Dominic Rouse, August 13th, 2024
Title
Dominic Rouse, August 13th, 2024
Description
In this interview, Dominic Rouse shares his first reaction and learning about Covid-19 as well as how California and Michigan handled it differently.
Publisher
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Detroit Historical Society
Language
en-US
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
Dominic Rouse
Brief Biography
Dominic Rouse grew up in Malibu, California before moving to Detroit in 2017 to attend Wayne State University. He’s been a resident of Hamtramck since May 2024.
Interviewer's Name
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo
Date
8/13/2024
Interview Length
33:11
Transcription
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: I'm Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo. It's August 13th, 2024 and I'm here with please say your name,
Dominic Rouse: Dominic Rouse.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And where do you live?
Dominic Rouse: I currently live in Hamtramck, on Edwin's Street, which is right off the main boulevard of Joseph Campo. But I've spent a lot of time, especially before the pandemic, living in, Midtown Detroit.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And how long have you lived in Detroit?
Dominic Rouse: So I moved to Hamtramck, last May, but I'd been living in Detroit, since August of 2017. Prior to that. Hamtramck is its own little jurisdiction, known little town, but it has a lot of similar vibes of Detroit being inside of the city.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And where do you live before Detroit?
Dominic Rouse: I grew up, on the, campus of Pepperdine, University in Malibu, California.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: When did you hear about, Covid 19 for the first time.
Dominic Rouse: I'm sure there were other times, but the first time I really remember hearing about Covid 19 was in December of, 2019. There was a report going on over NPR about, I believe it was about how the disease had made landfall in Italy and problems that were coming from that, as well as talking through, some of the larger issues that had gone on with the virus in Wuhan. I think I'd heard similar reports about that, but that was the first time the name of the virus really stuck in my head.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: Were you initially worried?
Dominic Rouse: In certain ways, it sounded bad and sounded like there was a lot going on. But I did remember back to when. Gosh, it was an E coli. There was some, flesh eating disease that people were getting, I believe, through. Avian exposure back in like 2017, 2016, something like that. I remember that having been a really bad one. Oh, and the Ebola scare that happened around the same time as well. There had been some really large things that, had made me worried and then amounted to nothing. So, part of me, of most of me was figuring that a lot of it would be sorted out. A lot of people would die, but that the, effects wouldn't as much be on the US or in any sort of. You know. Big that they wouldn't result in big changes for me. Compared to these other, viral outbreaks that we've had.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And when did that perspective change?
Dominic Rouse: That perspective changed. March. Think it was the 13th, but it was right after spring break had ended for or right as it was about to end for Wayne State, I was on a, I was on a rock climbing trip with a bunch of, people from the Detroit. Well, sorry, from the Wayne State Rock Climbing Club. We didn't have any use of our electronics while we were camping out, a little bit outside of Saint Louis. But it got so rainy, we, went into the city for, for an Airbnb and spend the rest of our time there. By the time we got into the city, before we left, nobody was really using masks. There weren't any sort of public, awareness about it by the time we got back into the city. Masks were required in a lot of places. There was a lot more, hand sanitation and necessities around that. They'd already started to roll out infrastructure around that, especially at the, Saint Louis Arch. And then, later that night, we got, text we got an email from the Wayne State letting us know that a bunch of, cancellations has happened for classes, that we weren't going to be needed back as soon as. So we all extended our trip, and we're thinking that it was just going to be a little bit of time. But we're also not sure we didn't think that would happen. So we were very willing to accept that things just in general, we're going to get a lot more chaotic.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And are you able to get back from your trip easily after that?
Dominic Rouse: Oh, yeah. No. We, stayed in the Airbnb, a bunch of us all hanging out together. It was chill and easy. And then we, all drove back separately, as we had been, the official ideas of lock out kind of started to lock down, started to, filter out from there. And then maybe two weeks later, the, house I was staying in, they, I had, access to a kitchen and some other, a small bathroom and things in the basement that I was living in. But about two weeks later, they, closed off the door between me and them. And that was kind of the beginning of the real lockdown. And then maybe three weeks later, I flew back to California.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And how was your schooling affected from then on?
Dominic Rouse: We quickly went all online. That was my first time ever experiencing a fully online, class. And, going back home to California really, made it feel like, the summer was kind of just starting up. I think I probably could have been able to finish and maintain my classes. However, a lot of the ways in which I'd maintained myself throughout school up until that point were largely based around a schedule I had of regularly going to classes, regularly attending classes, the in-person kind of style, the move to online. I had a harder time paying attention, especially at first. It took me a while to get accustomed to it, and it became a lot easier to sloughed off smaller assignments and smaller things that were going on, as well as to just, miss instruction and miss, miss, when assignments were being assigned, because much of that had moved more into dealing with emails and everything. So, my grades started to slip pretty rapidly. And I also kind of slowly, more and more entered a state of not really caring about school. Stuff got, more and more overwhelming, but for the most part, I was just kind of dancing through it, not even really paying attention. But, while in past semesters, once the finals moved or, moved around, I had at least maintained good enough. Standards over a lot of my courses up until that point that I was able to recover for myself at the end, and that was the first semester where that was not the case and my grades really started to slip.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: Did that change as online school and continued. Or did you not return to that level until in-person schooling continued.
Dominic Rouse: Even once in-person schooling continued? That side became a lot harder for me. I've found that the way I behave with boundaries oftentimes is that I overly intensely enforce them. And I'm very. I guess, overly self-critical to myself around them. But, once they break, I realized that a lot of my, following of them was based around fear. And, it can be really hard to then reestablish those boundaries. In the past, some of those boundaries that I've lost have been very good for me. I've been a lot healthier after having overcome them. But, the pandemic and seeing my own patterns more played out in real time and over a few years. Showed me the ways in which I can be really unhealthy around boundaries and need to work on a not having things be so purely fear reinforced and be once I lose that fear motivator, figuring out ways to Motivate myself and continue to put me in that place that is not so unhealthy on myself.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: So the pandemic kind of changed, how you saw yourself. And. Oh, yeah. That there are things.
