For many New Jerseyans who are isolated at home, the coronavirus pandemic has brought a newfound appreciation for the normal, informal get-togethers that used to fill their social calendars.

News 12 New Jersey's Brian Donohue spoke with one Flemington man who misses his regular poker games with his friends, so he wrote about how he thought this month’s game would have gone had he been able to play.

Jon Donnelly has been playing poker with his neighborhood friends for 17 years.

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“You walk around the neighborhood, there’s not much more you can do these days. And for me, I was thinking about the things I was grateful for in life. Thinking about my friends and my family and I was thinking about some things I miss, and I was thinking about the monthly poker game with the boys,” Donnelly says.

The “story” of the game contained rehashed jokes, ponderings of what they would have eaten and drank and even speculations of what each person would have worn.

Donnelly typed out the two-page recap and sent it to his friends. He says that it almost felt like the game had happened.

“It’s just a little bit of normalcy. And the things you take for granted that when suddenly you can’t do it, you realize how much it meant to you and what a big part of your life it is,” Donnelly says.