Social distancing: A lesson learned from history

As a student of history, I often wonder what we have learned from historic events in our world.

I personally don’t believe history truly repeats itself, but that doesn’t mean there are not parallels.

I tend to lean more toward a phrase Mark Twain has been credited for saying: “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” With that in mind, I spent time looking back at what our area experienced in 1918 during the influenza pandemic.

I began looking through local history books and was surprised to find very little pertaining to the flu outbreak. Local newspapers had a few stories here an...