Dominic Rouse: Oh, yeah. Very much so. I wouldn't necessarily there were a lot of positives that came out from the pandemic. It gave me time to think about things more. I think also, it occurred, you know, we, the my first inklings of it really getting bad were just a few months after my 21st birthday. So I was also at a time of a lot of head mental chemical changes and everything, entering that kind of maturity point. At the same time, though, I do feel like, I grew up a lot over the pandemic. I, got a lot better with certain things, but there were definitely stuff that atrophied during the pandemic. And, a lot of that has to do more around. Discipline and sticking to. Sticking to assignments, things that I'd been really good at, prior to the pandemic that really fell apart. And that was also the first time I really. Could see myself as someone who was struggling with school or having problems with that, so that was a lot to shape my head around. Yeah.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And when did you return to Detroit from California?
Dominic Rouse: I believe that was. The, spring or late winter of the next year, 2021? I think so.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And how had the city changed since he had last been there?
Dominic Rouse: And the city changed. I mean, I guess the most immediate things were the things right around me. The house I'd been living in, during, right before and during the lockdown was in Woodbridge. It was a person who was, flipping the house and, letting their kids stay in it, as they were working on the actual flipping. And so they got me a room in the basement. So, parts of Woodbridge hadn't really changed. I guess it's kind of more just more of the street becoming what it kind of felt like it was becoming. Prior to moving out, there were a lot more, when I first moved in, there were a lot more, still abandoned structures and just a lot more, people doing rentals in Woodbridge as well. At this point, it feels like Woodbridge has moved to be a lot more of an owned space. And I think that this is largely, you know, the ownership post the more, black city based ownership, although I'd need to look into the actual demographics to be sure about that. But, pretty sure I came in kind of in that, gentrification wave and, following the pandemic was kind of the, calcification of that area fully turning into a spot where it was more around. House purchases by formerly suburban folk or people like me but like me and can actually afford a house. So, out-of-state people moving into it.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And having lived in two different places during the early stages of the pandemic, did you notice any differences between California and Michigan in how they dealt with the pandemic or were affected by it?
Dominic Rouse: I mean, this one isn't as much on the States. This was just more on me. When I was in Detroit, I mean, obviously having access to my family was a big thing, but, I was pretty much just locked inside of the basement room that I was in the entire time that I was here. Whereas because of where my folks live, I was able to have access to, the outdoors to going on hikes in places where I wouldn't, risk exposing other people. I was around my family, which was a lot easier. I don't know if this was, if this really is changes and differences and stuff, but, everybody had been talking about pandemic enforcement as if it was a lot harsher in California than it was in Michigan. At least from my experience, like pretty soon after I got out to, you know, the airport in Michigan was far more dead than the LAX airport. That could just be a thing about the proportion of people. But, fairly quickly after I got back to California, we ended up doing our first, out to eat kind of thing, going to a, restaurant. We followed the pandemic safety measures, at least the ones instated and everything. But that was like, you know, wear a mask until you set it at your table. And, things along those lines, more outdoor, a lot more outdoor seating and the indoor seating be like way more spaced out, like there were safety protocols followed. But it was fascinating seeing that it felt far less like people were taking it seriously in California than it did at least in Michigan. And it's possible that I wasn't, you know, living in Detroit, Detroit, as you know, inside of the city itself, even when you get more to a midtown place that is a little bit more spread out that is still firmly inside of the city, was my parents live in a, spot that is far more, rural, has a lot less people going through it and a lot more money. And, so it's possible that in those comparable places in Michigan, similar things were going on. And it's even possible that at the time that I was just taking it more seriously and that there were people at that time going out to, eat and things along those lines. But that was a pretty big stark difference. Just the, when I was told to do those things, I felt like it was just like, okay, shut down. Yeah. You're only going out, when you really have to for, like, food and everything, but that doesn't seem to be the case as much. Once I went to live with my parents as what people were doing.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: Now. What are your thoughts on the shelter in place orders at the time, and has that changed over time?
Dominic Rouse: I mean, it may. I don't know. It was it was freaky. To some degree, it made a lot of sense. There's a pandemic coming through, and that's what you do during pandemics. It felt a little archaic. It felt like. I don't know. It was weird, the idea that a pandemic was still what could happen, and that the things that you followed through were the exact same things they recommended that you do 100 years ago. At the same time, though, it did kind of make sense that this was something that, you know, there wasn't a lot to update, at least on the style of. What the average person had to do. I had no problem with it. At first. It seemed like something we all had to do, but I think I definitely had. Expectations of what was happening that were at least took a long time to be met, and once it was met, I don't think it was at all in the way that I thought it should have been. I had assumed that if a country is demanding that every single person, you know, stop doing what they're doing, locked down, do all those things, I had assumed that food, that there would be some way that food would be provided. I had assumed that for the actual. For the actual, functioning of the economy that were necessary, that, there'd be, you know, larger bulletins. It'd be easier to find ways to get access to those. I had a friend who started working as a, as a mask maker making PPE equipment through one of the, Ford factories. But I just didn't hear anything about any employment opportunities. I didn't hear anything about any action opportunities. I didn't really need the money. I was blessed in that way. But I did need to be out of the house and would have loved to be doing something that was in an age range where I think I would have been more protected from that. But yeah, the, I, I think what my, my expectation of the idea that we were all being asked to lock down was that we would all then come more together, yes, in a more separated way, but that the government would be helping each and every one of us, that they'd be reaching out looking for people who could also be of service and could help out, but also be looking for the people who need extra help, the people who are going to be really vulnerable taking those things. But it was, I don't know, it takes like a year afterwards and you look back and it was like, oh no, we just kind of all got left alone to, try to do our best. They just said, hey, lockdown and whatever that drowning means for you, like, just get through it. And yeah, that is something that just kind of shakes me. The fact it took so long for any money to be available, the fact that most of that money was claimed up by the corporations that needed it the least. It's it's wild looking back on it.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And did you do anything particular while you were at home that you wouldn't have done before the pandemic? Anything to keep yourself occupied?
