by William Skink

The reopening is weird.

I think I engaged in some civil disobedience yesterday with my daughter. Let me explain.

Yesterday we went on a morning bike ride adventure to allow my boys to better focus on the shit-show of remote learning. We started at McCormick park and headed toward the Good Food Store to get some food for lunch.

The grocery shopping experience was my daughter’s first commercial retail experience since the shelter-in-place order was proclaimed by our Governor in March.

She was so excited.

I had my mask, which the store requires, but not a mask for the little one. Luckily the grocery store provides bandanas at the entrance for anyone who isn’t prepared, so I tied one on and we procured our lunch.

With our food packed, we proceeded to bike along the Clark Fork river trail toward the worst performing University flagship in the country. As we approached, the smell of chemicals hung heavy in the air, which was confirmed by signs indicating all the grass had recently been treated.

So we biked onward, toward Bonner Park.

We arrived around 11:30am. We found a picnic table and settled in. My little girl wanted to play, so she played. There were about 4 or 5 other kids playing as well, the progeny, I deduced, of two women sitting on a park bench. Should I snitch and expose them for sitting closer than 6 feet away from each other?

Here’s another question: did I see the sign that said the playground was closed before allowing my daughter to play? Yes, yes I did. And did I allow her to play and make a new friend anyway? Yes, yes I did. And did two police officers bike through the park and ignore all this rule-breaking going on with our children? Yes, yes they did.

I was briefly worried, as was my mom, who arrived just as the cops biked through the park. But there was no need to worry; this park is in the University district, which means lots of deep-pocketed Caucasian Karens bring their kids here, and since I am blazingly Caucasian, the cops just breezed on by.

The next phase of reopening Montana for the tourist hordes hits June 1st. With an alluringly low case count, we better prepare for a massive influx of cabin-fever-crazed tourists flooding the state.