One of our grandnephews – the Marine Staff Sergeant – married a wonderful young woman Saturday evening.
The weather, unseasonably pleasant, cooperated and just under 200 close family and good friends sat shoulder to shoulder as the young couple professed their love.
Most of us had masks with us (my wife and I bringing our formal dress black cloth ones), yet, though a couple of people entered the venue wearing masks, all had them off by the time the ceremony started.
No, none of us (including my 94 year old mother in law) wants to get sick. And, the virus stayed on everyone’s mind – the minister, for example, became a late scratch after testing positive. Unfortunately, moving a wedding date creates problems and when your career includes the distinct possibility of overseas travel on short notice hard choices get made.
The coronavirus did have a visible impact. While there were no masks on the wedding party of 15 or on us the invited, all the staff wore masks and those serving food behind the plexiglass shields wore gloves too. Plus, an unfortunate group found themselves disinvited due to capacity restrictions. And, all rubbed their hands raw with frequent applications of hand sanitizer.
Perhaps compromising with this new uncertainty now becomes the norm.
Despite throwing billions of dollars – plus billions of Euros, Yuans and such – at COVID 19 the virus still owns the field. Common sense precautions have proved helpful, still, germs lack morality or compassion. They attack, they attack, they mutate and they attack again.
Add the bitter debate over masks and other precautions, his accidency refusing to lead a coherent Missouri response, local governments offering conflicting and unenforced advice, and well, you get a garbage fire.
That beautiful wedding, you see, took place in Cottleville in St. Charles County…
“When it comes to masks, I have faith that the citizens of St. Charles County will do the right thing without government coercion,” County Executive Steve Ehlmann said recently when asked about St. Louis’ mask mandate. “I will continue to do everything I can to remind our citizens that, along with the freedom to decide, they have a responsibility to protect the health of others by wearing a mask.”
In other words, you don’t need no stinkin’ masks.
Family and friends can’t abandon a young couple on their wedding day. So, good people accepted a level of risk, by necessity.
Welcome to 2020 in Missouri and the world.
Glenn