Dominic Rouse: I got to tan a lot. There's a little, area up, by my house where I could take my laptop to. I started downloading a lot more podcasts and listening a lot to that, a lot more. Definitely developed a really bad content addiction during the, pandemic as a whole. A lot of more time spent with family then I probably would have. That was my, getting near at least my, I think that came in on my junior. Yeah, yeah, that was the last semester, the the final semester of my junior year. And so, I think I wouldn't have I don't think that if the pandemic had come around that I would have failed, at least in the same way that I ended up, having problems with school. And but that did end up giving me more time with my family, more time with the friends that I had back home, and gave me time to, patch up. So. Some relationship, and friendship, things that had been really damaged in the years following and that was able to, get sutured up in a way that I don't know if it would have without the pandemic. So that is something interesting. I got to, hike a lot more. And. I guess cook a lot more with my, family's food, cook some meals for my family, but, not a terribly large amount. I wish I had been a little bit more. Judicious with how I spent. All that time I had during the pandemic. But, yeah, I don't know. I do feel like I came out of the pandemic a lot, in certain ways, mentally healthier than I went into it. Which is interesting that my school got so much worse after that point.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And did you personally contract Covid 19?
Dominic Rouse: As far as I'm aware, I have actually never contracted Covid 19. I feel like that is impossible. But, any time I have tested, I haven't had antibodies, or been sick from Covid 19 itself. I've had a lot of, possible exposures and times where it's been a chance, but I've seen no signs that I've contracted it, which I have a hard time believing just because I know so few people who didn't.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: So did most of, your families and family and friends.
Dominic Rouse: At least at some point. Yeah. Not necessarily during the worst parts of the pandemic. My grandma and grandpa actually just contracted it. Like 4 or 5 weeks ago. We got to visit them by the time when they were, out of it, but they were still feeling the effects of this, most recent contraction of it. I think it's they were far past Omicron at this point.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And did you know anyone who was impacted very severely?
Dominic Rouse: Thankfully, no. At least not, with health consequences directly from Covid 19. My grandma is feeling like she's having some lingering effects from her most recent, exposure. And, I think I've known 1 or 2 people who, had worse health outcomes right afterwards, but that was more the, the long Covid kind of stuff. The. The head fuzziness, the weariness, the extra drowsiness and everything more than it was. Real effects from, the exposure itself. Like, sorry, the long Covid is a real effect. I mean, the effects, with, huge tissue, tissue damage inside of the lungs or, drowning. I, I thankfully didn't know anybody who died of contracting the virus, at least not knowing them in a name, to name basis, but. Yeah. I think, most of the, negative effects, from Covid that I know about are more in line with, the negative effects that I had from Covid, which was the, which was bad habits and bad, patterns kind of getting, a space for them to start and just having a long time for that to go. I know a lot of people who had worse problems with, alcohol, weed, things along those lines after it. I know a lot of people who. You know, it did change a lot of people. Not always necessarily for the worse. But, I think everybody I know who had changes, those changes, some of them might be a lot better. But some of those changes were also very maladaptive and have made it have made the, change back in the, the, the, the end of Covid, for lack of a better term, the move back from the pandemic period. It's, you know, a lot of people are carrying those maladaptive into their life. And at the same time, I think some of those mal adaptions are kind of a. I guess, quicker developing versions of some of the problems that we just see from modern life in general, I guess, if that makes any sense.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And how did you feel about the masking and vaccination mandates, and has that changed over time?
Dominic Rouse: Yeah. I think the biggest thing is that I thought the masks were really fucking cool. At first I thought it was a really, really good idea. I was really excited for us to enter this masked age where it's like, oh, you know, everybody has their own, like, cool, creative masks. You got fun things going on. We could all look like we're coming out of a comic book or like one of those really try hard, future, dystopian movies. Everybody kind of having a unified esthetic I thought would be nice, but the masks were a lot more boring looking than I'd expected. Most people doing fun stuff with them was the American version of fun stuff, where you have some stupid screen print put on it, you know, my, the, censored masks with everything or, just some fun little patterns. I was hoping for a lot more creativity in the mask scene. I felt like that was very much there in the first few weeks. But then, as you know, we started figuring out the masks that were actually the most effective and stuff. It really, destroyed, the cool side of the mask esthetic for me. So that was a bummer. Also, they are not fun to wear. Especially the really good ones. The pinching around the ears and the nose starts to wear at you fast. And while I never felt any sort of, loss of breath from wearing them, and I felt like a lot of the anti-vaxxers were really ridiculous around some of the complaints that they were coming up. They certainly were uncomfortable. And breathing, having your breathing restricted like that, even if it's not like real breathing restriction, but just constantly feeling the hot air on the side of your mouth, the, dampness, that level of just uncomfortability even the way that your breath would kind of, end up going back onto the straps and kind of putting some condensation on the straps, which would drive into your ear like they were not fun things. And I guess part of me is kind of bummed that it ended up going in the way of turning it into a culture war, where one side is just not even able to admit the parts of masks that just suck, and then the other side just not even willing to see the way in which these are protecting people at all, turning an entire into us entirely into a symbol. It's sad because, you know, there were real things throughout this entire thing. We all could have come better together around the ways in which this was really hurting us, causing us problems. But. You know, I think, when problems become so big, it becomes easier to just see your neighbors or people around you, people in your immediate vicinity as these evil things that are causing all these problems and making all these things bad for you. When. You know, they're just suffering through the crap, same as you. And they have as little power as you. But it's hard to attack a system.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And do you feel that, increased division has been one legacy of the pandemic?
