As the pandemic begins to draw to a close, and we start to gain more control of what was an uncontrollable medical and financial crisis for the past 12 months, it has me reflecting on the COVID times.

While it goes without saying that we can't wait to get vaccinated and move on from this mess, I have to admit there are some isolated parts of the pandemic that I will miss.

Business Casual – Like, REAL Casual

I've been working here at Fun 107 for 25 years. When I first started, I'd wear a shirt and tie to work every day. My attire got more and more casual as the years went by, but it took a worldwide pandemic for me to wear a sweatshirt to work for the first time. You know what? I love it. I can't stop wearing sweatshirts on these cold winter mornings. Right now, it's only on-air people working every day here at the studios because the business people and salespeople are working from home. When they come back, I probably won't be able to get away with wearing my collection of sweatshirts to work anymore. I miss that.

Unstructured Family Time

I will miss the uninterrupted family time that the pandemic prescribed. Instead of rushing our kids to practices and games all over the state, we enjoyed more family-of-four dinners around our kitchen table than ever before. It allowed us the time to naturally fall into relaxed conversations beyond the "how was school" stuff that we normally talk about as we're rushing to orthodontic appointments in the car.

One day that I'll never forget for the rest of my life was last spring. There was nothing else for us to do, so we all as a family went outside and raked the yard. I know how simple that sounds, but it was some of the best quality time my family spent together in years. We raked all afternoon. At the end of the day, the sunset shined down upon the backyard that we worked all day to clear. It was like mother nature telling us that even though the world was hurting, there were still constants, like beautiful New England sunsets. I captured the moment in the photo above.

No Shame in the Netflix Game

The pandemic gave us the excuse to binge-watch Netflix without guilt. We didn't have anyplace to be. Our "duty" was to stay home and watch Schitt's Creek and The Queen's Gambit for hours on end. As the end of the pandemic draws to a close, you're going to have a harder and harder time binging without guilt.

Endless Weekends Off

As a radio guy and a wedding DJ, I knew what I was signing up for. When I was a young broadcaster, it was expected that I'd work on the air every weekend. Now that I'm more established, the weekend air shifts are gone, but they've been replaced by the weddings that I DJ. While I love DJing my weddings, and I missed them greatly in 2020, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a piece of me that didn't enjoy recharging the batteries every single weekend for the past year.

Next Level Cleaning

Even before the arrival of COVID-19 into our lives, I have been a bit of a germophobe. I am loving the next level of cleanliness we are seeing not only in our restaurants but also in public places in general. I'm hoping the extra cleanliness sticks around beyond the pandemic, but human nature tells me that it probably won't be permanent.