed, though the company’s four other ventures — Backyard Public House, Brick West Brewing, Remedy and Barnwood Social Kitchen & Tavern — all remain open for to-go orders.

Business at those four in the days following Washington Gov. Jay Inlee’s dine-in service ban, however, far surpassed company expectations.

“It has been humbling. The community has been overly supportive,” Hustad says. “Customers have been doing whatever they can to make sure we’ll still be here when this blows over.”

He says each still-operating restaurant has been busy enough to keep about five people on the schedule each night during the dinner rush.

Last Wednesday, for example, he says Brick West had more than $1,000 worth of beer and food sales, with Backyard and Remedy averaging about $800 each in to-go orders.

“I think for every business in Spokane, especially in the service industry, you have to plan for the worst and hope for the best,” Hustad reflects. “We went into this planning for the absolute worst, but these last few days have been full of good news.”

Those positive moments include more than $1,000 in gift card sales company-wide, catering orders from corporate customers and making meals for Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Inland Northwest.

“We’re in a time of crisis, yes, and we’re being selfish trying to make sure our business stays open, but also looking to give back to the community that’s given us job opportunities,” Hustad says.

“If any food would be going to waste, we’re cooking it to give to first responders or anyone who needs help.”

To that end, Goodwin Group is also serving free meals twice a week to its laid-off employees and their families.

T

he Spokane metropolitan area has more than 24,000 workers in the hospitality sector, which counts hotels, restaurants and bars. Add to that several thousand more in North Idaho. Based on estimates from most restaurants we’ve talked to, it’s a fair projection to say the majority of these workers literally lost their jobs overnight.

Hospitality relief nonprofit Big Table is ready as requests for aid come pouring in.

Since 2009, Big Table has been helping crisis-affected workers in the often precarious restaurant industry through a vetted referral system. Chefs, owners, managers and others can directly request support for a struggling employee, while the nonprofit can prioritize the most pressing needs of individual requests. Big Table was founded in Spokane, and also operates in Seattle and San Diego.

“Right now, with this unprecedented situation, what we’re trying to triage is gifts that focus on housing stability and food security for families,” says Executive Director Kevin Finch. “One thing we’ve also done well is collaborate and partner; we don’t want to duplicate services that someone else does better than we do.”

A massive influx of requests to Big Table’s Seattle branch — at one point so many they had to put a temporary hold on new referrals — has allowed the team here to anticipate incoming needs in the Spokane area. As soon as donations come in, Big Table fulfills another request, Finch says.

In addition to making a direct donation to Big Table (big-table.com), the organization developed a list of alternative ways to support hospitality workers. Top on the list is to order food from restaurants that remain open to carry out. The nonprofit suggests simple acts like checking in with your neighbors, or volunteering at local food banks if you’re healthy and able.

“It’s a gift that we’ve had 11 years of caring for folks in the industry under our belts,” reflects Finch. “Even though we’re in triage mode, we know what we’re doing and how to do it well.” n cheys@inlander.com

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MARCH 26, 2020 INLANDER 37

ESSAY

UP IN THE AIR

TV, streaming, pandemic: Movie theaters meet their next big challenge

BY NATHAN WEINBENDER

E

very time there’s a slump in the box office, culture sites are cluttered with op-eds about the looming death of the movie theater. And every time this has happened, a movie with broad mass appeal opens on 3,000 screens a few weeks later, there’s a sudden spike in ticket sales, and everyone forgets that they had been sounding alarm bells the week before. It’s the same old song and dance.

This time, though, the threat seems real.

Concerns about the coronavirus have rightfully closed down theaters all over the country, just like so many other brick-andmortar businesses. Restaurants, bars, casinos and clubs will all eventually reopen, and eventually operations will return to normal. But could the movie theater, a business model that has been

38 INLANDER MARCH 26, 2020

teetering on the precipice of obsolescence for so long, actually recover? If economic prospects are as dire as reported, could this pandemic also wipe out an entire cinematic industry that has been around since the birth of the artform?

I hope that isn’t the case. I spend a couple hundred hours a year in movie theaters. Even when I go to the movies alone, I’m still surrounded by other people: It’s one of the few activities that’s simultaneously communal and solitary. It’s only been a couple weeks since the COVID-19 outbreak shuttered theaters, and I miss them already. It’s just part of my routine. And I’ve been bracing for the final nail in the coffin, the thing that finally sends the final reel spooling through the proverbial projector.

But this is hardly the first time the model of theatrical distri-

FILM | RELEASES bution has been endangered. It happened in the ’30s when radios became a staple of every middle-class American living room, and again in the ’50s when radios were swapped out for TV sets.

In the ’80s, VCRs proved the greatest threat, as did video store chains like Blockbuster that popped up in strip malls around the country. In the mid-2000s, mail-order DVD services like Netflix made movie rental even simpler, and then streaming suddenly made physical media seem like a Stone Age technology.