Dominic Rouse: No. I think increased division was already happening, and the pandemic was just the thing to get increasingly divided around. We were long down that path. And, in some ways, I don't think it's. Necessarily a bad thing. There are a lot of really bad things in our society right now. There's a lot of things where it's fair to be divided over them. And in any time in which there are, you know, real, actual problems happening, some people are going to be invested. They're going to feel that there are the problems, but get invested in all the wrong problems. I don't think that the division is necessarily I mean, it's causing negative things, but I think it's more of a symptom of larger sicknesses within our society. And, I think that the pandemic was going to. Be impacted by that either way. I do think that scary big, you know, all shifting things like a pandemic, like having to move to lockdowns that probably would have increased divisions even if we hadn't been in a place for divisions were increasing. But no, those just spoke to the pattern of things as they were already kind of getting divided down.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And so what do you feel are the lasting impacts of the pandemic on yourself or on a larger scale?
Dominic Rouse: That both, both the side of the long Covid and, kind of, maladaptive behaviors. I think that that stuff is everywhere. I think some of the long Covid, I think it's going to be hard for that to be good. The maladaptive behaviors, in some ways, I think that those kind of are what I was trying to say before was that, I think with our more alienated lifestyle, with our more computer based lifestyle, with. The ways in which technology has interacted with us coming into the 21st century. I think a lot of the things that we saw develop during Covid with people's maladaptive behaviors, those were kind of happening regardless, and Covid was able to just kind of be a pressure cooker, to really show how those things can grow out in really rapid conditions. It was kind of a blessing in some way, because we were able to look at that and see how the long term, like, you know, you have enough. It's not too much time in between. So you can look at the changes happening within a person and see, oh, this is kind of what was happening. Anyways. We got to be careful around our alone time, the time that we spend just entirely invested in computers, the time in which we in having just so much more time to ourselves in everything. So I think it kind of showed us. The kind of people that our society has been making, what that would look like 20 years down the line. Gives us a little bit of a snapshot of that earlier on. So we might have an ability to all come together more. But that is another, I think thing I think is the lasting effect of Covid. I think people are a lot less sure of our ability to come together more. Obviously, mass patterns always emerge. And we saw a ton of those during Covid, but, a lot of those ones that we saw ended up being total failures. The one that really weighs on my heart, really breaks me the most is the failure of George Floyd. That was the largest protest movement, one of the largest protest movements have ever, ever, if not, like, just the largest. Insane numbers of people were coming out. We were seeing, radicalization in ways unlike ever before. And yet, that entire movement, all it could do was get a single cop arrested. I think there's lots of reasons behind that, but, I do think it was to a lot of people, another sign that active and purposeful mass participation is something that leads nowhere, that all these things are just kind of. Like rocks falling down a hill. And I don't fully believe that. I think that there are ways that we can go about it. But I do think people are more convinced that mass action is not going to be a path to any real change, at least purposeful mass action. I'd say the biggest legacy of Covid, though, is the, the mass advancement and wealth transfer to the wealthiest, people in the world, and to corporations, getting out of the pandemic, I think we saw like 300% increases in, corporate profits. While, pandemic in some ways was amazing, it was the most, federal aid that a lot of people have ever received. It, was something that really could have been a new, new deal in the way of people seeing their government actively investing in them, actively helping them out, seeing the ways in which the government could be actively involved in their lives and having that be a positive with that under their control. And yet it felt like the, the economic means within our country came about to immediately punish everybody for that. As soon as the pandemic was over, wages were increased, but then sharply, we saw return of a lot of, the predatory, labor practices from before. And some of those even get worse. I don't know. It's a very interesting time. Labor is on the move more than it really has been, since maybe like the 70s or something. And then at the same time, the wealthiest among us have the most wealth and the most power that they ever have. And, are very afraid of seeing something like the, positive gains towards the working class that happened during the pandemic repeat themselves. So it's, we're in a very interesting spot, and I wish that we could have used the pandemic to push us as a society a lot more forward. And in certain ways it feels like we've fallen back. But in other ways, it does feel like there is more of a. Path to something better. If we can all unlearn some of the harmful lessons of the pandemic, I guess. If that makes any sense.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: Yeah, absolutely. And was there any other aspect of your experience with Covid that you'd want to discuss that none of my questions have brought up.
Dominic Rouse: I guess the biggest thing is that boredom is a real killer. And when you. I know a lot of people who were able to really. Do effective creative things and like learn new skills throughout that. I guess the thing I learned for myself is that. As creative as I can be when just given that unstructured time with nothing to do, I gravitate towards the easiest forms of creative Creative. Nourishment and, access. And it was something that just pointed more to my head that if I wanted to. Really get good with. And while it was also atrophying, my. While I was atrophying my, determination and, dedication. There's another d word for that that I'm just forgetting. But, as it was kind of eroding that for me, it was also pointing to me out. It also pointed out to me that, if I really want to be good with creative endeavors or have those be a part of my life, or even just building new skills that it's going to be have, it's going to have to be something that I'm very extra conscious about, because when I just allow myself to go to the greatest pleasures or do the things that are just right in front of me, I might have a good time in the moment, but it does not end up with me, doing the larger creative pursuits or technical pursuits that I guess I, that I would like to see myself, do at some point.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: All right. So that was all the questions I had for you today. Thank you so much for your time.
