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April 10, 2020
Opinion
Fitchburg Star
ConnectFitchburg.com
Community Voices
To adapt quickly, stay focused and be grateful W e learn how to adapt in hard times by watching what others have gone
through. Think back to the stories you’ve heard from your family. When my parents bought their dairy farm in Brooklyn in the 1970s, they had just moved from Chicago to live their dream and had a steep learning curve ahead of them. One day they saw a cow in distress; having no idea what the problem was, they ran to a neighbor for help. It took my parents years to live down the fact that the cow was simply having a calf. During the ice storm of ’76, we had no electricity, heat or water for eight days, and roads were closed. Out in the barn the whole day,
my parents had to dump milk because no one could get out to pick it up. A cousin watched us four kids, all under 5, keeping us warm with Konopacki our gas oven. We got through it, and how we move and adapt through COVID-19 will create the stories we get to share when this is all over. We’re facing unprecedented challenges as a community, nation and world. We are in new territory with the scope, timeline and other unknows this has brought. The first thing we must do is focus. Avoid distractions and guard
your mindset. Stress can pull you into fuzzy thinking and worry cycles. Set aside your news feed and visit it only as needed to stay up to date with important information; watch for when you are stuck on repeat. Think about where you want to be when this has passed. Figure out what areas of life is this forcing you to examine and decide how you can take action on the things you can control and let go of the stress of those you can’t. I made the decision to close my chiropractic office except for working with acute patients while coronavirus cases slow down in our community. I really struggled to make this decision. But when I let it be, this time is a gift for me to pause, take a deep breath, and get
laser focused time to work on an office re-brand project and future efforts that have been waiting for more of my attention. I’m trying to be aware enough to not follow the stress prompts I feel that tell me to rush around and do more. I’m being thoughtful about how I direct my energy and time. It’s been a chance for me to be grateful; it was a shock to realize how fortunate I’ve been in my life. For the first time, I experienced going to a store and not having everything I wanted. It is humbling to reflect on how this is a way of life for many in the world. I’m so proud of our community: healthcare workers on the frontlines, the people working around the clock to make sure we have groceries stocked, our emergency
responders and local companies like Promega, which is working on COVID-19 test kits. I’m inspired by stories of generosity, neighbors helping neighbors, lifting spirits and coming together. I saw a quote recently that fits with our worldwide COVID-19 concerns: “We don’t always have the privilege of agreeing with what life puts in front of us.” That is true, but we do have a choice about how we respond. I am grateful to be a part of this community, and I wish everyone health and resourcefulness as we get through this together and create the stories of how we adapted together. Dr. Laura Konopacki is the owner of Body Wave chiropractic in Fitchburg, and she has training in pediatrics and functional neurology.
Being a journalist during pandemic challenging
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I
’ll never forget the day this pandemic became real for me. It was just another Friday in the office, and the closures started rolling in. First, it was just community events that were postponed or canceled. Next, Gov. Tony Evers issued an order closing all Wisconsin public and private schools. That was the last time I visited my office – March 13. I had read an article a few weeks earlier that concluded it wasn’t a matter of if, but when COVID-19 was going to hit the United States. Expert epidemiologists and scientists told us to prepare for significant disruptions to our livelihoods. So as the world began changing suddenly, I sat in my desk, head in my hands, wondering if this is how it all ends. Then, my fight or flight response took over, and my fingers started typing story after breaking news story about how this was affecting our communities. That’s how it’s been the past few weeks. My body is governed by a journalist, who is in turn, governed by an overwhelming sense of duty. The human in me is nowhere to be
found right now, other than likely cowering in a corner, paralyzed and sickened by fear. How visceral it is to be a Heidemann journalist and an editor with an anxiety disorder during an unprecedented global event of this scope. I’m shaking even as I write this. The following week came the business and local government closures. In real time, my favorite coffee shops went dark – those were the places where I had found the most inspiration. The local businesses I’d already written about suddenly had uncertain financial futures. Worse, there’s nothing to occupy these business owners and employees as they sit at home, forced to wallow in the uncertainty and find creative ways to weather this storm. Their livelihoods – and mine – were indeed disrupted. They were ripped from us. And now we grieve them until we once again find some semblance of “normal.”