It has survived all of that. Will it survive this?

It’s not just theaters, either. The reverberations will be felt everywhere in the film industry. Not only are releases being delayed (which throws off studios’ prescribed schedules), but productions all over the world are being halted. Some will probably never pick back up again.

Film festivals are also being canceled: First it was SXSW, then Tribeca and the Seattle International Film Festival, and (finally, mercifully) Cannes, the granddaddy of them all. Because so many prestige films come out of festivals — just last year, Oscar winners like Parasite, Marriage Story, Jojo Rabbit and Joker first started generating buzz at various film festivals — what will the rest of the movie year look like?

Major studios are already taking serious measures to turn a profit on their products that were kneecapped by the virus.

Recently released titles like The Invisible Man, The Way Back and Emma have already made their way to VOD platforms, and the previously scheduled April 10 release Trolls: World Tour will instead premiere online. Kino Lorber, a distributor that has always focused on international films, has devised a unique platforming method: Indie theaters that had already planned to screen their new film Bacurau can now “host” a digital release of the film, allowing viewers to buy a ticket for a “screening” through that theater and watch it online.

Expect smaller distributors like A24, Neon and Searchlight Pictures, which rely on arthouse audiences (usually in big cities) to recoup the budgets of their decidedly non-mainstream titles, to take on similar strategies.

Theater chains have been pushing back on the notion of day-and-date releasing, the method by which films are available in theaters and on-demand platforms simultaneously, for years now.

Exclusivity is the bread-and-butter of the movie theater industry.

They’ll likely have to rethink that position to stay alive.

And when theaters finally do reopen after the craziness dies down, will people go back? Will they spend their remaining disposable income on a night out at the movies, or save it for more pressing matters? Will they have missed the communal experience and flock to their nearest multiplex, or will their weeks in self-isolation make them realize they prefer staying at home that much more?

Look, there are a lot of reasons that movie theaters are archaic.

As long as there have been audiences, there have been annoying people that ruin the experience for everyone else — talking too loud, rustling endless candy wrappers, illuminating the room with their phone. You have to sit through a string of commercials for other movies before yours starts, like a non-skippable ad before a YouTube video. And concessions, where theaters make all their profits, are so expensive you’ll have to take out a second mortgage on your house in order to feed your family.

But in a weird way, I’m starting to miss all those things, all the minor inconveniences that make the theatrical experience an experience. Going to the theater can be a magical experience, one you’ll never be able to recreate at home, no matter how good your home screen and sound system are.

So, here’s what you should do. If you care about the future of movie theaters, patronize them as soon as they reopen. AMC and Regal both have apps with benefits and discounts for frequent guests — sign up. Our local arthouse theater the Magic Lantern is a boon to our community, booking foreign films and documentaries and indie titles that wouldn’t otherwise play in town. Buy a gift certificate from them, and visit them often.

Regardless of what happens, movies will keep getting made and people will still find ways to watch them. And so many of us will keep going back, like moths to a flame, to the allure of moving images flickering in the dark room. n

Cinematic Horizons Movie binge: Keep an eye out for these indie and arthouse films when theaters reopen

BY NATHAN WEINBENDER

M

ovie theaters have gone dark, and in the coming months, independent and arthouse film distributors are going to be hit the hardest. It’s too bad, because the spring was shaping up to be an intriguing movie season, with a schedule of festival favorites and the newest work from revered directors. If you’re a film nut, add the following titles to your to-see list; either they’ll start popping up on streaming platforms or will hit theaters in the coming months.

THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY

Part heist thriller, part art-world drama, this is the story of an intellectual and critic whose scheme to steal a priceless painting goes predictably awry.

The all-star cast includes Claes Bang, Elizabeth Debicki, Donald Sutherland and Mick Jagger in a rare acting role.

ENORMOUS: THE GORGE STORY

A documentary about the Gorge Amphitheater and its journey from a modest winery to one of the Pacific Northwest’s most revered concert venues, as well as the people who make it a regular destination point. It previously screened at the Spokane International Film Festival and was supposed to have a limited engagement at the AMC in April.

FIRST COW

Set in rural Oregon in the early 19th century,

The Burnt Orange Heresy writer-director Kelly Reichardt’s latest focuses on two men who hatch a scheme to steal milk from the only cow in the rugged territory. It has already garnered some of the best reviews of her career, and the film’s distributor, A24, has announced it will “relaunch” the film in theaters once the threat of the virus goes away.

NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS

Eliza Hittman’s topical, neorealistic drama won a top prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, using mostly unknown actors to tell the story of two teenage friends traveling to New York for an abortion after one of them gets pregnant.

THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD

Armando Iannucci, he of In the Loop and Veep fame, tones down his foul-mouthed political comedy for a gentle, PG-rated twist on the Charles Dickens classic. The film has already opened in the U.K. and received acclaim for its meta humor and colorblind casting.