Dominic Rouse: Thank you.
Dominic Rouse: Dominic Rouse.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And where do you live?
Dominic Rouse: I currently live in Hamtramck, on Edwin's Street, which is right off the main boulevard of Joseph Campo. But I've spent a lot of time, especially before the pandemic, living in, Midtown Detroit.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And how long have you lived in Detroit?
Dominic Rouse: So I moved to Hamtramck, last May, but I'd been living in Detroit, since August of 2017. Prior to that. Hamtramck is its own little jurisdiction, known little town, but it has a lot of similar vibes of Detroit being inside of the city.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And where do you live before Detroit?
Dominic Rouse: I grew up, on the, campus of Pepperdine, University in Malibu, California.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: When did you hear about, Covid 19 for the first time.
Dominic Rouse: I'm sure there were other times, but the first time I really remember hearing about Covid 19 was in December of, 2019. There was a report going on over NPR about, I believe it was about how the disease had made landfall in Italy and problems that were coming from that, as well as talking through, some of the larger issues that had gone on with the virus in Wuhan. I think I'd heard similar reports about that, but that was the first time the name of the virus really stuck in my head.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: Were you initially worried?
Dominic Rouse: In certain ways, it sounded bad and sounded like there was a lot going on. But I did remember back to when. Gosh, it was an E coli. There was some, flesh eating disease that people were getting, I believe, through. Avian exposure back in like 2017, 2016, something like that. I remember that having been a really bad one. Oh, and the Ebola scare that happened around the same time as well. There had been some really large things that, had made me worried and then amounted to nothing. So, part of me, of most of me was figuring that a lot of it would be sorted out. A lot of people would die, but that the, effects wouldn't as much be on the US or in any sort of. You know. Big that they wouldn't result in big changes for me. Compared to these other, viral outbreaks that we've had.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And when did that perspective change?
Dominic Rouse: That perspective changed. March. Think it was the 13th, but it was right after spring break had ended for or right as it was about to end for Wayne State, I was on a, I was on a rock climbing trip with a bunch of, people from the Detroit. Well, sorry, from the Wayne State Rock Climbing Club. We didn't have any use of our electronics while we were camping out, a little bit outside of Saint Louis. But it got so rainy, we, went into the city for, for an Airbnb and spend the rest of our time there. By the time we got into the city, before we left, nobody was really using masks. There weren't any sort of public, awareness about it by the time we got back into the city. Masks were required in a lot of places. There was a lot more, hand sanitation and necessities around that. They'd already started to roll out infrastructure around that, especially at the, Saint Louis Arch. And then, later that night, we got, text we got an email from the Wayne State letting us know that a bunch of, cancellations has happened for classes, that we weren't going to be needed back as soon as. So we all extended our trip, and we're thinking that it was just going to be a little bit of time. But we're also not sure we didn't think that would happen. So we were very willing to accept that things just in general, we're going to get a lot more chaotic.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And are you able to get back from your trip easily after that?
Dominic Rouse: Oh, yeah. No. We, stayed in the Airbnb, a bunch of us all hanging out together. It was chill and easy. And then we, all drove back separately, as we had been, the official ideas of lock out kind of started to lock down, started to, filter out from there. And then maybe two weeks later, the, house I was staying in, they, I had, access to a kitchen and some other, a small bathroom and things in the basement that I was living in. But about two weeks later, they, closed off the door between me and them. And that was kind of the beginning of the real lockdown. And then maybe three weeks later, I flew back to California.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And how was your schooling affected from then on?
Dominic Rouse: We quickly went all online. That was my first time ever experiencing a fully online, class. And, going back home to California really, made it feel like, the summer was kind of just starting up. I think I probably could have been able to finish and maintain my classes. However, a lot of the ways in which I'd maintained myself throughout school up until that point were largely based around a schedule I had of regularly going to classes, regularly attending classes, the in-person kind of style, the move to online. I had a harder time paying attention, especially at first. It took me a while to get accustomed to it, and it became a lot easier to sloughed off smaller assignments and smaller things that were going on, as well as to just, miss instruction and miss, miss, when assignments were being assigned, because much of that had moved more into dealing with emails and everything. So, my grades started to slip pretty rapidly. And I also kind of slowly, more and more entered a state of not really caring about school. Stuff got, more and more overwhelming, but for the most part, I was just kind of dancing through it, not even really paying attention. But, while in past semesters, once the finals moved or, moved around, I had at least maintained good enough. Standards over a lot of my courses up until that point that I was able to recover for myself at the end, and that was the first semester where that was not the case and my grades really started to slip.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: Did that change as online school and continued. Or did you not return to that level until in-person schooling continued.
Dominic Rouse: Even once in-person schooling continued? That side became a lot harder for me. I've found that the way I behave with boundaries oftentimes is that I overly intensely enforce them. And I'm very. I guess, overly self-critical to myself around them. But, once they break, I realized that a lot of my, following of them was based around fear. And, it can be really hard to then reestablish those boundaries. In the past, some of those boundaries that I've lost have been very good for me. I've been a lot healthier after having overcome them. But, the pandemic and seeing my own patterns more played out in real time and over a few years. Showed me the ways in which I can be really unhealthy around boundaries and need to work on a not having things be so purely fear reinforced and be once I lose that fear motivator, figuring out ways to Motivate myself and continue to put me in that place that is not so unhealthy on myself.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: So the pandemic kind of changed, how you saw yourself. And. Oh, yeah. That there are things.
