Bagpipers lift spirits of Los Gatos neighborhood during coronavirus shutdown

Members of the Silicon Valley Pipe Band are maintaining social distance while providing a neighborhood with a musical treat.

It’s Friday evening, and the sounds of bagpipes and drums are filling the cul-de-sac where Sue and Burr Nissen live in Los Gatos.

They’re members of the Silicon Valley Pipe Band, led by Pipe Major Adam Blaine, and during the shelter-in-place, they’ve been joined by a small number of their fellow pipers and drummers for short musical concerts in the street about once a week. They make sure their numbers are small, and the band members maintain physical distance.

“Our band is a non-profit organization and we feel that it’s important to give back to the community,” Sue Nissen said. “The neighbors gather on their front lawns, keeping a safe distance from each other.”

Before anyone points it out, these “non-essential” gigs do probably violate the letter of Santa Clara County’s strict shelter-in-place rules. But you can’t keep a good pipe band down.

Other neighborhoods are also trying to keep the spirits of their communities up in creative ways. You’ve probably heard about all the stuffed animals that are popping up in front windows, to the delight of joggers, daily strollers and dogwalkers, and holiday inflatables have reappeared on front lawns around San Jose, too.

On Lester Avenue in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood, it’s also beginning to look a lot like a Christmas re-do — with a COVID-19 twist. Juli Nash says that she and her neighbors have put illuminated snowmen back in their front yards, appropriately distanced and complete with homemade face masks.

CREATIVE THINKING: I told my wife recently that I could imagine a lot of creative output resulting from the coronavirus pandemic — movies, books, songs and plays that tapped into our feelings about this unprecedented experience. I just didn’t realize it would happen so quickly.

Palo Alto Players has already assembled a team of volunteer creative types — playwrights, composers, technical directors, and actors and singers — to make “Shelter in Place, the Musical.” Palo Alto Players Artistic Director Patrick Klein is leading the effort to create “a story of isolation and redefining community.” The Peninsula theater company pointed out in its latest email blast that it’s following in well-known footsteps: William Shakespeare is said to have written “King Lear” while he was quarantined during the plague.

GOOD DEED DEPT.: Look for the helpers, Fred Rogers said, and he would have had no problem finding them in the Bay Area this month. Right on the heels of my column last week about younger people stepping up to help others during the pandemic, Siddhant Patel, a junior at Monta Vista High in Cupertino, let me know that he and a team that includes nonprofit Sewa International, had raised more than $28,000 through GoFundMe and PayPal in less than two weeks to purchase masks and other personal protective equipment for hospitals and clinics.

The Rotary Club of Santa Clara, meanwhile, donated $10,000 to Maker Nexus, the Sunnyvale nonprofit that has marshaled its community of 3-D printer owners to create face shield components for healthcare workers. “Without being called upon or even asked, Maker Nexus, Rotarians, entrepreneurs, businesses and neighbors alike step up to lead, help solve problems and continue to make our world a better place,” said Colleen Noll, the Santa Clara Rotary Club’s president.

And Tony Zerbo of the Italian American Heritage Foundation in San Jose reports that group is making calls to all of its members — many of whom are older — to check in on them during the stay-at-home period. Other organizations are doing the same, but there’s no reason why we all can’t check in on the people in our lives — especially those who might not be regularly on Zoom conferences or posting on Facebook. “This has been a big community outreach to make sure that everyone in our area is contacted who needs help,” Zerbo said. “The returned calls made to the IAHF for thank yous and appreciation has been unbelievable.”

TELETHON FINISHES STRONG: The Silicon Valley Strong telethon, hosted by Garvin Thomas on NBC Bay Area on April 4, did a great job highlighting the work being done in our community to fight the coronavirus pandemic — and raised a lot of money to provide financial aid for affected residents. The effort — to replenish a depleted $11 million fund — included some big names and numbers: $2 million from Cisco; Zoom pledged $500,000; the HP Foundation gave $300,000; Marvell Technology Group put up $250,000; Advanced Micro Devices pledged $200,000; and John A. Sobrato gave $100,000.

But the viewers of the telethon also came up big, contributing more than $272,000. Telethons may seem old-fashioned, but this one did the job.