Let that Pokemon go!

RIB’S RAMBLINGS

Mark Ribble

So we watched the big game on Sunday from the comfort of our living room. Well, I can confess that we watched the first half of the game and the halftime show, as much of a chore as that was to get through.

It left me saying, “Thank goodness The Weeknd is over.”

We managed to make some homemade potato skins and nachos and I overcooked the chicken wings we bought, but we made the best of it — just the two of us.

We were tempted to sneak the grandkids in, to at least share in the food, but we refrained from doing so, in order to do our part to help get this COVID nonsense behind us.

We haven’t seen them — except for window and patio visits — since before Christmas, as is the case with many of our readers.

We heard about people we knew having gatherings to watch the game and shook our heads at the real possibility that, just as the COVID numbers were starting to subside, spikes may occur in two weeks time due to the selfishness of some.

On the other side of the coin, we saw news footage about the young couple from Kingsville who were ticketed in Leamington for playing Pokemon Go in their van last Wednesday.

I wonder if the officer was having a bad day, or if there is more to the story than reported on the news. I ‘d hope that anyone applying the Reopening Ontario Act to that situation, should have had some leeway to issue a warning.

We’ve all fallen into the COVID fatigue phenomenon.

It’s been so long, that people are getting really tired of the lockdowns and tired of being afraid of catching this virus.

Everyone’s exhausted and I think each person has a certain level of tolerance for their lives being turned upside down.

That family was doing nothing different than what many of us do to break The boats could be taken through the placid canal or out into the rougher waters of Lake Erie. This the monotony of COVID lockdown life photograph of an unidentified family, standing outside the Cedar Beach Drug Store, was taken in — going for a drive. the late 1940s or early 1950s.

The guidelines say ‘non-essential travel’ — and yes — playing a game with your kids is probably not essential travel — but neither is going for a drive to Point Pelee, or sitting at Leamington Marina watching the sunset.

Or are they?

Some, including me, believe these are all essential in sustaining our mental health.

The OPP issued a standard statement, reiterating what the Reopening Act says, and that is, that you cannot make non-essential trips.

I guess the interpretation of ‘non-essential’ is left up to the individual officer, who, in this case, decided to issue a ticket.

None of us have handled this pandemic perfectly, from the top levels of government all the way down to the average citizen. We’ve all had our moments where we’ve thought, “should I be doing this?”

But, for the most part, Canadians have behaved very well to help stop the spread of COVID.

I’d like to think that a judge will throw out the ticket issued to that family last week. Of course, we're talking about our justice system-- the same one that puts thieves and thugs back out on the streets hours after they are arrested -- but that's a column for another day.