Dominic Rouse: Oh, yeah. Very much so. I wouldn't necessarily there were a lot of positives that came out from the pandemic. It gave me time to think about things more. I think also, it occurred, you know, we, the my first inklings of it really getting bad were just a few months after my 21st birthday. So I was also at a time of a lot of head mental chemical changes and everything, entering that kind of maturity point. At the same time, though, I do feel like, I grew up a lot over the pandemic. I, got a lot better with certain things, but there were definitely stuff that atrophied during the pandemic. And, a lot of that has to do more around. Discipline and sticking to. Sticking to assignments, things that I'd been really good at, prior to the pandemic that really fell apart. And that was also the first time I really. Could see myself as someone who was struggling with school or having problems with that, so that was a lot to shape my head around. Yeah.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And when did you return to Detroit from California?
Dominic Rouse: I believe that was. The, spring or late winter of the next year, 2021? I think so.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And how had the city changed since he had last been there?
Dominic Rouse: And the city changed. I mean, I guess the most immediate things were the things right around me. The house I'd been living in, during, right before and during the lockdown was in Woodbridge. It was a person who was, flipping the house and, letting their kids stay in it, as they were working on the actual flipping. And so they got me a room in the basement. So, parts of Woodbridge hadn't really changed. I guess it's kind of more just more of the street becoming what it kind of felt like it was becoming. Prior to moving out, there were a lot more, when I first moved in, there were a lot more, still abandoned structures and just a lot more, people doing rentals in Woodbridge as well. At this point, it feels like Woodbridge has moved to be a lot more of an owned space. And I think that this is largely, you know, the ownership post the more, black city based ownership, although I'd need to look into the actual demographics to be sure about that. But, pretty sure I came in kind of in that, gentrification wave and, following the pandemic was kind of the, calcification of that area fully turning into a spot where it was more around. House purchases by formerly suburban folk or people like me but like me and can actually afford a house. So, out-of-state people moving into it.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And having lived in two different places during the early stages of the pandemic, did you notice any differences between California and Michigan in how they dealt with the pandemic or were affected by it?
Dominic Rouse: I mean, this one isn't as much on the States. This was just more on me. When I was in Detroit, I mean, obviously having access to my family was a big thing, but, I was pretty much just locked inside of the basement room that I was in the entire time that I was here. Whereas because of where my folks live, I was able to have access to, the outdoors to going on hikes in places where I wouldn't, risk exposing other people. I was around my family, which was a lot easier. I don't know if this was, if this really is changes and differences and stuff, but, everybody had been talking about pandemic enforcement as if it was a lot harsher in California than it was in Michigan. At least from my experience, like pretty soon after I got out to, you know, the airport in Michigan was far more dead than the LAX airport. That could just be a thing about the proportion of people. But, fairly quickly after I got back to California, we ended up doing our first, out to eat kind of thing, going to a, restaurant. We followed the pandemic safety measures, at least the ones instated and everything. But that was like, you know, wear a mask until you set it at your table. And, things along those lines, more outdoor, a lot more outdoor seating and the indoor seating be like way more spaced out, like there were safety protocols followed. But it was fascinating seeing that it felt far less like people were taking it seriously in California than it did at least in Michigan. And it's possible that I wasn't, you know, living in Detroit, Detroit, as you know, inside of the city itself, even when you get more to a midtown place that is a little bit more spread out that is still firmly inside of the city, was my parents live in a, spot that is far more, rural, has a lot less people going through it and a lot more money. And, so it's possible that in those comparable places in Michigan, similar things were going on. And it's even possible that at the time that I was just taking it more seriously and that there were people at that time going out to, eat and things along those lines. But that was a pretty big stark difference. Just the, when I was told to do those things, I felt like it was just like, okay, shut down. Yeah. You're only going out, when you really have to for, like, food and everything, but that doesn't seem to be the case as much. Once I went to live with my parents as what people were doing.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: Now. What are your thoughts on the shelter in place orders at the time, and has that changed over time?
Dominic Rouse: I mean, it may. I don't know. It was it was freaky. To some degree, it made a lot of sense. There's a pandemic coming through, and that's what you do during pandemics. It felt a little archaic. It felt like. I don't know. It was weird, the idea that a pandemic was still what could happen, and that the things that you followed through were the exact same things they recommended that you do 100 years ago. At the same time, though, it did kind of make sense that this was something that, you know, there wasn't a lot to update, at least on the style of. What the average person had to do. I had no problem with it. At first. It seemed like something we all had to do, but I think I definitely had. Expectations of what was happening that were at least took a long time to be met, and once it was met, I don't think it was at all in the way that I thought it should have been. I had assumed that if a country is demanding that every single person, you know, stop doing what they're doing, locked down, do all those things, I had assumed that food, that there would be some way that food would be provided. I had assumed that for the actual. For the actual, functioning of the economy that were necessary, that, there'd be, you know, larger bulletins. It'd be easier to find ways to get access to those. I had a friend who started working as a, as a mask maker making PPE equipment through one of the, Ford factories. But I just didn't hear anything about any employment opportunities. I didn't hear anything about any action opportunities. I didn't really need the money. I was blessed in that way. But I did need to be out of the house and would have loved to be doing something that was in an age range where I think I would have been more protected from that. But yeah, the, I, I think what my, my expectation of the idea that we were all being asked to lock down was that we would all then come more together, yes, in a more separated way, but that the government would be helping each and every one of us, that they'd be reaching out looking for people who could also be of service and could help out, but also be looking for the people who need extra help, the people who are going to be really vulnerable taking those things. But it was, I don't know, it takes like a year afterwards and you look back and it was like, oh no, we just kind of all got left alone to, try to do our best. They just said, hey, lockdown and whatever that drowning means for you, like, just get through it. And yeah, that is something that just kind of shakes me. The fact it took so long for any money to be available, the fact that most of that money was claimed up by the corporations that needed it the least. It's it's wild looking back on it.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And did you do anything particular while you were at home that you wouldn't have done before the pandemic? Anything to keep yourself occupied?