SAINT MAUD

Another cerebral horror film from A24, who have become critical darlings of the genre with films like The Witch and Hereditary, this one about a young, religiously devout hospice nurse whose connection to a dying patient takes a sinister turn. Of the titles listed here, this was the only one slated for a nationwide release.

SORRY WE MISSED YOU

British director Ken Loach has been telling gritty, working-class stories for more than five decades now, and his latest is the portrait of a delivery driver whose family is struggling through a period of debt and turns to the so-called gig economy to make ends meet. It seems particularly prescient in these trying times.

TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG

A brutal, unforgiving look at fabled Australian gangster Ned Kelly and his criminal hangers-on, following them as they flee from authorities in the late 19th century. Director Justin Kurzel is best known for studies in violence like The Snowtown Murders and Macbeth. n

MARCH 26, 2020 INLANDER 39

The Pin’s Chelsey Heidenreich is anxious for the days of a full club to return.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

CLOSURES

Sound of Silence As Spokane’s music venues go dark, owners and artists look with hope and caution toward an uncertain future

BY NATHAN WEINBENDER

W

hen it comes to the music scene in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the math is pretty simple: No shows equals no revenue.

Although the statewide closures of bars, clubs and restaurants have only been in effect for a short period, venue owners and artists who are suddenly without money-making gigs are already starting to feel the financial squeeze.

Chelsey Heidenreich, who owns all-ages venue the Pin, says she was as blindsided as everybody else, thinking it would be a temporary hurdle and then watching as the crisis intensified in a matter of days.

“I kind of assumed that I was going to lose out on three to five shows,” she says. “The severity of it has gotten to the point that we don’t know when we can return.

The hardest part is not being able to really prepare.”

40 INLANDER MARCH 26, 2020

Heidenreich is one of several local business owners who started up a GoFundMe account for her employees.

They’re like family, she says, and they’re constantly checking in on each other and helping each other out until they’re able to get back to work.

“The whole music industry is kind of a little bit of standstill right now,” she says, “which is a really scary spot for a lot of people.”

Dawson Hoerner, who owns the Big Dipper with her husband Dan, has a slightly smaller operation than the Pin: It’s typically just the two of them running the place, doing everything from taking tickets at the door to tending bar, with a handful of folks who occasionally help out on a given night.

“Our main concern is the health of the community, obviously. Anything beyond that feels selfish to worry

about too much, really,” Hoerner says. “But we do have a business, and we’re absolutely a mom-and-pop [operation]. We rely on the Dipper for our income.”

The Hoerners have currently postponed all upcoming shows for the time being, hoping everything that was on the calendar for March and April will eventually be rescheduled.

“Now it’s just a waiting game,” Hoerner says. “And I want to wait till it’s safe, because I don’t want to be a place where people come and get sick.”

Blake Braley, a popular Spokane R&B musician, relies on live gigs, including a weekly residency at the downtown bar Zola, for most of his income. He’s preparing to drop an EP next month with a release show at the Lucky You Lounge, and he’s keeping his fingers crossed that clubs will have the all-clear to reopen by then.

MUSIC | MIXTAPE “I’m trying to stay optimistic, but I’m definitely feeling the crunch financially,” he says. “As far as other people, the vibe that I’ve gotten has been more of a bummer than anything.”

But he has also seen artists rallying behind one another: He points to local musicians who have been putting on makeshift performances and live streaming them through their social media profiles, as well as broadcasting their Venmo information and accepting donations.

Lindsay Johnston, a Spokane musician who fronts the bluesrock project Vanna Oh!, was set to embark on a 30-date tour the first week of April. It took nearly six months to set the whole thing up, and now it’s looking less and less likely it will even happen.

“I’ve kind of gone through the stages of grief with it,” Johnston says. “I had the disbelief and then the anger, and then the numbness and the sadness. Now I’m at this place of acceptance and trying to find the good in it.”

Having worked as a bartender for years, Johnston decided to turn her music into a full-time job last year, and she and her band were on the road. She has also ordered $1,000 worth of merchandise that she planned to sell while touring, and now it seems like she’ll be sitting on that inventory for the foreseeable future. But as news of the closures hit, Johnston says her primary concern was for her friends in the service industry, many of whom are without work right now.

Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard’s live-streaming acoustic performances daily.

Pandemic Playlist New music and live streams for your self-isolation pleasure, and ways to support the local music scene

BY NATHAN WEINBENDER

W Lindsay Johnston, aka Vanna Oh!, could miss out on her spring tour.

ALICIA HAUFF PHOTO

“I’m seeing through social media that peoples’ work is getting canceled, and I’m like, ‘I’m about to be right there with you,’” she says.

The future may be uncertain right now, but nobody wants to let the music die. For Heidenreich, who has been booking shows in Spokane since she was a high schooler, hitting the pause button has been understandably difficult.

