Yesterday, for the first time in fifteen months, I bared the bottom half of my face in public. I felt liberated, much like bra-burning feminists of an earlier era must have felt, the difference being that nobody around me was visibly shocked—I presume because I was only following their lead. Not until after my fellow grocery shoppers had doffed their facemasks did I dare doff mine. The term for it, I believe, is “herd conformity.”
Things are different in Northern California, where I travelled undercover in early May. Californians continue to mask up whenever they venture out of the house. In the woods, you can pocket your mask; however, should you encounter someone on the trail, you’re expected to mask up. At this point, I honestly don’t know whether the custom is aimed at preventing the spread of the corona virus, or if it’s just a common courtesy—something you do in order to assure those around you that you’re not some batshit crazy lunatic who gets his marching orders from Fox News via Mar-A-Loco.
How strange that public health has become politicized. I’m old enough to remember the polio pandemic that ravaged the nation in the Nineteen Fifties. At the movies, you’d be treated to a March of Dimes short, featuring images of children encased in iron lungs. Iron lungs! How much worse than being asked to wear a facemask is being forced to live inside a water heater? Believe you me, we were all on board the search for a vaccine, and when Dr. Jonas Salk came up with one, he was universally and rightfully praised as a national hero.
How far we have sunk since then that a brainless bloated blowhard can command an army of knuckle-dragging sycophants. I just don’t get it, and sometimes I wonder if perhaps I’ve lived too long—thanks entirely to vaccinations and multiple advances in medical science over the span of my 78 years. Seems like no sooner do I come down with something than someone comes up with a cure for it. My great fear now is that we won’t find a cure for stupidity before the next election cycle rolls around, at which time it will be too late.