My heart goes out to so many affected by coronavirus. Women in their 40s made a widow. Grandchildren waving to Nana through a window at a senior home. Three golf duffers who have just left the funeral of their lifelong four-some pal.
An author named Jim Harrison, now deceased, once gave me a piece of advice.
He said never to feel sorry for yourself on bad days.
“Self-pity is the most injurious of the emotions,” Harrison said.
But the plain truth is that the COVID-19 blues have struck home.
In the first place, it halted my love for teaching. I have been blessed to work with young people every year since 1994.
But this month I withdrew my commitment to teach one advanced writing class at Ball State University. I hated disappointing the department head. I hated giving up the day-to-day satisfaction of watching good student writers turn into great ones.
In the end, my wife’s daughter, Natalia, convinced me to step down. She reminded me that I’m in a high-risk category. I have about 60% of my lung usefulness due to a collapsed lung in a rodeo accident. I’ve passed my allotted biblical three score and 10. And for three straight years, despite getting flu shots, I’ve been flattened by “ordinary” flu attacks.
I should mention that Natalia is a Ph.D biologist with the World Health Organization. Her day job requires her to educate natives in Micronesia on how to protect themselves from COVID-19. She said the odds were about even I’d end up waving to my wife through a hospital glass window.
As a result, I bailed three weeks before the Ball State semester began.
However, any self-pity I felt increasingly is being replaced by growing anger.
My wife and I wear our masks as faithfully as the Lone Ranger once wore his.
We wore them at the local breakfast nook in Ansonia, Ohio, just as the waitress wore hers. Not one customer in the 20 or so there was masked.
Last week we went to the Winchester Wal-Mart and watched the greeter let customer after customer pass the “masks required” sign without a rebuke. The elderly lady at the counter wore a mask but left her nose uncovered.
Last week I changed my driver’s license address at the Winchester branch. I marveled how efficient were these clerks as they did their risky day jobs. They greeted, sprayed, and endured the discomfort of a mask.
But while the 40 or so of us patrons wore masks, one man with tattoos and a Harley shirt took his off. I happened to watch him because I’d forgotten to bring in a book from the car.
He peeled off the mask and gave himself a sly, self-congratulatory grin. Then he looked at each clerk, clearly daring the women to make him put it on. When his number came up, he sat there maskless and smug. When he exited, he made sure to look at nearly every masked patron.
At no time did I confront any of these people. Me who never lets a racial slur go by unchallenged. Me who pipes up if someone treats me with condescension because I’m a senior citizen.
So this column is a thank you to all readers who wear masks.
And it’s a hard slap at those who put others at risk. The greeter at Wal-Mart. The breakfast crowd. The biker at the motor vehicle bureau who was as clueless as the thousands of unmasked bikers invading Sturgis, South Dakota, recently.
And this is also a sad nod to the students at Ball State. In spite of amazing steps taken to safeguard the health of the campus, there is zero chance the semester can be conducted in-person through Thanksgiving. The semester will end online.
While the great majority of students and faculty will abide by the rules, there will always be that one fraternity member who thinks throwing a COVID party is a snarky bit of rebellion. There will always be the young women who cannot resist hugging anyone in hugging distance. And there will be some customer in the bookstore just daring anyone to order him to slap on a mask.
So forgive me, Jim Harrison. The coronavirus has overpowered your good advice. After nearly six months of mask wearing, the self-pity bug has bit my butt.
Hank Nuwer is professor emeritus of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism. Send comments to editorial@therepublic.com.