“It’s heartbreaking,” she says. I’ve been trying to build this since I was 15 years old. I’m only two years in with the Pin, and it’s really hard not knowing what the future holds. Everyone’s in a bad situation.”

In order to get through that bad situation, she says, it’s dependent on everyone within the music scene — artists and bookers and fans alike — to step up as soon as doors reopen and regular business operations resume.

“When this all blows over, go out and support local,” Braley concurs. “Going to shows is going to be really important. It’s been a good reminder of how lucky I am to have a place to play every single week.”

“I just hope people come out and they try and spread the love around,” Hoerner says. “It’s such a small scene anyway. And it’s a difficult business even in good times. … If people want there to be an eclectic scene and more than just a couple places to see music, [they should] broaden their scope, and go somewhere they don’t usually go.”

And one of the possible side effects of a live music drought is that once the dry spell is over, people will hopefully be as anxious as ever to get out and support their favorite local artists.

“Everyone’s gonna be ready to hear live music, have new music to share and just be so grateful for the opportunity,” Johnston says. “Once we have something taken away from us, we realize how important it is.” n

elcome to the quarantine.

A lot of us are stuck inside, distancing ourselves from the outside world, and that means there’s never been a better time to reacquaint yourself with some musical favorites, or dig into an artist you’ve been meaning to check out. Here are some suggestions to make your alone time a little less lonely.

SUPPORT THE LOCALS

Music venues and artists are being hit hard right now, and if you’re feeling a little desperate about the whole situation, you can make a difference.

A few local venues have started GoFundMe accounts to raise money for their currently outof-work employees, and you can donate right now to Lucky You Lounge (gofundme.com/f/ lucky-you-emergency-staff-support), the Knitting Factory (gofundme.com/f/knitting-factoryspokane-employee-fund) and the Pin (gofundme. com/f/the-pin-emergancy-fund). The Spokane Symphony, which has had to cancel the remainder of its season, is also accepting donations for its musicians and behind-the-scenes employees; visit spokanesymphony.org/donate to chip in.

LIVE STREAMS

Stars — they’re just like us. And that means they’re holed up inside, too. But at least a few of them are taking to social media to entertain their followers and themselves. Angelic-voiced singersongwriter Rufus Wainwright is posting daily performances on his Instagram profile under the hashtag #MusicalEverydays, lounging in a robe at the piano in his L.A. living room and taking on songs like “Gray Gardens” and “The Art Teacher.” Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard has also gotten into the live-stream game: Every

day on his YouTube channel, he’s taking requests and broadcasting acoustic performances from his home studio. Electro-pop sensations Christine and Queens have posted several Instagram videos from the Parisian recording studio where they’re isolated, and they’ve been as quirky and unpredictable as you’d expect. And several artists, including Coldplay’s Chris Martin and R&B crooner John Legend, have teamed up to live-stream their sets with the #TogetherAtHome concert series, spearheaded by the World Health Organization and Global Citizen. It’s the next best thing to a front-row seat.

NEW MUSIC

The last week has brought about a spate of surprise music premieres, and there will no doubt be many more, especially as artists get antsy about not being able to go on the road for the time being. The biggest release news comes courtesy of Childish Gambino, the alter ego of actor and rapper Donald Glover, who unexpectedly dropped his new studio record 3.15.20 online last week. It popped up on his website before disappearing again a few hours later, but now it’s back again and available to stream; go to donaldgloverpresents.com to see where you can listen. Rapper M.I.A. also popped back up with a single called “OHMNI 202091,” which she released unexpectedly as a means “to get you the f--- up outta bed.” It’s available on her Patreon page, and it’s a welcome throwback to the upbeat, experimental style that made her famous.

Car Seat Headrest, the project of songwriter Will Toledo, also dropped a song this week called “Martin,” a strummy pop reverie backed by a stuttering electronic beat. His new album Making a Door Less Open is due May 1. n

MARCH 26, 2020 INLANDER 41

RELATIONSHIPS

Advice Goddess MEET JOE BEIGE

I’ve been dating this guy for a month. Things with him are really average. However, we met through a mutual guy friend, and I’m actually really into that guy. Could my staying with the guy I’m seeing spark jealousy in the friend and lead him to make a play for me?

—Wrong Place

Fight Boredom Five things to do in between work at home, watching the kids and reading the news

BY MACIE WHITE

W

ith community events and public gatherings everywhere on hiatus until the threat of coronavirus passes, here are some alternatives to keep everyone in the family busy and/or distracted from the stressful circumstances.

MORE THAN NETFLIX

While wrapping up in a blanket and binging is a decent way to pass the time, Netflix is just the beginning of online avenues to stay entertained. Now is the time to check out the thousands of podcasts available — on Spotify, the Podcast app and more. Stay up to date on politics and news with Pod Save America, freak yourself out with serial killer stories on Crime Junkie or learn something inspiring on TED Talks Daily. The options are limitless and podcasts provide the perfect background to folding laundry and everything else you’d rather not be doing.

