Wearing a mask during COVID-19 in suburban Phoenix


It's May 11th, 2020, I just rode up to the grocery store, which is only a few blocks away, and I put on the mask before I left. It's strange to feel as if I could hold up a stagecoach, but it's one less thing for me to remember when I get to the store.

Today is the first day that I felt that I got a few hard looks from people who weren't wearing masks in the grocery store. And it occurred to me that I've always seen that look, going back to when I would wear a seat belt when someone else was driving. It seemed to say that I didn't trust them. I still wore the seat belt, even though they assured me that it wasn't required by law, but I made a note not to ride with them again.

As you can see from the pic up there, I also wear a bicycle helmet. I have enough sunscreen to be able to walk on the sun, and to me it's all about reducing the odds of injury - whether to my head, or to my skin. There are people who resent seeing me doing this kind of stuff, and I've known them all of my life, it seems to imply that they should be doing the same thing I'm doing. Which of course they should, but I'm not gonna say anything.

I grew up in the age of "question authority", and I do. No one has to stand there and wag a finger at me to get me to wear a bicycle helmet, or sunscreen, or a mask. So I question authority, do my own research, and come to my own conclusions, that's part of the reason that I like Arizona. Historically it's always been a place like that.

This is as "Code of the West" as it gets. A gentleman knows how to behave, he doesn't have to be told by anyone in authority. Yes, there are people who are outside of the Code of the West, and in Westerns they tended to show me what not to do, how not to behave.

I may look like a stagecoach robber, but I'm a cowboy. Welcome to Arizona!
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