Wearing a mask is more comfortable than being on a ventilator. Take that and chew on it during the following anecdote.

Walking along the roadside, a skinning 15-year-old boy stuck his thumb out in the sunny streets of South Minneapolis. A car pulled up, and not knowing who could it be, the shaggy-haired kid climbed in. They didn’t say a word. They pulled off as the sun rose. It was the summer of 1976, the bi-centennial of our nation, a time where a country’s heart pounded with electric pulses. That boy was my Father.

Fast-forwarding to today, picking a hitch-hiker up is absurd. Our best interest isn’t in other people, and only ourselves. The concept of wearing a mask is in everyone’s best interest. If it keeps others safe during the COVID-19 Pandemic, then it is a no brainer. Just do it, damn it.

The time where American’s looked out for each other now has faded. It sounded like a fable when strangers picked up my hitch-hiking Father to get to Hibbing, Minnesota, in 1976 to help his hockey coach, Jim Baxter, on his summer farm. My Father didn’t have anything to gain; there was no money involved in his work for Coach Baxter. He wanted to help someone because he genuinely wanted to help his hockey coach.

It is time to revert to those habits that our country used to have. The COVID-19 Pandemic has pulled most of us apart in a time where we need to come together. My Father got into the car with eight different strangers during his sojourn, and everything was fine because those people wanted to help him get to where he wanted to go.

It is time to knock it off and come together, so we can get to where we want to go.

It is a time where we need to step up, sew masks, and donate money and food. If we are unable to do those simple things, staying at home goes very far.

We need to all get on the same damn page.

My fiance has sewed over 300 masks to give away to people for free, using her unemployment checks to finance her effort to save the world. She is answering the simple question once asked by John F. Kennedy, “Don’t ask what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

We need more of that right now.

The generations ahead of us went to war and died at the hands of destruction to keep us safe, so my Father could hitch-hike to Northern Minnesota, and so you could be safe today by only having to wear something on your face. Stay inside and stay away from each other. It is simple, so we should choose to comply. Otherwise, even more of us could die.

If we all wore masks, we could keep our future generations safe like our grandparents’ parents did for us over 70-80 years ago. After all, wearing a mask is better than having to shoot someone in a war.

If we habitually became more thoughtful towards other people’s best interests through wearing masks, our future generations would adopt this mindset. And with that thought, my future great-grandchild will be able to hitch-hike to Northern Minnesota.

Remember,

“The Zos Knows”

-David Zosel 

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