Last week, I described the four waves of COVID’s demoralizing ups and downs — steep and rapid on the upside and slo-mo declines on the back side.

We did have a brief time between June and the first week of August, when we began to believe the stars were moving into alignment for us. New case numbers had plummeted, treading water daily in the low teens. The ICUs were near empty. We began to believe we were in the pandemic’s home stretch and the light at the end of the tunnel was only a few steps away.

We had good reasons to be hopeful. Since January, Maine had been in the nation’s vanguard for jabs in the arms. We had been assured the three vaccines were 91 to 95 percent effective against COVID-19. Youngsters, 12 to 18, could now get the shot. It was June, summer in Maine, when we were safer outdoors.

Soon, those red and green, one-way aisle arrows in the stores were gone. No more being given the evil eye. The 6-feet “keep your social distancing” floor stencils had magically disappeared. We were told we could now bring our cloth shopping bags.

Masks disappeared. Again, unadorned face-to-face with friends and neighbors, we took in newly revealed facial expressions and long-missed smiles. We could feel the pandemic’s stress lifting off our shoulders. We slept more soundly at night.

There was so much pent-up demand to do things, anything, because we were done with cowering at home. Like the cowardly lion, we now had the courage, confidence, and safety to venture out.

We quickly sorted out who was safely vaccinated and small get-togethers for wine time and casual dinners began to happen. It all felt akin to venturing out after a major winter blizzard.

Cautiously, we began to explore our old outs and about. We’ve been life-long, big-screen movie fans, but COVID, much like Godzilla taking on Tokyo, had crushed the movie industry. Mid-June, we drove down to Newington, New Hampshire, to take in our first in-theater movie in 15 months.

The theater lobby was packed with families queuing up to see either a Disney release or a Marvel Comics movie. “A Quiet Place Part II” was an option, but we’d already had enough pandemic scares without paying $9 each to add a new one to the list.

We opted for “Into the Heights,” put together by the “Hamilton” crew. Set in one of New York City’s immigrant neighborhoods, its optimism, resilience, and upbeat, toe-tapping singing and dancing, was exactly what we needed to lift our sagging morale.

Though only a dozen, afternoon moviegoers were safely scattered throughout the theater, given the arrival of Delta and our fourth wave surge, that day will be our only in-the-theater excursion, until the fat lady sings. I don’t think we’re the only ones making that decision.

Last year, I had lamented that it’s not really summer in Maine if there’s no summer theater.

Maine’s summer theaters and concert venues in late spring gambled and advertised their upcoming shows. Entertainment-starved theater and concert-goers eagerly bought up the tickets.

Our 2021 theater experience mirrors the highs and lows of that two-month stretch when we were enjoying that too short whiff of normal.

The Maine Music Theater courageously launched its season in mid-July with an Everly Brothers tribute show. It was a full house with no social distancing and masks were optional.

The Everly Brothers were popular in the ’50s and ’60s, so it was an older crowd, but only about 10 percent wore masks.

Mid-August, we had tickets for “Johnny Cash: A Ring of Fire” at Portland’s Maine Stage. It was an outstanding show, normally would be sold out, but wasn’t. We had our first hint why, when we received an advance email informing us that masks were required.

They weren’t kidding. The female volunteer ushers were probably retired junior high teachers and enforced the mask mandate with a vengeance. A nose peeking out drew their immediate pointing and scolding looks.

The following week, the Maine Music Theater announced that attendees at their three fall shows would have to furnish either a COVID-vaccination card or a recent COVID-negative test result.

Days later, the theater announced the cancellation of their fall season because of the policy backlash and the public’s full awareness now that we’re in the midst of a more dangerous fourth wave with the Delta variant.

That’s how quickly it happened: full houses in July to canceled theater and concert shows at the end of August. The peak of the high tide of this brief whiff of normal was Aug. 1, when the TSA recorded their highest pandemic airport passenger count in 18 months.

My weekly trips to the grocery store have helped me develop an on-going sense of our local response to these COVID waves. I call it the Hannaford Barometer.

During the month of July and the first week of August, I estimated the grocery shoppers were 20 percent masked and 70 percent not. Two weeks later, the percentages had flipped, and it you weren’t masked, you could feel the dagger looks. Shoppers had also resumed social distancing on their own in the aisles and at the registers. No signs were needed.

Usually during the two weeks before the start of school, you’d see the young kids loading up their parent’s cart with the makings for school lunches and after-school munchies. This August, these youngsters, unvaccinated under 12, have again disappeared from the stores and have had to live with their parent’s healthier picks.

Our shared experience from the three earlier, deadly, COVID waves, and now the new clear and present and more contagious Delta variant warns us, “Buckle up your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

Be smart and out of respect for the people around you, it’s time to get your vaccine shot.

Tom Murphy is a retired history teacher and state representative. He is a Kennebunk Landing resident and can be reached at tsmurphy@myfairpoint.net.

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