Man to Man

COVID-19, the faceless enemy, has changed our lives in many ways. Obviously, the most dramatic way our lives would be changed would be by contracting the virus itself. Contracting the virus can not only change a life but also extinguish it.

However, it has affected us in other less dramatic ways as well. Most particularly in our relationships with other people. I’m speaking of those relationships of a non-electronic nature. Those relationships which exclude social media. It is possible to have, based on my experience, true personal relationships on social media, but for this discussion it will be excluded. Those relationships curtailed by COVID-19 are those relationships dependent on the senses of touch, smell, or taste.

Of these senses, I place the tactile sense of touch at the top of my list. Why? Because to me the handshake, the touching of hands, is the way I remember many of the people I meet and have met.  The most globally accepted greeting since the ninth century BC is the handshake. Handshakes are frowned upon and in some municipalities forbidden during the COVID-19 pandemic. I miss this form of greeting, and I frequently find myself stopping my hand a few inches from the hand of the person I have just met.

I remember handshakes. It is one of the characteristics by which I remember the men I meet. Clay, my mechanic, had a strong handshake, and I could usually expect a transfer of a bit of axle grease from his hand to mine. My Uncle Dewey’s hand was that of a farmer, strong and calloused. Our blind preacher had soft hands with a stern but not extremely strong grip. While in Toledo, Spain, I met Manual, a sword maker. In his handshake I noticed he was missing part of his third finger on his right hand. But the most memorable handshake from my past is that of Mr. Sam Rogers. 

When I was a boy I attended a small Baptist church.  On Sunday morning I dreaded meeting Mr. Sam.  He would call me by name, including surname, and shake my hand. Thankfully the bones of youth are somewhat flexible and none broke. These are the handshakes of some of the men in my memories and why I remember them. My Daddy always said, “You can tell a lot about a man by his handshake.”

Whose handshakes of today will I remember? There aren’t any.  According to miscellaneous and sundry experts we aren’t allowed to shake hands due to the virus. It is almost like being denied one of the rites of manhood. I don’t like it. With the aura of mystery and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 virus, should I/we have given up a custom which has been around since the 9th century B.C.?