ROSS TOWNSHIP, Pennsylvania — Seven years ago, combat veteran Jack Mook was a hard-nosed Pittsburgh detective who stumbled upon two young brothers who showed up intermittently at the boxing gym where he volunteered. The boys were living on the edge of despair: Their birth parents had failed them, their foster parents had failed them, and the system had failed them.
The “home” the boys lived in was a filthy rats nest filled with dog feces, fleas, and no beds. The oldest brother’s hair was falling out in gobs, and his skin was filled with red blotches. The younger brother wept all of the time.
In short order, Mook got an emergency order and brought the boys home. Nights out for Mook the bachelor became family nights of pizza and board games. Healthier food became part of their diet, and so did rules, homework, and structure.
In the years it took Mook to become their father legally, he learned one thing: Government, bureaucracy, and institutions designed to serve consistently failed their missions on several levels.
Today, he is newly married to Mary. The boys are young men and thriving. Mook is retired from the force and opened a boxing gym that trains young athletes — a business, like many small businesses across the country, that has been forced to close under government edicts.
Once again, Mook is staring down an entanglement of government far removed from the needs and the rights of the people it is designed to serve.
Mook isn’t alone. He is a snapshot of small businesses, frozen with the effects of uncertainty, loss, fear, and frustration, that may go from being the centers of their neighborhoods to abandoned sentinels that hold up the ghosts of the businesses that used to be.
A year ago, Ray Mikesell was offering “Sunday Suppers” to his customers — family-style meals on long tables, just like grandma used to make when growing up, bringing together parents, cousins, uncles, and neighbors on a weekly basis. He served the meals at his Penn Avenue restaurant to people who no longer had family to eat with. Despite few people knowing each other, they always ended up being just as noisy and just as delicious, and they filled a void many people found missing in their lives.
Today, Mikesell is doing whatever he can to keep his doors open. He, too, has been kneecapped by Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s mandated shutdown of restaurants. Now, he’s making dinners for four to take home, offering home delivery, and hoping the phone rings for takeout orders.
There have been societal effects from these closures that show both the good and the bad in our culture. Many question how we were so willing as a nation to give up our liberties so quickly. Others find it to be a political occurrence and praise it. Others in the middle wonder how elected officials have become so tone-deaf that they can stand at a podium and destroy their friends’ and neighbors’ lives, knowing they will walk away from the cameras and the press still holding their jobs. They also wonder if these elected officials have ever sat with a restaurant owner who is on the brink of closing forever, has laid off the staff, and struggles to make ends meet.
People have also turned against each other — hollowed-out souls on social media who scold those they think aren’t doing everything by the book, often reporting them to authorities as well.
Small businesses, including restaurants and gyms, have been hit particularly hard by shutdown orders related to the pandemic. An economic impact report released by Yelp three months ago that tracked business closures through their customer review listings found that nearly 100,000 businesses permanently closed from March 1 through August 31. At that time, about 66,000 others were temporarily closed. One can imagine the permanent closures growing significantly by year’s end, especially now that lockdowns have become more strict in recent weeks.
Mook and Mikesell’s stories are not unique. They are just two of millions of people who have become the victims of a pandemic whose deadly path is not limited to being stricken with the virus — from the small businesses that are hanging on by a thread or shuttered forever to the isolation that has led to a dramatic spike in overdoses and suicides.
Years from now, when we walk past the graves of the restaurants, shops, and gyms that didn’t make it, will we ask ourselves how we let this happen? Or will we have accepted that we laid down our liberties one day to flatten a curve and never fought to get them back?
This is not to say that people should break laws intended to protect the vulnerable from a deadly virus. But it is time to wonder whether the government has wielded too much power with little communication or outreach.
John Longstreet, the CEO of the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association, said the last time he had a conversation with the governor’s office was in July. A little over a week ago, as rumors swirled that another big shutdown was coming, he said he reached out to the office, imploring the administration to do one thing: “Give us adequate notice.”
It did not.
“The results have been devastating. Not only did these small business owners have to lay off their staffs, the food they ordered for the month is either going to spoil or have to be donated. Whatever they can facilitate, either way, it cost them additional millions in lost revenue,” Longstreet said.
If Christmas is the time of year to open our hearts and our generosity, small businesses need us to have both. The former will lead to the latter in all of us to support them, whether it is buying gift cards for their shops, ordering takeout, or giving them a call to see how you can help.
They are us. They are the people who keep our children or ourselves fit even when we don’t want to. They bring us together to break the fast for Sunday brunch. They feed a hungry crew after a big bike ride. Behind the scenes, people like Mook donate their services to families who can’t afford gyms but need the outlet to help keep their children in line.
And people like Mikesell spend hours preparing food packages for the food bank, donating time and treasure while barely holding on.
Giving back to people like them, to the families who have lost someone, or to healthcare workers and police officers might help ease the pain of whatever we have lost this year. Certainly, it cannot hurt to try.
