In defense of wearing masks and sunken concrete boat

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It’s hard for me to crack the writer’s block this week, because I’m constantly bombarded with the latest Trump idiocy and inanities. Let’s see if I can change the subject slightly.

I can focus on face masks. It’s now confirmed by doctors and other science professionals, that wearing a face mask is the easiest and most effective way to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, as well as anything else coming out of one’s mouth. But I do understand that there are many special individuals (boneheads) who still refuse to wear one because wearing one is unnecessary and impinges on their personal freedom and God-given rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, the Bible, the Magna Carta, and nutritional information on a box of Count Chocula. When in the course of human events, these special individuals (braindeads) may have to undergo some type of surgery, I hope they’ll up and refuse to be operated on until the surgeon and attendants in the operating room remove their foolish face coverings because they’re unneeded, and let them know by wearing them they’re acting like a bunch of sheep, thereby giving credence to scientists eager to convince these special people (dimwits) the virus is not a hoax, when they know it is.

Chuck Woolery and Sean Hannity, the true medical gurus, said so and our beloved president confirms it. Don-Don’s so sure it will just go away, he won’t even lower himself to discuss it anymore (Sorry. A momentary Trump relapse).

There are a wide variety of masks from which to choose, composed from many different materials: Everything from Dove Tissues for short-term use, to concrete for extended wear and durability.

Mentioning concrete immediately brought to my mind an event from the past (off on another tangent). I believe I mentioned here in The Voice at some point that a partner and I once owned a boat dealership in the beautiful, seaside resort suburb of Cicero. Every once in a while, we were asked to do some house calls for maintenance on sea-going vessels in dry dock at Reick’s Boat Yard. Reick’s was situated on the south bank of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, a quarter-mile, or so west of Cicero Avenue. Down close to the water was a guy constructing a small concrete boat. Now there are large concrete boats on the waterways, but they’re carefully constructed to float and otherwise perform the same way as non-concrete boats. This future mariner’s boat was about 10 or 12 feet long, with a four-cylinder engine from a 1948 Crosley auto (For you younger readers, there really were Crosley cars. I owned one). The engine was slightly off-kilter in the frame for some reason, and this fellow was haphazardly slapping concrete on the angle iron and screen frame with a trowel. When he was finished, the boat resembled a big wooden shoe made of clay in a sheltered workshop for cognitively-impaired chimpanzees. The finishing touch was a bright, flat, seasick-green paint job.

My partner and I happened to be working on a cabin cruiser at the yard the day of the cement boat launch. The boat yard’s crane used to lift boats off land and set them in the canal, picked up the concrete boat, swung out over the briny deep, and slowly lowered the green, potentially-sea-going marvel. The boat gently touched the murky water and just kept descending, steadfastly on its suicidal course straight down to Davy Jones’s Locker. The owner stood at the water’s edge, hands on his hips, and watched the historic launch as his boat joined all the other concrete in the canal, deposited there in the past on the feet of Al Capone’s enemies.

The next time I was at the boat yard, the green concrete boat had been raised and was resting on its side in a section of Reick’s designated as a boat bone yard (cemetery).

Now wasn’t that a nice, concrete, segue away from the Trumpster into something completely different? This column is almost as rambling and disjointed as his interviews.

Coming around full circle (before I get dizzy), you special people (ignoramuses) out there, please take a deep breath, think hard, and try to imagine how little I care if you catch the virus because you chose not to wear a face-covering. But, I do care greatly for the well-being of those with the good sense to follow the advice of medical experts, and whom someone not wearing a mask may still infect. Take the right protective measures to prevent others from suffering with COVID-19. Cover your face and keep your diseased breath to yourself.

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