Kirk C. Watkins, Ward. As Colorado struggles through its fourth month of the coronavirus pandemic, many of the state’s businesses have undergone dramatic shifts, trying desperately to maneuver through the convoluted landscape of response strategies. All of this in an effort to provide goods and services to the hardest hit communities that depend on these businesses’ rapid responses, and effective management.

Ward is staving off the worst of the effects of the coronavirus pandemic as many of our local businesses have been forced to do. The virus is brutal to small businesses, and many communities are dealing with the combination of changing social and governmental reactions. Some if these reactions include constantly shifting requirements, loved ones being hit by the virus which seemingly affects the next differently than the last, and a political spin being responsible for a campaign of disinformation which is leading to sometimes intense reactions from the very people being served. But while wearing masks and socially distancing may be uncomfortable and inconvenient to some, it is also a lifesaver for others that have preexisting conditions or are vulnerable to the virus that causes the Covid-19 illness.

Katrina Pattridge, the new owner of the Jacklegger Mercantile in Ward, has been dealing with these and other hurdles as she has adjusted to the new way of doing business.  

“We’ve had to change our menu and stuff, like we use to make sandwiches to order, now we are pre-making them. Like in the morning, I make a certain amount of them and just don’t put tomatoes and onions in them, they can get a side of that.” 

She has had to adjust to the rapidly evolving regulations placed upon businesses by the state, which have been necessarily changing as the knowledge base has increased and new methods of customer safety are updated.

“Last March we bought this store, and last summer was amazing,” she said, “bicyclists were our main customers, and Brainard is right there, which brings in a whole lot of people.” 

But the stream of customers has dwindled. “This year is totally different,” she continued, “February through April we closed down, because it was just, between Covid and the kids being home from school, you would be here for nine hours and make seventeen bucks. And it was cold, you would have a lot of waste, it was brutal.” Ultimately, she had to make a choice to close down for the season, closing the store in February, and reopening in May.

One regulation which has strangely caused emotional reactions is the face-covering regulation regarding businesses in Boulder County. 

According to the Boulder County website, https://www.bouldercounty.org/families/disease/covid-19/face-covering-order/

“Each person within Boulder County, except as specifically exempted below, must wear a face covering whenever they are outside their residence and unable to maintain, or when not maintaining, social distance of at least 6 feet from any non-household members.”

Katrina has navigated these issues regarding the state and county regulations, and customer reactions have covered the spectrum, from acceptance to outright defiance and belligerence. And as she is the sole proprietor and main worker, along with her two daughters, Autumn and Brook, she has had to deal with this broad range of reactions from customers. 

“It’s been really hard with Covid, because people are either really respectful, or they refuse to wear a mask,” she said, “I’ve thought about not taking cash because the bicyclists, most of them are respectful, but some will hand you wet sweaty money, and I’m like, ‘that’s gross when there is not Covid.’” 

She continued to explain the flow of customers into the mountains, and the variables that have affected her business. “It wasn’t just that it was Covid and that we had different regulations to follow, I think it was that people weren’t going out, they weren’t driving in the mountains to ski so much, whereby in May people got stir crazy. So, people started coming up to the mountains and it really helped.”

For her children, the ones that have been her right and left hands running the business, there have been adjustments to make as well. “They were used to making expresso’s and dealing with people, and especially when it first happened, I didn’t want the girls exposed to everything.” 

She expressed the difficulty of having children being exposed to customers from another perspective, “It’s that balance between, I don’t want to teach the girls to be scared, but we want to be cautious, and there’s people, bicyclists and others that have made it hard, where it’s been made a political thing. And because I’m trying to follow the Boulder County health regulations and have my business stay open.” 

Her youngest daughter approaches her with a handful of tomatoes and a large, very sharp knife, inquiring about technical cooking instruction. Katrina deftly navigates around the knife and sends her daughter back to the kitchen to prepare more ingredients. 

She continues with her sentence in stride, “and they are my best help, so keeping them safe is my biggest…” Again, she is interrupted by a customer that was sent out of the store minutes before to retrieve his mask that he left in the car outside. As she takes his money, helps him to find the assorted wallet, drinks and other goods he had left inside the store when he went to mask up, and completes the transaction, she thanks him for wearing a mask. He responds that he forgot that it was made a “legal deal” and she explains that she “wants to stay open.” As the customer leaves, he makes comments referring to the County as “Nazis”.

And she continues her explanation, again in stride. “We don’t like wearing our masks all day.” She recognizes that nobody really wants to wear a mask all day, but to keep her business and her customers, and her family safe, she does what is necessary for the good of the community. 

Then she describes some of the logistical modifications that they made. “We’ve done certain things to be safe,” she says, “this used to be over here, (pointing to a tray of fresh baked muffins) the coffee used to be self-serve, I’ve pulled all of the pretzels, it’s only me touching it. We’ve got the huge hand sanitizer. When it’s nice outside I leave the door open which costs me more money in cooling. It’s definitely a lot more work, but if somebody gets sick here it’s not good.”

She points to her oldest daughter, “She gets mad at me, because I don’t let her deal with people’s money and stuff now.” She turns to her daughter, “right Autumn, because money is gross?” Her daughter just looks down and nods. It’s a snapshot of the strain that is being placed on families trying to do their best in a difficult time. 

Katrina’s sense of humor has not been affected, it seems, as she tells of the random things that have happened. “It’s harder to get them to wash their hands, and we’ve had people take our hand sanitizer. We’ve had a lot of little interesting things happen.” 

She points at a huge jar of sanitizer sitting next to the register. “You turn your back and the whole thing of sanitizer is gone. We have to buy the biggest ones we can find because at first we had the little ones and they were disappearing really fast.” She laughs at the absurdity of this, but it’s a reality that is sinking into our daily lives. Continuing, she adds a comment that is striking. “Those two that just came in, they kept it down a little bit because we had so many people here, but people come in and go on political rants, and she’s been brought to tears,” she said pointing at her oldest daughter. 

And her daughter speaks up, saying “people make me cry.” 

Katrina nods and continues, “It doesn’t matter what our opinion is, because Boulder County will shut me down, and this is how I feed my children, so shut up and put your mask on, or don’t come in.”

Our daily lives have been fundamentally altered in ways that are far reaching and not entirely understood yet. As it sinks in that we are not going to get out of this quickly or easily, and as the coronavirus becomes more understood, we as a community and as people all across the Earth are starting to understand that this will probably be a long-term change in reality. Perhaps in the meantime, the folks that operate our lifelines to goods and services can be supported and their families looked after, as they look after ours.

(Originally published in the July 23, 2020, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)