This was the Saturday that the 34th Annual Not-So-Impromptu Tulip Parade did not take place in the month the Tulip Festival was cancelled, in the spring that school stopped for the rest of the year. This is the year that a novel coronavirus conquered the world.

This is the time that the economy stopped and people from Washington state to Washington D.C. were told to stay home and stay out of work, to close their shops, shutter and shut down their factories. This, the year of our Lord 2020, is the year without Easter services in church for the Christians among us and without our Jewish friends gathering families for Passover Seders.

Today is not tax day, either. That deadline is now July 15.

This ongoing missing everything and doing nothing has to continue maddeningly, frustrating for a still ongoing length of time, into an unknown and still uncertain future.

This was the weekend that signs stating limited access from this point on were placed at the roundabout into town and the Town’s First and Morris Street restrooms were locked.

And, like every previous weekend for the last month, cars steamed into La Conner. Many of those cars had earlier parked on Best Road north of McLean Road, where their Seattle-area occupants took in the rainbow colored tulip fields.

Those people are disregarding Gov. Jay Inslee’s Stay Home order. Their presence gives La Conner merchants the urge to sell to them. That is the nature of a tourist economy.

Mayor Ramon Hayes, a store owner himself, is wearing his public servant hat. He is adamant about keeping the town shut down and minimizing people breathing on each other. He is following public health experts long slow calendar to wait out the incubation period of people infected with this coronavirus virus.

Hayes is showing stellar leadership. He is rightfully cautious. His leadership path is more difficult to follow than the schools mandate, which has closed all schools statewide into June. The burden there is on staff, parents and children to fill their weeks with lessons, learning and meals. There is no leeway in the time and attention that must be given to our children.

Not so for the adults. Whether in an essential business or not, adults have to be more disciplined and less free than they want to be or are used to.

This is not like World War II, where defeating the enemy meant, unambiguously, curfews, rationing, recycling, victory gardens and black curtains on windows.

We are getting grim news from around the world of economies shut down, people locked up and body counts sadly rising in country after country. But the virus is a silent and slow killer. The person you speak with today can put you in the hospital two weeks later.

Patience is needed. We are not halfway through the necessary wait. On the far side of this is the good health of all of us.

The median age in La Conner is 54. All around us – you and me – are people with underlying conditions. We are the vulnerable population susceptible to infection.

Mayor Hayes is right to keep us apart and isolated. He is protecting us from our in worst instincts and the human propensity to rush in where angels fear to tread.

We are not angels yet and Hayes seeks to delay the reckoning day when we meet our makers.

For our own good that time might be six weeks to two months more out from today, mid-April. Get used to saying June.

We are all students now. We must practice discipline and patience, both. We are stuck as role models for the actual children in the community. We have no choice but to act our age.