One group of people who are also suffering are retail shops. Suddenly,
they have been forced to close and have no turnover and thus no income coming in, but
still have the usual fixed costs to pay like rent and lighting and
heating and staff costs. The concept of Schadenfreude seems to
indicate that there may be some personal consolation in finding
someone who has it worse than you. This is really a „false friend“
though, because one day you may find that there, „but for the grace
of God“ go you.
So everyone is currently suffering at the moment, but especially
musicians who cannot perform in public and also retail shop owners
who cannot open their doors to customers for fear of spreading the
virus. So imagine a „double whammy“ like Baums Musikladen in
Plittersdorfstrasse in Bad Godesberg which is run by the owner
Norfried Baum and Axel Girnus, both fine guitarists and excellent
musical shopkeepers.
As if all this upheaval with the Coronavirus were not enough, during the early hours of Saturday morning
on 21.03.20 a couple of young males who were probably as lacking in
IQ as they were in patience, decided a „smash and grab“ might be
fun and „put the icing on the cake“ for Norfried and Axel.
Luckily the police apprehended the culprits who were still wandering
around later still with the stolen guitars in their thieving mits. Baums
Musikladen was nevertheless left with a hefty bill for replacing the
large glass shop window. So lightning sometimes does strike thrice.
With true German efficiency and despite the Coronavirus COVID-19 the shop window was duly repaired and in situ only a couple of days later:
The good news is though, that if you were thinking of using your
downtime and home time to play some music at home but are hindered by the lack of
some musical necessity in order to do so, you can still order
anything you need from Baums Musikladen. The shop is „closed“ to
customers, but it is still manned inside and you can call or send an E-mail
and your requirements, from whole instruments through sheet music books down to strings, will be delivered within Bonn on the same day.
Their online shop is also functioning as normal. That's service with a
smile, so you can get to play music at home and do Norfried and Axel
a good turn and yourselves at the same time.
So smiles all round by supporting local musicians and local shops.
Times are indeed hard, but with a few kind words and deeds and
gestures, one can often make these troubled times much more bearable
for everyone.
Wash your hands a lot and stay safe all of you and remember however
bad Corona-COVID-19 gets it will be much less dangerous than the
bubonic plague was in 1666. I'm not a betting man, but a contact /
mortality rate of approx 1/100 here in Germany currently with Corona compared
with 50/100 with the bubonic plague seems a much safer bet. One fine
day, when this is all over and things are more normal, one can take a
walk up the hill from Bad Godesberg to the small plague chapel in the nearby village of Schweinheim, which is dedicated as a place where
the bubonic plague finally stopped after spreading westwards from The Netherlands in the year 1666, the year London town burnt down. So
take some small consolation that even bad things, do eventually, come
to an end.
