My 1967 Detroit "Lock-Down" Experience

   My son asked if I had ever previously experienced anything like this Covid 19 disaster. The experience that comes closest is the 1967 riot in Detroit. It was July; I was soon to turn twelve years of age, my attention to the recently released “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club” album shifted to the news of the day. Riots had erupted in Detroit.

   The situation had grown beyond what the mayor or the Governor of Michigan could handle with their recourses.  President Johnson intervened and sent in military troops to assume command of Detroit.

   I think Detroit is the only city in our history that has been occupied by the military.

  A state of emergency had been declared. No one could go to work or even be on the sidewalks. People not complying with the “stay at home” order were incarcerated on Belle Isle.  A food truck, accompanied by military personnel came around. You could go to the truck, buy food, and then back into your home.

   During this intense, military lock-down, I, being almost 12, thought that surely the lock down would not apply to me. I was in my back yard listening to the news on my transistor radio. Curious as a cat, I ventured into the alley. All was quiet. So I took a walk down the alley. I came to the intersection of alley and street. When I stepped from the alley into the street, a soldier, the only human aside from me on the street, dressed in full military gear, turned around quickly with his rifle pointing at me.

    This almost twelve year old kid then knew the danger of thinking that “nothing will happen to me”.

I humbly said “Ok” and I turned and went back home.

I am sure that the well-trained soldier, a human being, had quickly excercised control sufficient not to pull the trigger.

    But this Covid 19 virus has no cognitive reasoning with which to restrain its full, aggressive, attack.

   Be safe. Be healthy. Stay home.