COVID-19 and our Friday night dinners
Background:
I
think we started having dinner every Friday with friends in 2009. Well, truth
be told, we did not start having dinners with friends but rather weaseled our
way into an existing group, who at that time were not exactly our friends. We
did know most of them and met them occasionally at parties and thought what a great
idea, having dinner together every Friday. So we kept inviting ourselves to
their dinners at small ethnic
restaurants in Cincinnati. Russell, the main organizer, often went out for
lunch during the week on restaurant scouting trips with his friend Dean. And if
the joint they visited passed the taste bud test then the place was on for the
group to visit at least once. We liked the idea, and we liked the people, all
we needed now was for them to start liking us. Looking back, I think we succeeded on
both fronts. We became members, and as the years went by, we became hosts of
these dinners many a times in our house as well.
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| At our steps, Russel is in front middle |
And a strong bond, an
incredible friendship developed with the group and with its soul, Russell.
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| Russell, the photographer, is hiding in the back, first person on the left in the back row |
Russell
is no longer with us, for
those of you who did not have the luck to know him I attempted to describe
Russell at the time of his death in 2018 when I wrote a tribute, titled Russell
in this blog. The void he left is tremendous, and the Friday night dinners are
but a small part of it. I felt we owe it to him to continue the tradition and
not skipping even one week. We have, for almost two years, continued getting
together, adding new members and losing some. We enjoy ourselves and yet we
know our meetings, our conversations will never be the same. At times we talk
about him, laughing and crying at the same time. His rules of conversations
have never been enforced, although of course his book on the subject has never
been written either. He, often the sole American among us implants, is missing.
So we thought, nothing will ever stop us from continuing the tradition.
Then
came COVID-19. No more dinners. Or so it seemed. But the spirit has prevailed,
snuggling up in our cocoon, in our own living rooms, kitchens and dining rooms,
separately yet still together through the internet, we are still having
dinners. Zoom will connect us from even afar, New York, South Dakota and
Cincinnati all have former and present members who stare at the screen at 7 pm
on Friday nights and try to make sense of our crazy world. For we do not
believe in social distancing, we only want physical distancing. For now, more
than ever we do need to keep in touch, and if we cannot do it in person we must
do it through the ether.
Let's see how long it will last.
