Reactions to masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, November 2021


It's November 2021, and as usual I went for a ride in my little suburban neighborhood of Peoria, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. And even though I've been vaccinated, I still carry along a mask, and wear it into places like the grocery store.

These are interesting times, which as you know, is a curse. Here in Arizona there are people who disagree vehemently with mask mandates, and see it as just another way that big government pushes the little guy around. Or there are the "faith over fear" people who are protected by their faith, and the list goes on and on on the subject of wearing a mask in public.

Speaking for myself, I've had no difficulty wearing a mask, even back at the beginning of the pandemic. I started with the cheap paper ones that a friend of mine gave me, and then graduated to ones with interesting designs, like the wiener dogs one (my favorite) that I got from the Woman in my Life.

It's been an interesting lesson for me on what it feels like to wear something when you know that you'll be interacting with people who don't have the same beliefs. I've never experienced anything like that in my life, but it must be like wearing a yarmulke, or a turban in public - some people are going to react, and it might be very unpleasant.

Putting my mask on before going to a grocery store does send a clear message to some people - that obviously my faith isn't stronger than my fear, or that maybe I'm in on the conspiracy. It's a creepy feeling, and I just go in and buy my veggies, and wander off.

I wish that I could help these people, but I really can't. I'm in no position to explain viruses, or how contagions work, or anything like that. The best that I can do is to be true to myself, and I've always been "that guy" - I always sat in the emergency exit on planes, I was always willing to help. Wearing a mask nowadays is a pretty small thing for me to do, and I'm surprised that it requires any courage at all, but it does, and if you're doing it, I thank you, and commend you.

We're all in this together! I'll report back again, I promise.
If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more