When the going got pandemic, Bob Stroh commited to Hallmark

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/12/2022 (1091 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When the pandemic started, Bob Stroh felt unmoored.

Stroh could no longer do the job he loved, which is driving a big yellow school bus. He suddenly had a lot of free time on his hands, time that could have easily been filled by worry and a never-ending parade of grim headlines.

And so, Stroh, 73, started watching Hallmark movies (well, that and he took up rock painting). He watched one (Inn For Christmas), and then another (Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Sweater). He kept watching them.

This week he reached a personal best. On Monday, he watched his 400th Hallmark movie (Hanukkah on Rye) since the pandemic began. (He’s also at about 250 rocks painted.)

“I know how they’re going to turn out, as everybody that’s heavy into Hallmark movies knows,” he says. “I mean, they have a theme, and I know pretty much what’s going to happen in the first 10 minutes. I get comfort from watching them. I think it was driven by the pandemic, COVID. We were housebound, and I wasn’t working anymore, so had to do something to pass time. So I watched a lot of Hallmark movies, really got into them, it was a feel-good thing for me, as the rock painting was.”

Stroh isn’t the only one to find pandemic refuge in the Hallmark universe, that sparkly snow globe in which everything has a way of working out. After all, when the world feels uncertain, it stands to reason that one would crave some certainty. “Exactly,” Stroh agrees.

He keeps track of the Hallmark movies he’s seen via an extremely detailed list, which includes not just the movie’s title, but the leading lady and where she hails from, as well as where the movie was shot. That’s part of the ritual, too; Stroh’s list is as much a record of the pandemic as it is a record of Hallmark movies watched.

Stroh has a favourite actor — “anything with Aimee Teegarden I watch” — and a favourite movie: 2018’s Once Upon a Christmas Miracle which, of course, stars Teegarden. In that one, she plays a woman who needs a life-saving liver transplant and ends up forming a love connection with her donor. “I’ve watched it maybe five times,” Stroh says of the movie, which is based on the true story of a Chicago couple.

Things are starting to return to normal. Stroh is back driving his big yellow school bus. He’s keeping active. But his pandemic hobbies have hung on.

Stroh sent me his list in response to a semi-snarky satirical column I wrote about Hallmark movies. I was struck by his commitment to the project — 400 anything is a lot — but I was reminded of just how important these small joys are, whether they are Hallmark movies, or rock painting, or however we choose to fill the time that’s actually ours. A bit of light when things can feel incredibly dark.

I don’t know about you, but my heart grew three sizes.

jen.zoratti@winnipegfreepress.com