Thoughts during the apocalypse, Part 12.

I've mentioned my father here before. Tony Farinella died in 2001 at the age of 82, and I imagine that like many of you that remember your parents fondly, a day doesn't pass without something taking place that reminds me of him, or a question arises that I wish I could ask him.

Wednesday's question was, "Hey, Dad, where did you hide the face masks?"

Jeanne and Tony Farinella, on Christmas 1980.

You have to understand that Tony and Jeanne Farinella shared about nine years of retired life together, and 25 years without their only son in the house. My father made a good living and didn't spend his money foolishly -- in fact, I wish he had built a summer house on Cape Cod as had his high-school best friend, Dr. Charles Colella, in the Bay Shores development in North Falmouth, but no such luck -- so he and his wife were able to live comfortably and with nary a care in the small house where they had lived since 1954.

During that time, Tony and Jeanne bought a lot of stuff. Lots of it. And a lot of it, they either duplicated or didn't need. And it piled up in the house, which was expanded in 1985 to include two new bathrooms and a dining room. The stuff wasn't piled up anywhere near as much for them to qualify for that reality-TV show about hoarders, but enough so that I had to get a 30-foot-long, roll-off dumpster when my mother passed in 2015 and I moved into the house. I filled it with junk and other artifacts so quickly, I left about a quarter of my folks' accumulated junk in the basement. I have yet to address that.

Most of what was tossed out was stuff I wouldn't miss -- old technology, broken furniture, some fixtures from the clothing store my father used to own, and whatever else the hauler would take. Other things -- kitchen appliances, garden tools, artsy-fartsy things my mother bought over the years -- made for a profitable yard sale. And some things I kept either for sentimental reasons, or because I thought I might be able to make use of them.

For instance, in the bathroom closet I found an unopened box of latex gloves. Who knew that five years later, I'd have to go to the Stop & Shop wearing them? Knowing that, I figured that my father might have also squirreled away some breathing masks. He was a handyman of sorts and used to paint the house or do carpentry repairs, and I recalled him donning masks to protect him from fumes or dust.

Masks, of course, have become the newest hot item in the coronavirus crisis. Healthcare professionals can't get enough of them, let alone average citizens like myself. Needless to say, you can't find them on the shelves at your local Walgreens or CVS, along with alcohol wipes, rubbing alcohol, hand sanitizer, toilet paper or marshmallow eggs. I looked for the latter only because my 6-foot-long pharmacy receipt included a coupon for $2 off Easter candy, which I shouldn't be eating anyway.

The only mask in my house. Ew.

So I searched the house, the basement (especially Dad's workbench area) and every drawer or cabinet that is stashed away downstairs. While I did find lots of clothes hangers from his store, which closed in 1991, I found only one mask -- old, used and filthy.

The orange-faced president said Wednesday that we should consider wearing masks when we leave our houses for any reason. That's the only reason why I am in the process of running that mask through multiple wash cycles, hoping it doesn't disintegrate in the process. I'd be more than happy to wear a real mask if I could actually get my hands on one, but I suspect that any that get to the local pharmacies are snapped up immediately by the same individuals that think they need to emerge from a supermarket with two years' worth of toilet paper in their shopping cart.

What I was reminded of Wednesday is that I really need to clean out the basement. It's not awful, but there's a lot of the past downstairs that doesn't need to be in the future. I have time now, but not the motivation. But we'll see. The longer this self-quarantining goes on, the more likely I might be to set a match to the junk -- and that would not be a wise course of action.

Zayre's had everything.

But I will save some stuff -- like the glasses I found in a cabinet that are still covered with the original bags from Zayre's Department Store, where my parents apparently bought the set. Talk about a find! This almost qualifies as an archaeological dig.

If you're too young to know what Zayre's was, it was Ames before Ames, or Bradlees before Bradlees, or maybe KMart before KMart had stopped being Kresge's, or maybe Kohl's before any of the others. And when Cabot, Cabot and Forbes developed a giant industrial park in West Mansfield, Zayre's was one of the first companies to commit to building a huge distribution center there.

And when somebody buys the house after I'm gone, they can throw them out if they wish.

Now, a few other thoughts while I continue to search for that light at the end of the tunnel:

A special design for April 2020.

** I have an erasable "to-do" calendar on the door to my home office, and each month, I put my artistic skills to work and write out the name of the month in fancy hand-drawn fonts. Usually, to dot the small "i" in April, I draw a blooming daisy to symbolize the rebirth of springtime.

This year, however, I felt something different was in order. So as you can see, despite the limitations of erasable felt pens, I was able to dot the "i" with the representation of a coronavirus spore. Nothing like a little dark humor at a time of crisis.

** I was called out on Twitter again today for stating that the MIAA should stop filling high school athletes with false hope under the premise that the spring season may be started on May 4.

Wednesday, the Wimbledon tennis championships were canceled. That follows the suspension of all of the active major-league sports in America, and would appear to be sensible amid the premise that the pandemic may not crest in this country until June, and possibly later on the other side of the Atlantic.

At least a dozen states have already canceled their spring seasons, so my point was that the MIAA should look a little more realistically at the prospects of following suit. The disease is not abating yet, and I'd rather see the MIAA send a message about social responsibility than to fill the kids with false hope.

Of course, there's always someone that has to make a disagreement a little snippy in nature. One individual responded to my tweet by saying, "This from the man who wanted to hold the basketball finals at the start of the pandemic."

That's true, I did. I was inside the TD Garden for two nights in a row, inhaling the same air as about 6,000-8,000 other people, while the Mansfield boys and Foxboro girls played their state semifinal games. And now, half a month later, my body temperature is still 96.5 and my only sniffles are coming from the blooming bushes and trees outside. I firmly believe the MIAA could have found gymnasiums where the games could have been staged on Saturday of that week, probably without fans in attendance, and all the competitors would have been just fine.

Disagree with that? Fine. But I think I'm smart enough to see what writing is on the wall right now, and that does not indicate a happy stroll back to the playing fields until the fall -- and then again, they're now warning that there might be a second wave of COVID-19 then as well.

I guess that's just part of being an American, even in a pandemic. Everyone has an opinion and the right to express it. And as Bill Parcells once said, "I reserve the right to change my mind." … although as this is an entirely different circumstance from the basketball finals, I'm not changing my mind about anything. I've absorbed the information available and reached a conclusion from it.

** Made another supermarket run today. The only place I found Diet Dr Pepper in 2-liter bottles was at CVS in Mansfield. My state of mind is thus stable for at least another four or five days.

** Jimmy Fallon was first to do it and it was entertaining, but I am glad that Stephen Colbert has opted to do live shows from home with Skype interviews. Reminds me a lot of how I conduct many of my interviews for "The Owner's Box." And while I'm on the topic, please go to any of the links to my podcasts and listen to the last two -- Episode 17 with Norwood High boys' basketball coach Kristen McDonnell and Episode 18 with Bruins' play-by-play voice Jack Edwards. Those two have convinced me that I'm beginning to know what I'm doing.

See you tomorrow. Wash your hands!