Hey Hey Hey and Welcome to The Lobby here in the pages of The Mighty InRock, it’s been an interesting few weeks for us here in the US, as is the rest of the country, we’ve been in isolation in our home due to the Coronavirus pandemic for the past couple of weeks. None of my family have contracted the virus and we are so thankful for that, with all of our Goo Goo Dolls shows cancelled for the next few months (with a few Asia dates affected including a festival in Osaka that we hope to have rescheduled soon) we’ve been able to ride this thing out with the rest of the humans on this planet. My wife has been in Japan with her family for the past month and was living through the experience weeks before we were so we were prepared for the experience, complete with lots of toilet paper and paper towels stocked up in our cupboard as it seems to be an issue through this situation.

My daughter Hana has been off of school for the past 2 weeks as well, which has made me PapaSensei for the home schooling portion of this experience, Hana is in 2nd grade and I’m getting a re-education of sorts as we make our way through the mysteries of math, spelling, social studies, reading, a little physical education and art every morning here at our house. I used to think that I would make a great teacher, not so sure of that now, but I’m doing my best and my daughter is being fairly gentle with me as we make our way through the lessons.

According to what we’ve been told social distancing is the key to stopping the spread of this virus, keep your hands clean, cover your mouth when you cough, and if you’re sick stay home, pretty sensible stuff I guess we should be practicing every day anyways. But all of this mandatory separation from each other could have a potentially negative effect on our society. Out of medical necessity we have to distance ourselves from each other for safety in a time when we really need to be supporting each other to get through this. I’m hoping the world of Social Media and tech can “redeem” itself and provide the connections with each other that we need for a healthy society. Social media has been maligned and criticized for giving us a false sense of relationships; this may be the time for that concept to become a little more real in our lives. Call Obaachan every few days, she’d love to hear from you. And just like washing your hands and the rest, it’s something maybe we can keep up with once this crisis has played itself out.

Our Cherry Blossom Festival in May here in Buffalo has not officially been canceled but we are awaiting the word of the cancellation as Washington DC, Brooklyn and many others have cancelled their events and installed cameras in the gardens asking people to enjoy the blossoms on the internet as they keep themselves and their families safe at home. Like I said before, GO INTERNET!!! I hope this provides a little joy for the folks at home, especially the elderly who are most at risk and the most isolated through this event.

As we make our way through this pandemic here in America we’ve watched Japan make it’s way through the Covid 19 crisis and we should really use their model of cooperation and Japan’s cultural value of their people as a group to help us move this forward towards and end. We are nothing without each other … and as in every hardship there’s a ton to be learned from the experience. We'll talk soon ...

Be safe, Be healthy ….

Talk Soon

Robby