Countdown to the presidential election as seen from my adopted town of Columbus, Mississippi...
It's unnecessary to try to describe the worldwide perfect storm that 2020 has been, or even to characterize it in the United States. The world has changed. The United States has changed. Life for all of us has changed this year. Even here in "backward" Mississippi with a Trump-adhering Governor, people in Columbus and surrounding towns that I've visited since the pandemic has settled in, voluntarily wear masks in public venues. And even though most of the restaurants have re-opened after the spring lockdown and quarantine, entrance signs tell customers that mask-wearing is mandatory inside, as is social distancing.
And even though that ability to go into a restaurant or grocery story helps it feel like we're getting "back to normal" the ever present masks and hand-sanitizing stations belie that feeling and this has been with us now for over seven months.
And here we are 10 days from our US election, and it's like we're living in some kind of post-apocalyptic world. We're going through the motions. Creative people have found ways to attend virtual concerts, church, school, and even hold "in-face" meetings through Zoom (?). Live goes on, and the vast majority of Americans are hoping that this election will run smoothly and a new President and Congress will take power on January 20, 2021 and this nightmare of the last year can come to an end.
Living through this new reality here in Columbus, Mississippi, makes me appreciate the people here all the more. I've yet to see a single argument break out anywhere here by the anti-maskers—those at least who seem to think their Constitutional Freedoms are being trod on. I just ask those people (silently and in my head), do you wear seatbelts? Do you comply with traffic laws? Isn't it treading on your freedoms to buckle yourself into your car seat or to drive on the correct side of the road? Even their answers would have to be, if we didn't comply with seatbelt laws, we would risk much more serious injury in an accident, and if we didn't drive on the correct side of the road, traffic would become unmanageable. So...I ask (silently, in my head) why don't you wear a mask for the same reason? The long answer is that it took almost fifty years for people to come to their senses about wearing seatbelts, and perhaps a little longer for freedom-rebels to get over the idea that they had a Constitutional right to smoke in public places.
The 1918 Spanish Flu took three years to subside—precisely for the same damned reason: some people were stubborn and insisted that they didn't have to wear masks. So we're in for the same result, because many people are pig-headed.
(Whoa...did I say all that out loud?)