ROLL THE DICE

Board games aren’t boring when you’re already bored.

Have everyone in the house dig out their favorites for a nightlong marathon of clue-giving, dice-rolling and check-mating. Classics in most closets include Clue, Scrabble, Pictionary and of course Monopoly. (Maybe avoid Pandemic for now.) Fuel the friendly competition with popcorn, candy and get online to find numerous adult rules alterations that can include a few drinks. If you’re looking for a new game, local shops like Merlyn’s, Uncle’s Games or the Comic Book Shop could use the support and are offering discounts and specials.

42 INLANDER MARCH 26, 2020

Take a day hike at the Antoine Peak Conservation Area.

YOUNG KWAK PHOTO

YOUTUBE YOGA

With gyms closed, fitness studios on hiatus and no guarantee the good weather will stick around, it’s not a bad idea to have some alternate exercise options in your back pocket. These days you can find nearly everything online, and YouTube is full of free guided fitness videos ranging from yoga to kickboxing. Whether you’re just looking for a workout or a 10-minute meditation, it’s all there. If you’re a member at a local fitness center, check out the online options they may be providing.

BOOK BREAK

It’s finally your chance to pick up that book you’ve been meaning to read forever. Browse your bookshelf for an old favorite or a new novel and set a goal to finish it. If you’re having a hard time finding something at home, check out the many free, online reading resources, like the Spokane Public Library’s collection of ebooks, accessible to cardholders through the Libby app. Or start a trial with Audible to access its vast library of audiobooks. Whatever you choose, you’ll have something new to talk about when this is all over.

GET OUTSIDE

Social distancing doesn’t necessarily mean you’re stuck in the house. Take advantage of the sunshine and get away from the chaos for a bit. While options abound — search the Washington Trails Association’s site at wta.org — there’s always nearby spots, like Riverside State Park’s beautiful Bowl and Pitcher area along the Spokane River.

In Spokane Valley, Iller Creek’s trails are open to hikers and mountain bikers. For a longer adventure, head to Antoine Peak Conservation Area, where you might just catch some early wildflowers. Social distancing is also easy to do at the vast Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge south of Cheney, which remains open to the public, although its visitor center is closed.

CLOSET CLEANOUT

Working and learning from home makes it even more important to have an organized space to live in, so this year give spring cleaning a real shot and take a page from Marie Kondo’s method: If you love an item, keep it; if it doesn’t bring you joy, toss it. Then look for some local nonprofits you can donate to, like the Arc of Spokane, Global Neighborhood or Teen & Kid Closet. Start with your clothes, but don’t be surprised if the organizing bug bites and you find yourself working your way through the office, pantry and garage next. n

Sext your boyfriend and ask him to forward it to his friend.

AMY ALKON Kidding, obviously. But at least that would end things between you. That’s the right thing to do — as opposed to staying with the guy and using his interest in you as bait to attract the dude you really want.

By the way, it’s probably unrealistic to think the other dude will swoop in, elbow his buddy out of the way, and run off with you. Mate poaching — somebody “stealing” another person’s romantic partner mid-relationship — has likely been a common form of mate acquisition throughout human evolutionary history, explains evolutionary psychologist David Schmitt. However, it has its costs. Schmitt notes that mate poaching can lead to undesirable “social consequences”: violent retribution from the poached person’s partner, damage to one’s reputation (especially for a guy who poaches his buddy’s girl), and exile from one’s social world.

The relationships formed through mate poaching also tend to be less than dreamy. Research by social psychologist Joshua Foster and his colleagues found that “individuals who were poached by their current romantic partners were less committed, less satisfied, and less invested in their relationships” than non-poached relationship partners. The sort of people who let themselves be poached (from their previous relationship into their current one) tended to have a wandering eye -- paying “more attention to romantic alternatives” and cheating more often than the non-poached.

The moment you realize you’ve got the lukewarms for a guy is the moment you should break it off and move on. You’ll be that much further along in meeting somebody who might be right for you. Plus, your sharing any more than a date or two (and a chaste kiss, no nudity) with a guy you’re not that into is likely to make his dude friends classify you as off-limits. Of course, it’s also seriously unfair to the meh man (who is also a person with feelings) for you to slow-walk him off the plank. Sure, there’s this idea that a romantic partner will be your shelter, but that’s not supposed to mean they’re the bus stop where you wait till the guy you’re actually into picks you up.

DAWN OF THE DAD

I’m a 36-year-old woman. I’ve had my share of men who shy away from commitment, so it’s a bit of a surprise that the guy I’ve been seeing for a few months really wants to settle down. He’s already talking about kids. While I really like him a lot, I worry that his rush to settle down is a red flag.