Dominic Rouse: I got to tan a lot. There's a little, area up, by my house where I could take my laptop to. I started downloading a lot more podcasts and listening a lot to that, a lot more. Definitely developed a really bad content addiction during the, pandemic as a whole. A lot of more time spent with family then I probably would have. That was my, getting near at least my, I think that came in on my junior. Yeah, yeah, that was the last semester, the the final semester of my junior year. And so, I think I wouldn't have I don't think that if the pandemic had come around that I would have failed, at least in the same way that I ended up, having problems with school. And but that did end up giving me more time with my family, more time with the friends that I had back home, and gave me time to, patch up. So. Some relationship, and friendship, things that had been really damaged in the years following and that was able to, get sutured up in a way that I don't know if it would have without the pandemic. So that is something interesting. I got to, hike a lot more. And. I guess cook a lot more with my, family's food, cook some meals for my family, but, not a terribly large amount. I wish I had been a little bit more. Judicious with how I spent. All that time I had during the pandemic. But, yeah, I don't know. I do feel like I came out of the pandemic a lot, in certain ways, mentally healthier than I went into it. Which is interesting that my school got so much worse after that point.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And did you personally contract Covid 19?
Dominic Rouse: As far as I'm aware, I have actually never contracted Covid 19. I feel like that is impossible. But, any time I have tested, I haven't had antibodies, or been sick from Covid 19 itself. I've had a lot of, possible exposures and times where it's been a chance, but I've seen no signs that I've contracted it, which I have a hard time believing just because I know so few people who didn't.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: So did most of, your families and family and friends.
Dominic Rouse: At least at some point. Yeah. Not necessarily during the worst parts of the pandemic. My grandma and grandpa actually just contracted it. Like 4 or 5 weeks ago. We got to visit them by the time when they were, out of it, but they were still feeling the effects of this, most recent contraction of it. I think it's they were far past Omicron at this point.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And did you know anyone who was impacted very severely?
Dominic Rouse: Thankfully, no. At least not, with health consequences directly from Covid 19. My grandma is feeling like she's having some lingering effects from her most recent, exposure. And, I think I've known 1 or 2 people who, had worse health outcomes right afterwards, but that was more the, the long Covid kind of stuff. The. The head fuzziness, the weariness, the extra drowsiness and everything more than it was. Real effects from, the exposure itself. Like, sorry, the long Covid is a real effect. I mean, the effects, with, huge tissue, tissue damage inside of the lungs or, drowning. I, I thankfully didn't know anybody who died of contracting the virus, at least not knowing them in a name, to name basis, but. Yeah. I think, most of the, negative effects, from Covid that I know about are more in line with, the negative effects that I had from Covid, which was the, which was bad habits and bad, patterns kind of getting, a space for them to start and just having a long time for that to go. I know a lot of people who had worse problems with, alcohol, weed, things along those lines after it. I know a lot of people who. You know, it did change a lot of people. Not always necessarily for the worse. But, I think everybody I know who had changes, those changes, some of them might be a lot better. But some of those changes were also very maladaptive and have made it have made the, change back in the, the, the, the end of Covid, for lack of a better term, the move back from the pandemic period. It's, you know, a lot of people are carrying those maladaptive into their life. And at the same time, I think some of those mal adaptions are kind of a. I guess, quicker developing versions of some of the problems that we just see from modern life in general, I guess, if that makes any sense.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And how did you feel about the masking and vaccination mandates, and has that changed over time?
Dominic Rouse: Yeah. I think the biggest thing is that I thought the masks were really fucking cool. At first I thought it was a really, really good idea. I was really excited for us to enter this masked age where it's like, oh, you know, everybody has their own, like, cool, creative masks. You got fun things going on. We could all look like we're coming out of a comic book or like one of those really try hard, future, dystopian movies. Everybody kind of having a unified esthetic I thought would be nice, but the masks were a lot more boring looking than I'd expected. Most people doing fun stuff with them was the American version of fun stuff, where you have some stupid screen print put on it, you know, my, the, censored masks with everything or, just some fun little patterns. I was hoping for a lot more creativity in the mask scene. I felt like that was very much there in the first few weeks. But then, as you know, we started figuring out the masks that were actually the most effective and stuff. It really, destroyed, the cool side of the mask esthetic for me. So that was a bummer. Also, they are not fun to wear. Especially the really good ones. The pinching around the ears and the nose starts to wear at you fast. And while I never felt any sort of, loss of breath from wearing them, and I felt like a lot of the anti-vaxxers were really ridiculous around some of the complaints that they were coming up. They certainly were uncomfortable. And breathing, having your breathing restricted like that, even if it's not like real breathing restriction, but just constantly feeling the hot air on the side of your mouth, the, dampness, that level of just uncomfortability even the way that your breath would kind of, end up going back onto the straps and kind of putting some condensation on the straps, which would drive into your ear like they were not fun things. And I guess part of me is kind of bummed that it ended up going in the way of turning it into a culture war, where one side is just not even able to admit the parts of masks that just suck, and then the other side just not even willing to see the way in which these are protecting people at all, turning an entire into us entirely into a symbol. It's sad because, you know, there were real things throughout this entire thing. We all could have come better together around the ways in which this was really hurting us, causing us problems. But. You know, I think, when problems become so big, it becomes easier to just see your neighbors or people around you, people in your immediate vicinity as these evil things that are causing all these problems and making all these things bad for you. When. You know, they're just suffering through the crap, same as you. And they have as little power as you. But it's hard to attack a system.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And do you feel that, increased division has been one legacy of the pandemic?
