Shop local, shop late

Town Councilmember John Leaver, citizen Rick Dole are leading a group that gets an E for effort for their ad hoc rallying of merchants and residents to shop – and eat – locally and late Friday, Sept. 4. Let’s rally around our merchants to kick-off the Labor Day weekend. We can all take some of the monies we are not spending traveling and recreating and buy ourselves or families or friends a gift and treat ourselves to dinner out. Make it a weekend-long pleasure to walk First and Morris Streets and keep our local dollars local.

Let’s put on our local masks and keep our local germs in the community while visiting the tourist destination that makes our little town a must see for visitors throughout the state and region.

Gov. Inslee’s Safe Start reopening plan limits travel to essential trips. Our merchants know that every out of town tourist entering their shops is essential to their economic health. Every Everett, Arlington, Bellevue, Marysville or Seattle visitor believes their trip to La Conner is essential to their mental, emotional and physical health. Their coming here obviously makes them happy even if their smiles are hidden by their masks.

The number of COVID-19 cases in the La Conner zip code has remained below 20 for months, even after the seven cases reported on the Swinomish Reservation. Our residents are mostly masking up along with the tourists. Maybe community members are refraining from large social gatherings, even within families. We are even doing ok with social distancing, though it can’t be true that all the groups walking on First Street or folks sitting at restaurant tables inside are all family members, as the Safe Start guidances require.

So wear your masks, make liberal use of the hand sanitizer when you enter a business, spend money and pray, if you think that helps, that our town, our county, our state and our nation will not find ourselves counting, or be part of the count of, new coronavirus cases come the end of September.