—Uneasy When a guy yells something out in bed, it’s a little disturbing if it’s, “You make me want to put up wallpaper in a house in the suburbs!”

It’s possible the guy suddenly had enough of the Tinder rando-lympics and began longing for a lasting bond with a woman. Clinical psychologist Judith Sills believes feeling this way causes a shift in one’s approach to dating. The push to find the perfect “right person” gets cast aside for finding a right enough person at the right time.

What makes it the right time is “readiness,” which Sills calls “an internal process that acts as a psychological catalyst for commitment.” This is readiness for true partnership — for intimacy (and the vulnerability it requires). It “does not mean being without anxiety or ambivalence,” Sills explains. But “readiness is a state of mind, an attitude of approach that helps you to push past the barriers created by these feelings.”

Whatever the reason for the guy’s rush to put up picket fencing, it’s important to take things slowly. (You might give it a year or more before you make any big moves together.) Research by psychologist Michael I. Norton and his colleagues suggests that the more budding romantic partners learn about each other, the more they see dissimilarities — clashes between them — and the less satisfied they can become with each other and the relationship.

Do something people newly in love (or at least newly in hots) typically don’t do: Seek out the clashes between you -- all the areas in which you glaringly don’t want the same things, have habits that grate on each other, etc. If that stuff isn’t enough to break you up, tell him you two might have a reasonable chance of going the distance together -- though not if he keeps talking to your womb on dates: “I’d like you to give me a male heir. How’s Friday?” n ©2020, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. • Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, #280, Santa Monica, CA 90405 or email AdviceAmy@aol.com (www.advicegoddess.com)

friends has been unbelieveable. Even in a scary time of uncertainty for local business, people have really pulled through for us. Cheers, North Indian Trail and Spokane. You really are the best place to call home.

KALI BALI You are my true purpose for living. If you did not help me I’d surely die. Your kind gentle heart shows me everyday that life is worth living. I must have done something right to be so blessed to be with you.

I SAW YOU HI-CO DAVE It’s been about 12 years but I think about you daily. I couldn’t wait for you to stop in every morning for your red bull and newspaper... I usually had them both ready so I could get a hug from you and have your smell on me all day. Then out the door you went to sell cars. We had many many good times together and I’d like to see if there is more out there for us. We use to go down to the park and sit on the picnic tables...if you see or read this Dave meet me at our park let’s try again. Saturday @11.

QUARANTINE CUTIE I saw you from the across the room... In our house, because we are in self quarantine. But you always make it fun, easier and more Comfortable. I really am so lucky I did see you from across the room almost 3 years ago. Your smile still lights any room up.

OH SEXY MEXY Why do you run from the dancing kitty? You will always have a place in my heart. Te quiero mi amore.

CHEERS NORTH INDIAN TRAIL NEIGHBORHOOD 1 day after a dine-in ban, our little neighborhood beer bar was broken into. The support that we have received from neighbors and surrounding Spokane

CHEERS TO COCHINITO ! Big cheers to Cochinito and everyone there. In this crazy time they’re still cool and kind as ever, helping feed kids and joining a local coalition of restaurants to help keep everyone’s head up. And the tacos are for real. #chochinitotaqueria #chefmade PEACE AMONG CHAOS In light of all the bad things happening in the world today I would like to spread some positive vibes. Thank you to all the people maintaining the order in such chaos. Such as, Law Enforcement, Medics, Firefighters, School Personnel, Government Officials, State Officials and the list goes on and so does the beat. We are praying. God bless us all. Peace be with you.

EARTH ANGELS I would like to give a shout out to law enforcement and first responders. The other day my 8 year old son is out being a kid and riding his scooter and some dude asks him if he wants lollipop? I called crime check and after I hung up with the very efficient female officer I swear it seemed like maybe 15 minutes and an officer arrived to question my son about what had happened. Then another officer arrived. First responders are up against so much and without them it would be far more worse of a nightmare.

JEERS STOP BEGGING!! Jeers to the small local breweries and restaurants begging for people to order takeaway during the coronavirus shut down. Will the local

SOUND OFF

shops crying for business help out the local every day person that’s out of a job pay for their rent not month?? I don’t think so.

“

lacking, the health of these civil servants should be first. If the Spokane police are willing to slow arrests down, going to remote work is more than possible.

This is just one example of how disrespectful people have been. I’ve never witnessed anything like this in my life. And why? Y’all will kill each other over a loaf a bread or a roll of toilet paper.

SPOKANE HOARDERS Well, Spokane isn’t special and neither are it’s people.

Just like other stupid people in mid-size or larger cities, the toiler paper and cleaning supplies are in short supply.

Isn’t it amazing how selfish you are?