Dominic Rouse: No. I think increased division was already happening, and the pandemic was just the thing to get increasingly divided around. We were long down that path. And, in some ways, I don't think it's. Necessarily a bad thing. There are a lot of really bad things in our society right now. There's a lot of things where it's fair to be divided over them. And in any time in which there are, you know, real, actual problems happening, some people are going to be invested. They're going to feel that there are the problems, but get invested in all the wrong problems. I don't think that the division is necessarily I mean, it's causing negative things, but I think it's more of a symptom of larger sicknesses within our society. And, I think that the pandemic was going to. Be impacted by that either way. I do think that scary big, you know, all shifting things like a pandemic, like having to move to lockdowns that probably would have increased divisions even if we hadn't been in a place for divisions were increasing. But no, those just spoke to the pattern of things as they were already kind of getting divided down.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: And so what do you feel are the lasting impacts of the pandemic on yourself or on a larger scale?
Dominic Rouse: That both, both the side of the long Covid and, kind of, maladaptive behaviors. I think that that stuff is everywhere. I think some of the long Covid, I think it's going to be hard for that to be good. The maladaptive behaviors, in some ways, I think that those kind of are what I was trying to say before was that, I think with our more alienated lifestyle, with our more computer based lifestyle, with. The ways in which technology has interacted with us coming into the 21st century. I think a lot of the things that we saw develop during Covid with people's maladaptive behaviors, those were kind of happening regardless, and Covid was able to just kind of be a pressure cooker, to really show how those things can grow out in really rapid conditions. It was kind of a blessing in some way, because we were able to look at that and see how the long term, like, you know, you have enough. It's not too much time in between. So you can look at the changes happening within a person and see, oh, this is kind of what was happening. Anyways. We got to be careful around our alone time, the time that we spend just entirely invested in computers, the time in which we in having just so much more time to ourselves in everything. So I think it kind of showed us. The kind of people that our society has been making, what that would look like 20 years down the line. Gives us a little bit of a snapshot of that earlier on. So we might have an ability to all come together more. But that is another, I think thing I think is the lasting effect of Covid. I think people are a lot less sure of our ability to come together more. Obviously, mass patterns always emerge. And we saw a ton of those during Covid, but, a lot of those ones that we saw ended up being total failures. The one that really weighs on my heart, really breaks me the most is the failure of George Floyd. That was the largest protest movement, one of the largest protest movements have ever, ever, if not, like, just the largest. Insane numbers of people were coming out. We were seeing, radicalization in ways unlike ever before. And yet, that entire movement, all it could do was get a single cop arrested. I think there's lots of reasons behind that, but, I do think it was to a lot of people, another sign that active and purposeful mass participation is something that leads nowhere, that all these things are just kind of. Like rocks falling down a hill. And I don't fully believe that. I think that there are ways that we can go about it. But I do think people are more convinced that mass action is not going to be a path to any real change, at least purposeful mass action. I'd say the biggest legacy of Covid, though, is the, the mass advancement and wealth transfer to the wealthiest, people in the world, and to corporations, getting out of the pandemic, I think we saw like 300% increases in, corporate profits. While, pandemic in some ways was amazing, it was the most, federal aid that a lot of people have ever received. It, was something that really could have been a new, new deal in the way of people seeing their government actively investing in them, actively helping them out, seeing the ways in which the government could be actively involved in their lives and having that be a positive with that under their control. And yet it felt like the, the economic means within our country came about to immediately punish everybody for that. As soon as the pandemic was over, wages were increased, but then sharply, we saw return of a lot of, the predatory, labor practices from before. And some of those even get worse. I don't know. It's a very interesting time. Labor is on the move more than it really has been, since maybe like the 70s or something. And then at the same time, the wealthiest among us have the most wealth and the most power that they ever have. And, are very afraid of seeing something like the, positive gains towards the working class that happened during the pandemic repeat themselves. So it's, we're in a very interesting spot, and I wish that we could have used the pandemic to push us as a society a lot more forward. And in certain ways it feels like we've fallen back. But in other ways, it does feel like there is more of a. Path to something better. If we can all unlearn some of the harmful lessons of the pandemic, I guess. If that makes any sense.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: Yeah, absolutely. And was there any other aspect of your experience with Covid that you'd want to discuss that none of my questions have brought up.
Dominic Rouse: I guess the biggest thing is that boredom is a real killer. And when you. I know a lot of people who were able to really. Do effective creative things and like learn new skills throughout that. I guess the thing I learned for myself is that. As creative as I can be when just given that unstructured time with nothing to do, I gravitate towards the easiest forms of creative Creative. Nourishment and, access. And it was something that just pointed more to my head that if I wanted to. Really get good with. And while it was also atrophying, my. While I was atrophying my, determination and, dedication. There's another d word for that that I'm just forgetting. But, as it was kind of eroding that for me, it was also pointing to me out. It also pointed out to me that, if I really want to be good with creative endeavors or have those be a part of my life, or even just building new skills that it's going to be have, it's going to have to be something that I'm very extra conscious about, because when I just allow myself to go to the greatest pleasures or do the things that are just right in front of me, I might have a good time in the moment, but it does not end up with me, doing the larger creative pursuits or technical pursuits that I guess I, that I would like to see myself, do at some point.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo: All right. So that was all the questions I had for you today. Thank you so much for your time.
Dominic Rouse: Thank you.
Files
Collection
Citation
“Dominic Rouse, August 13th, 2024,” Detroit Historical Society Oral History Archive, accessed October 5, 2024, https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/items/show/1046.