In times of darkness, we look to find light.
A suggestion from WTMJ Brewers Radio Network voice Lane Grindle – and the suggestion of his wife to tweet it – became a viral source of that light. Both literally and figuratively.
“It’s been kind of wild, to be honest with you,” said Lane to WTMJ Brewers Extra Innings host Matt Pauley about how one tweet, based off the uggestion, turned into a bit of a national semi-phenomenon to re-post Christmas lights during the coronavirus pandemic.
“I was playing with the kids in the backyard on Sunday,” he added.
“I walked into the kitchen and told my wife, ‘It would be fun if everybody had their Christmas lights right now.’ “
When he expressed the idea that people could then drive around and see those lights while keeping safe social distancing, his wife thought of what we think about in the 21st century…
“She kind of laughed and said ‘You should put it on Twitter.’ “
What if we all put our Christmas lights back up? Then we could get in the car and drive around and look at them. That seems like a fair social distancing activity.
— Lane Grindle (@lanegrindle) March 15, 2020
“I looked at my phone 30 minutes later and it was blowing up,” said Lane.
“It was really two days later that it was showing up in news stories.”
Like on CNN, on-air on Wolf Blitzer’s show, and online.
Who knows the effect the tweet has had. How much more literal and figurative light is being shared . How much people’s utility bills are rising because of it .
And most importantly, how much hope this has inspired.
“I hope the people who have done it have been getting some joy out of it,” said Lane to our Matt Pauley.
“I hope this give people some hope. We’ll get through all this. It’s not fun. it’s not a great situation, but there is another side to this and we will get there.”