When I went to visit my cousins on Thursday, I was traveling from one rural part of Virginia to another. By carefully choosing a circuitous route, I was able to avoid major metropolitan areas, which is what I prefer — since the onset of the “pandemic” and the Black Live Matters riots, staying away from cities has seemed like a good idea.
My relatives live in the county seat of a very rural county. It’s small enough to have escaped the Coronamadness, but large enough to have the basic amenities — a Food Lion, a good restaurant, a brewery and a distillery. The townspeople dutifully wear their masks when they know they’re supposed to, but tend to pull them off as soon as possible, the same way I do. Only I complain about it more.
I spent a delightful evening at the small craft brewery. It was still warm enough to sit on the terrace and listen to live acoustic music, but after sunset it got chilly, and everyone moved inside. And nobody was wearing masks, not even inside, except for a couple of the staff, and those for only part of the time.
I had interesting discussions with some of the locals. There are a lot of old hippies in the area, transplants who moved out to the middle of nowhere to do serious organic farming, plus craftsmen and so on. They mix fairly amicably with the original inhabitants — traditional Virginia good ol’ boys (and girls). Both groups share a strong libertarian temperament, with the transplants skewing towards the leftward side, and the natives to the right.
I have a right-libertarian temperament myself, and I like talking to left-libertarians, with whom I can find a lot of common ground. I got into a discussion with a couple of women about the coronavirus, and we were in agreement that the disease was not a pandemic, and that all the hysteria was generated by the government and the media. And these were older people, maybe not quite as old as I am, but getting up there. And, like me, they weren’t afraid. To be afraid of COVID you have to swallow the media line. We agreed that one could be cautious and prudent about the disease, and mindful of those who are truly at risk, without ever going into panic mode over it.
And these were left-leaning women, mind you. We didn’t discuss politics as such, which is good, because there were certain topics that I would probably have had to excuse myself to get another beer to avoid any unpleasant arguments. But we stayed away from those.
Interestingly enough, when I said that George Floyd was not killed by the police, but died of a fentanyl overdose, they agreed. Very unusual lefties, those women. But then, it’s an unusual town.
I stopped by the Food Lion while I was there. It had prominent mask-up signs like all the others, which I ignored. No one accosted me at the door to hand me a mask. Most of the shoppers in the store were masked, but a fair number weren’t. The dissidents were mostly older men, but included a couple of women, too.
It made me wonder why the younger people seemed to be more mask-compliant than the geezers. I’ve noticed the same pattern in other places, which is strange, because youngsters have the lowest risk. Not only that, youth is traditionally the age of rebellion. So why such conformity among the young, and so much dissent (albeit to a limited extent) among the aged?
I don’t have an answer to that question, but it does make me ponder the strange times we live in.
We certainly do live in strange times, Baron. Very strange but interesting as well. I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.
Sincerely,
Maria
We certainly do live in interesting and strange times. But I find it interesting to read about it all. I’m just glad I don’t live in any of the big cities. I live in the boonies in Elizabeth, Colorado. It’s very nice and peaceful and quiet there. Horses (my grand daughter is a rodeo rider). And numerous dogs and cats, as well as chickens and ducks.
Mariadee
Old people have nothing to lose, the younger wear masks because they worry about infecting their old relatives.
when I said that George Floyd was not killed by the police, but died of a fentanyl overdose, they agreed. Where did you get that news??!
Power Line, among other places.
I had never heard that before. Talk about being kept in the dark! The entire series of events that could go down in the history books as the 2020 summer of burning and hate (unlike the summer of love 53 years ago) was orchestrated, as was the covid-19 virus that was most likely intended to be aerosol-sprayed over this country but the sloppy lab technicians let the cat out of the bag prematurely and left the Chinese government to clean up the mess that they left.
Please allow me to pose this question, “Why are we only seeing in the news Republicans being infected with Covid-19 and not any Democrats?” Can the infections be regarded as assassination attempts? Trump in the hospital at the mercy of doctors, nurses, and ward personnel?
It’s time to fast and pray and be on our knees for this country mates. If the lights go out here the rest of the world is apt to end up in a suffocating darkness, (or maybe that’s the plan).
That’s been out there, verified by autopsy report. MSM does not cover this info.
Nice account, Barron.
“Not only that, youth is traditionally the age of rebellion. So why such conformity among the young . . .”
The current crop has been trained since kindergarten to rebel compliantly and that said compliance is rebellion. Hence “The Narrative.”
It’s a Brave New World where war is peace, Brother.
When I read your article I thought “how strange” I have experienced exactly the same thing and I live in a big city and I am a ‘few’ years older than you, Baron. In our jurisdiction (Canada, BC) we don’t have a complete government masking up edict for all indoor places yet, so it is a little bit left to individual shops, but the few people that go unmasked to grocery shops (like me) are older people, when I would have expected younger ones to object. Maybe we still know something about individual liberty which has been “out-educated” of the young people. Pity them!
Maybe that’s it. Also, we spend less time on social media. In my case, I spend no time on them at all!
Hear, hear!
From now on I will make a point of not wearing masks anywhere it is explicit to do so. If Karen wants to make a point of it I’ll tell her to get stuffed and take my dollars elsewhere.
Same here.
The idea of “government as parent” is becoming more and more popular, and so the youth of today become more complicit. Older people resist because they are relics of a time that valued freedom more and had more skepticism of authority.
I taught college for thirty years. The young are conformist because they have been indoctrinated by “public education,” which has not produced an educated public for a long time. The more time a young person has spent in the institutions of education — the more indoctrinated and conformist he or she is likely to be. College graduates are, on the whole, more indoctrinated and therefore more conformist in their tendency than high-school graduates who went into the job market after obtaining their K-12 diploma. The ultra-pervasive technology of the Internet and the cell phone alo reinforce conformity.
I hold to a weird theory. Conformity exists in disproportion to personality. In a conformist environment, the average degree of personality, of individuality and distinctness, is low. The conformist is fuzzily aware of his or her lack of personality, which he or she cannot help measure against those who, in their lives, have maximized their personalities. Personality stands out for being rare. The mask functions to hide the fact that the wearer is not much of a person and is subconsciously embarrassed over it. The mask equalizes by obscuring what would otherwise be uncomfortably obvious.
“It made me wonder why the younger people seemed to be more mask-compliant than the geezers.”
I would think it quite obvious. Look at how the education system has evolved during the last decade or so. The brainwashing of the young from the indoctrination centers, K1-K12 is stronger than ever. Than on the the liberal hot-beds of colleges.
Because the young don’t have have the long experience with varying degrees of freedom like we do. I have known utter freedom in my youth, to somewhat mitigated, but serviceable, freedom later on.
Now, however, American’s holds on their freedoms are tenuous, at best, but young people may not fully realize what is happening. Few understand that losses of freedom are thin slices, not explosive moments.