Will there be the V-shaped rebound most economists are hoping for after this is over, or did some establishments lock their doors for the last time? My heart breaks and stomach churns for the business owners who face this, as they are the blood that pumps through small Wisconsin towns, cities and villages. I can’t even begin to describe the depth of my sorrow for our health care workers, grocery store clerks, janitorial staff and other people deemed essential during this crisis. They, and the communities we serve, are what drives the stories me and my staff write. Our newspapers are buried in COVID-19 coverage for now, but what about a month or two down the road? It’s hard not to go down that rabbit hole. My work is a welcome distraction from the temptation of reading articles from national news outlets – how COVID-19 ravages one’s body, how some experts say it might take 18 months to find a vaccine and the dire impacts this has had on an already fragile economy. At least my work in local
journalism involves finding the stories where people help one another. Those glimmers of hope seem to be few and far between, even as I desperately search for them on my own time – in contacting the people I love and appreciating that the sun is out. That’s another rabbit hole I can’t let myself enter. I had just started to heal from the trauma of losing two loved ones last year, and I now have to face the possibility of losing more. My father, who has been my rock and who keeps me grounded during hard times, has bronchial asthma. This makes him, by definition, someone who is at a high risk of contracting a severe COVID-19 infection. But as long as I am able to hear his laughter– or his voice at all – on the other side of the phone, I will be able to weather this storm. I don’t really have a choice. Emilie Heidemann is the Unified Newspaper Group community and business editor. She is also the Oregon Observer government reporter.
My experiment in solar energy satisfying
Y
ou might have noticed a spike in the number of houses in Fitchburg that have solar panels on their roofs in recent years. Maybe you have been considering installing some on your home, too. After all, solar not only helps fight climate change; it lowers your monthly energy bills. My family had solar panels installed on our house in late 2017, and so far, my experience with solar has generally exceeded my expectations. It has been maintenance free. In fact, I have not spent a dime yet on maintenance. Solar appear to be both a great investment and the responsible thing to do. Our 6.3 kilowatt power system has produced approximately $1,120 and $1,070 in savings in 2018 and 2019, respectively. This translates to a payback of approximately 9.4 years. And solar panels are durable, generally lasting 30-35 years. That’s much longer than a typical roof lasts, which was a concern I initially had. But our insurance company indicated that if there were hail damage, the removal and replacement of the solar panels would be covered as part of the shingle replacement. I also discussed it with an area roofer, who said the shingles beneath the panels would not likely need replacement due to their protection from the panels against hail damage.
first or second sunny day above 25 degrees. Some people ask about solar when trying to sell our home. I view our solar investment as something that will one day help us sell our home, even if we don’t end up staying in the house through the payback period. On average, a buyer would be paying approximately $90 less per month on their Thus, the panels could more likely to be kept utility bill with our system than if the house in place, and shingle replacement work would didn’t have solar. take place around the perimeter of the solar Most importantly, I feel proud that we panels. invested in renewable energy to do our small I also wondered about snow accumulation part to reduce our family’s carbon footprint. blocking the panels (snow shading), as solar production can be limited by that and cloudy Our system has reduced our carbon footprint days. But over each of the past three winters, by the equivalent of planting over 680 trees. This also is a handy feature of our app, I was pleasantly surprised by how few days which has showed that our solar array has snow shading actually blocked energy proeliminated discharging over 12,350 kilograms duction on our home. of CO2 into the air we breathe, which would It is easy to track functionality, solar have been the case using MG&E’s primarily production and energy usage through the coal-generated electricity. SolarEdge app. I found that our total days If the shingles on your house are due to be with blocked solar production due to snow replaced soon, it’s better to wait until after shading was limited to 10 days during the they’ve been replaced to install solar panels. 2017-18 winter, 19 days during the 2018-19 Otherwise, I hope you will consider exploring winter, and 20 days during the 2019-20 winthe solar option in the next couple years. ter. Chris Jimieson is a member of Fitchburg’s This is because snow cover on the ground Resource Conservation Commission and does not correlate closely with snow shading a geological engineer at SCS Engineers in on your roof, especially if you have full expoMadison. He lives in Swan Creek with his sure on a south-facing, pitched roof. Snow wife and their 11-year-old son. typically slides off our solar panels with the
