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KDKA's Ken Rice: What Were We All Thinking About Before The World Turned Upside Down?

NOTE: This is a commentary.

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - A pandemic.

Economic collapse.

A reckoning with racism.

For months now, few subjects beyond these have squeezed their way into our nightly news. And as we begin returning to our usual routines, it can be hard to remember what was on our collective minds before all of this. Before we ever heard of the novel coronavirus; before we could imagine being ordered to stay in our homes while the economy tanked; before we ever heard the name George Floyd.

Let's go back 20 weeks - to the last week of January. On Monday the 27th, we had just celebrated music.

"The Grammy awards were last night, and it was kind of a subdued start," David Highfield told viewers of Pittsburgh Today Live that morning.

It was subdued not because we were focused on the coronavirus yet - that much was made obvious by the packed auditorium with no social distancing.

Rather, it was subdued because earlier that Sunday, Kobe Bryant and his teenage daughter were among those killed in a helicopter crash.

"Really an emotional way to get things started," Highfield said. "Even when Lizzo won, she referenced how fleeting life can be. I think it was on everyone's mind."

And as Pittsburgh went to work that Monday morning, as the Post-Gazette reported on January 27, we drove past billboards paying tribute to Bryant.

Bob Pompeani and Rich Walsh talked about Bryant that night on the Nightly Sports Call, but there was another big sports headline: The Pirates traded star outfielder Starling Marte.

"We knew something was gonna happen," said Walsh.

Impeachment was still very much on our minds. Yes, just 20 weeks ago the President's fate in the Senate remained unclear. It would be another week before he would be acquitted. And we were reading hints as to what was in former National Security Advisor John Bolton's forthcoming book that's just now - after 20 weeks - finally coming out.

All big news for sure, but not all the stories in "the before time" were as monumental. When you don't have an infectious disease for which there's no cure spreading worldwide, or unemployment unseen since the Great Depression, or social upheaval in our streets, there is time for smaller stories.

The hunting schedule made the news on January 27th.

A story about Mayor Peduto's idea for commuting by gondola made the news.

And there was time for PETA to make the case, a few days ahead of Groundhog Day, that it's time to give Phil a break in favor of an animatronic groundhog. This was our region and our world, 20 short weeks ago.

I said earlier that we're getting closer to resuming our old lives. I don't actually think that's right. I hope it's not right. Because we weren't prepared for any of this. We've had to learn some hard lessons in these painful 20 weeks. We've made progress and identified new paths forward. So if all we end up doing is going back to our old lives, after all of this? What a shame that would be.

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