By Marsha Wilson Rappaport

Hear My Interview with Laura Rich, on the Texas Standard about Masks on August 27, 2020 – All Over the Great State of Texas:

LISTEN HERE

My Mask: How This Galveston Senior Is ‘Keeping It Rolling’ In The Pandemic

The Rant Continues Here:

We didn’t really have germs when I was kid. If your friend had a runny nose, first you would ask if they had washed their hands. If your friend would then drag their sleeve across their runny nose, then you would run away shouting: “Don’t touch me – I don’t want your cooties”.

Years later, armed with college degrees, I fully understand words like “germs”, “virus” and “bacteria”. My educated brain absorbs the scientific jargon on the evening news and understands the endless alerts about COVID-19 in print and on the internet.

My senior citizen brain checks for achy body parts and new signs of infection every time a new symptom is announced. And yet, when words like pandemic and epidemic are being tossed around my six-year old self emerges shouting: “Cooties – lots of Cooties”.

Therefore, on behalf of my inner child, I am begging everyone to quell my hysteria by wearing a mask.

When I venture out to the grocery store, all masked up and wearing my cute, blue nitrite gloves, I just want you to stand six feet away.
I am too nervous to look at you to see if you are wearing a fancy N-94 Mask, a pleated blue mask or a pair of repurposed underpants. I am not a mask fashion maven and the grocery store is not Operation Mask Runway! I just don’t want to glance back at you, and see you aren’t wearing a mask.

Moreover, I don’t care what political party you belong to or what conspiracy theories you subscribe to. Nor do I care about the color of your skin, the language you speak or the food group you belong to.
Because, my friends, COVID-19 doesn’t care. This bug represents color blind, deaf and mute random death incarnate. It scares me that months later, some of the smartest people in the world, aren’t even sure how it travels and how fast it will kill you.

All this is pretty simple for me at this point in the 2020 Epidemic Horror Show:

Stand back – Mask-up- and don’t give me Cooties!
Thank you,

A grey-haired Senior Citizen with a hysterical inner six-year old running the show!