Rather than leaving some cleaning supplies and toilet paper for others, you stockpile it so that only your selfish needs are met. You can also tell why people in Spokane are so fat. While there is an abundance of “fresh” fruits and vegetables at the grocery, the packaged and canned garbage is cleaned out. Oh, wait. I know what you’ll say. You only got those canned goods because the “fresh” food would spoil. Sure! Go ahead and believe that and continue to stuff yourselves fatties! Here’s hoping that the garbage food and toilet paper clogs your toilets, fatsos!

PEOPLE:THE REAL VIRUS In the past few days I’ve seen the absolute worst of the human race I’ve ever seen. I’ve worked retail for ten years, and in the past week I’ve seen my coworkers screamed at, harassed, and nearly physically assaulted. I work at well known local supermarket, just the other day one of our customers used a really offensive racial word

be justified in any situation. This is just one example of how disrespectful people have been. I’ve never witnessed anything like this in my life. And why? Y’all will kill each other over a loaf a bread or a roll of toilet paper. I know people are scared but god damn, so are we. My coworkers and I are working like we never have before.

So if you are a retail worker, or anyone working through this difficult time, I want to personally thank you. I’m struggling through it too. So next time you’re at a grocery store please acknowledge your cashier or the person frantically stocking the shelves or the person serving your food in the deli, ask them how are they doing , smile, and say thank you. We’re people too.

COVID COUNTY I am deeply disappointed that the county continues to keeps its doors open and requiring employees to come to work. Top prosecutor Larry Haskell has the power to allow those who have a need to work remotely, but all requests are being denied —immunocompromised and even pregnant ladies are still being required to come to work, in a space that sees hundred of people coming through the doors. It’s simply not safe and in a state where the testing is

”

COLLECTOR OF FEATHERS Your name is Angel but it’s just a facade. Your selfish vengeful spirit overlays every action.

When you see anyone that could threaten your reign you systematically overturn the situation and use your sexual promiscuity to control simple men. You are seen for exactly what you are, a cold hearted snake. Plucking feathers from every Angel you can find... hoping to collect enough to cover your dark selfish heart. Enjoy your communicable diseases. Your nothing but an empty pit.

Whatever enters is returned as trash. n

THIS WEEK'S ANSWERS S E V E R

T N O T E

V I A D L O C H A D S

1. Visit Inlander.com/isawyou by 3 pm Monday. 2. Pick a category (I Saw You, You Saw Me, Cheers or Jeers). 3.

Provide basic info: your name and email (so we know you’re real). 4. To connect via I Saw You, provide a non-identifying email to be included with your submission — like “petals327@yahoo.com,” not “j.smith@comcast.net.”

We’re Here for You.

towards a young black man that was helping her out. You should be ashamed of yourself lady, insulting anyone is not tolerable, insulting someone because of their skin color is WRONG and will not

S I D E A

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P S I T E A C B A V S P A A M O T R V S O R T I O F L L A E F S S

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NOTE: I Saw You/Cheers & Jeers is for adults 18 or older. The Inlander reserves the right to edit or reject any posting at any time at its sole discretion and assumes no responsibility for the content.

The Inlander is committed to keeping people informed and connected throughout the coronavirus outbreak. Pick up the paper - available at most of your favorite grocery stores, among other places, and check Inlander.com for the latest.

MARCH 26, 2020 INLANDER 43

STREAMING

Exploring Strange New Worlds Make the most of your quarantine while stoned with these visual escapes

BY WILL MAUPIN

Y

ou shouldn’t find yourself rewatching some sitcom for the thousandth time or sitting through a vacuous Hollywood blockbuster just because you’re stoned and stuck inside during the age of social distancing. Yes, the couch is among the most stereotypical locations in the world of weed. It doesn’t have to be,

Spirited Away though. You can keep your brain active and engaged even if you are stoned and sitting in front of a screen all night. Here are two ways I’ve managed to do just that in recent weeks.

MOVIES BY STUDIO GHIBLI

Sometimes it’s nice to just get away for a while. Not being able to leave the house makes that rather tough. Thankfully, fantasy movies exist. Specifically, those from Studio Ghibli, which late last year became available for digital purchase from services like Apple TV and Amazon Prime — ahead of a jump to streaming service HBO Max when it launches later this spring.

Best known in the United States for 2001’s Spirited Away, named by the New York Times in 2017 as the second-

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44 INLANDER MARCH 26, 2020

best film of the century so far, the Ghibli collection is massive and overwhelmingly amazing. Whether taking place on a post-apocalyptic otherworld or on our own — albeit a version of our own with pigs as fighter pilots — Studio Ghibli movies are truly fantastical. They’re not traditionally stoner movies in any way, but they’re certainly among the most fun I’ve watched high. Plus, the animation is astonishingly beautiful. The flight scenes from Kiki’s Delivery Service or those featuring the lush and verdant Castle in the Sky are like coming up on edibles at the museum. It’s almost more high art than anime.

