New Englanders are a hardy lot, have always been so, and I am proud to live among them. They are survivors. Hardened by revolution and war, tax collectors, politicians, hostile Indians, hurricanes, astronomical high tides with storm driven tidal surges, heavy wet snows that crush in your roof, fell trees across the power lines and fix it so you can’t get out of your driveway or flush your toilet.

New Englanders are quick to sense impending danger and they know what to do.

Lay in a supply of the necessities – toilet paper, pasta, eggs, beans, hot dogs, and orange juice, and also flashlight batteries, distilled water, fuel for the generator and a bottle of something warm.

If you need a distant early warning sign for an approaching storm, hurricane, blizzard, revolution, Super Bowl game, flood of tourists, or other pestilence, just watch the parking lot of the nearest grocery store, and when it suddenly fills up with cars, you are about to learn what’s a luxury and what’s a necessity.

Do what New Englanders do. Buy up the necessities quick.

As it turns out, a pandemic has the same hardening effect on those, who survive it. Surviving a pandemic is like living in a foreign land for six months, serving in the armed forces, living through a tornado, hurricane, flood, or heavy wet snowstorm. You learn what’s important because you need it, and the rest is just nice.

And so there is some good that comes out of surviving a pandemic. You learn what you need and what you really don’t, and that’s a good thing to know.

Orrin Frink is a Kennebunkport resident. He can be reached at ofrink@gmail.com.

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