"Hey!"
A couple days ago, a complete stranger -- or so I'd thought -- accosted me upon a casual stroll near my home in the Strip. He'd been jogging while wearing a mask, and his hoodie was pulled up, too. I had no idea who this was.
And yet, he kept approaching.
"Hey!" he came again, then crossed the street to come a little closer. And still had no idea, silently angling my head to make that clear.
Then he pulled the mask down.
"It's me! Dom!"
Oh, my. Dominik Simon. As if 'CZECH REPUBLIC' emblazoned across the blue hoodie shouldn't have given it away.
We spoke for a bit, probably a dozen feet between us. We spoke about the weirdness at hand. About missing hockey. About missing everything and everyone that made our respective lives what they were before coronavirus shut us all down. And then, he kept right on running, and I went right back to that street being empty.
Man, was that sad. Not sure how else to explain it.
It's now been exactly a full month since the Penguins' game was canceled in Columbus, and I'm not shy about admitting there's been a lot of that. Sadness. Anger. Sameness. Even some semi-anxiety.
And understand, I don't apply that latter term lightly. Some do, but not those who've suffered from the clinical form. It's a very real condition, and it can be deeply debilitating, as I learned a decade ago upon blowing out my back and being unable to work. My whole brain went kaboom for a few months.
Know what helps the most, in pretty much any circumstance?
Yep. Talking.
So that's what we'll do here. All of us.
Let's hear about your experiences, your emotions through a month of this.
Let's hear about your health, of that of your family, friends, neighbors.
Above all, let's hear about tangible help you might need.
Obviously, we can't promise or guarantee executing any such help, but one never knows who might be capable in a community as big and as tightly knit as this one. It might be connections or contacts. It might be business or financial advice. It might be more. We can't help if we don't hear about it in the first place.
Similarly, if you want to be the one who helps, listen up, engage, ask questions. I can share that, over the weekend, we donated $500 to the Pittsburgh Food Bank on behalf of DK Pittsburgh Sports, and I've got to tell you it felt awesome. That's hardly some giant sum of money, but we learned it'll cover 2,500 meals for people in need across our region.
This'll be like our figurative Market Square, a meetup spot for a Monday lunch Downtown.
Be like Dom. Pull down the mask and make your presence known.