CRASHCOURSE ASTRONOMY

First of all, I’m pretty sure this was made for middle ...continued on page 46

BE AWARE: Marijuana is legal for adults 21 and older under Washington State law (e.g., RCW 69.50, RCW 69.51A, HB0001 Initiative 502 and Senate Bill 5052). State law does not preempt federal law; possessing, using, distributing and selling marijuana remains illegal under federal law. In Washington state, consuming marijuana in public, driving while under the influence of marijuana and transporting marijuana across state lines are all illegal. Marijuana has intoxicating effects; there may be health risks associated with its consumption, and it may be habit-forming. It can also impair concentration, coordination and judgment. Do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of this drug. Keep out of reach of children. For more information, consult the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board at www.liq.wa.gov.

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BE AWARE: Marijuana is legal for adults 21 and older under Washington State law (e.g., RCW 69.50, RCW 69.51A, HB0001 Initiative 502 and Senate Bill 5052). State law does not preempt federal law; possessing, using, distributing and selling marijuana remains illegal under federal law. In Washington state, consuming marijuana in public, driving while under the influence of marijuana and transporting marijuana across state lines are all illegal. Marijuana has intoxicating effects; there may be health risks associated with its consumption, and it may be habit-forming. It can also impair concentration, coordination and judgment. Do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of this drug. Keep out of reach of children. For more information, consult the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board at www.liq.wa.gov.

Keep Calm and Toke On!

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MARCH. 27TH-29TH

STREAMING

NOTE TO READERS

“EXPLORING STRANGE NEW WORLDS,” CONTINUED...

Be aware of the differences in the law between Idaho and Washington. It is illegal to possess, sell or transport cannabis in the State of Idaho. Possessing up to an ounce is a misdemeanor and can get you a year in jail and up to a $1,000 fine; more than three ounces is a felony that can carry a five-year sentence and fine of up to $10,000. Transporting marijuana across state lines, like from Washington into Idaho, is a felony under federal law.

schoolers. That’s fine, though, because cannabis has a way of bringing out our inner child.

Author and NASA astronomer Phil Plait hosts a 43-episode series on the CrashCourse YouTube channel, starting with the basics before working towards subjects like neutron stars and dark matter. You don’t need to smoke in order to be blown away by outer space, but if you’re like me, getting stoned might be the difference between watching an episode and watching an episode with your jaw on the floor for the entire time.

Plus, since it’s for kids, it’s fun and easy to understand no matter how little you know about science or how stoned you accidentally got off that joint of Northern Lights (a phenomenon which you can learn about in episode 10). n

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DOWN 1. Cut off 2. U.S. govt. security 3. Suburb of Minneapolis 4. Got away 5. Epitome of easiness 6. Wild guess 7. Tribe under attack in “Hotel Rwanda” 8. Poker-faced 9. NBA first name that’s Arabic for “noble” or “exalted” 10. Diplomat W. ___ Harriman who represented the U.S. at Vietnam peace talks 11. Cocktail with vodka, cranberry juice and grapefruit juice 12. Elba of “The Wire” 13. Tortilla chip dip 18. Cleveland hoopster 24. “Me day” destination 26. Compete (for) 28. Qty.

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lyric) 42. Opening setting of “Madagascar” 43. Some members of Parliament 46. “Flowers in the Attic” author 49. Substandard 51. Animal that sounds like you?

52. Delivery methods 57. “Survivor” sites 61. Cry at a surprise birthday party 62. Lays an egg 64. Henry VIII’s sixth wife Catherine 65. Possible score after deuce 66. Malady represented by this grid’s groups of circled letters 68. Off! ingredient 69. Scruffy couple?

70. Price-fixing syndicate 71. Actors Neill and Waterston 72. Seattle-to-Reno dir.

73. Cheap and inauthentic

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ACROSS 1. Brews, as tea 7. “Naughty!”

10. Without alteration 14. Breaks off a relationship 15. Tony winner Hagen 16. Hindu scripture 17. Performer who is heard but not seen 19. “Downton Abbey” title 20. Sicilian volcano 21. Count who composed “One O’Clock Jump” 22. Hank Aaron’s 2,297 23. Brings in 25. Oppositely 27. “Learn about the UV Index” org.

29. Marathon segment 30. Singer with the 1949 #1 hit “You’re Breaking My Heart” 36. Campaign sign word 39. Org. that puts its seal on toothpaste tubes 40. “____ see it my way” (Beatles

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73 54. Five 55-Down kings 55. Early settlers of Iceland “VOICE” 56. Eavesdrop, say 35. Texter’s “When are you coming?” 58. Starbucks serving 37. Animal that grazes 59. Great Lakes natives 38. How-____ (instructional books) 60. “r u 4 real?”

41. Tip jar bill 63. ‘60’s civil rights org.

44. Museum guides 67. “This is SO frustrating!”

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