Please Don't Touch The Glass

Signs of the Times During COVID-19

Today I went to my favorite printmaking shop to make films for my silkscreens. I looked online before I left my house to see what time the store opened. According to the online information, the store opened at 10am.

When I arrived, I saw this gigantic orange and yellow sign: Spirit Halloween. I thought that maybe my print shop was working on a seasonal project - something related to Halloween. As I approached the front door, which was locked, I realized that the print shop had closed. A costume place had moved in.

I decided to walk around the neighborhood and found several shops had gone out of business. What was a little jarring about these closed stores was there was no information about their closures on the Internet. Technology had not caught up with their disappearances.

I'm not exactly sure when they went out of business. The last time I walked around that section of my town was about four months ago.

It was truly a ghost town and I was sad to see so many lively places closed. I was especially curious about the employees, and wondered where they went. If, they found other employment or not?

I decided to go to the coffee shop to pick up a cup of decaf. Everything was so different even Please Don't Touch the Glass.

*Coronavirus Disease 2019:

Update in Maryland- 8/17/2020

100,715 confirmed cases

3,641 deaths 6,004 recovered

Update in New York State - 8/17/2020

425,916 confirmed cases

32,846 deaths 74,154 recovered

Total in United States: 5,425,545 confirmed cases, 170,317 deaths

Total Worldwide: 21,770,754 confirmed cases, 776,819 deaths

* All numbers are taken from Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center

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