Trusting Neighbors to Wear a Mask

To the Editor:
My mom told me to never take candy from strangers. Her generation was terrified because one teen had a tab of acid secretly placed in his soda.
Dad was all upset when a lunatic tampered with a bottle of Tylenol and voila, keep trying to open the safety seals on meds.
I could stand up in the back of the car and feel like I was ‘cool’ to see the road ahead with my dad. Seatbelts came later.
I attended Catholic school for 12 years, and listened to the nuns. Well, sort of.
Always say “please” and “thank you” because it’s the right thing to do.
I typically “love my neighbor,” yet trust is another issue completely.
Can I wake up and say to myself, “I may have two weeks left to live?” Maybe I should say instead, “Do I trust you, my neighbor, to wear a nose and mouth covering to protect me?”
As any Catholic will testify, death is a topic we learned about incessantly. Since I was a child kneeling on the floor of the school hallway as air raid sirens screamed around me, I now have to trust strangers and not John F. Kennedy, to do the right thing.
The Cuban Missile Crisis is so similar to the COVID-19 crisis. The only difference is that now, we are able to be an active part of the defensive line.