Are we ‘doomed?’

Dear Editor,

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people laying their masks on the table in restaurants. Think about it. If you have or are carrying the virus and do not know it, you have a good chance of infecting someone else. I know that they are supposed to disinfect the tables. But why chance it?

They might miss cleaning that table or miss that spot where you laid it. I’d rather see people not wearing a mask than lay it on the table. Also, do you lay your napkin on the table? Did you wipe the corner of your mouth or, worse yet, your nose?

You should put it in your pocket and take it home with you. We don’t want to infect the waitress either.

A different subject but maybe even more important is what’s going on in our country. We may be on the verge of a revolution. If the Democrats get in the White House I feel our country is doomed. Look how most of them support the rioters and defunding the cops. They want to take in more illegal immigrants that we can handle and give them everything.

They want to lock up good, honest civilians who try to protect their property. Yet, they let criminals loose so they can commit even more crimes. This rioting, burning, looting and tearing down statues must stop. They also want to take our guns.

The best hope we have is President Donald Trump. He will not let them take our guns away. He believes in the Second Amendment and the National Rifle Association. If you can, join the NRA. Right now, we need all the members we can get.

So all you Republicans and Democrats, make sure you vote for Trump in November. Repeat, we all must vote. Should we be worried about these mail-in votes?

Ron Simones,

Warren

Young and innocent

Dear Editor,

Over the decades I relived the experience whenever I needed the comfort of a stable memory. The part of me that was not his father’s son recognized himself on that day because of her.

The memory was more than a keepsake, it was a class of memory, a treasure of one important length of moments experienced as a child’s initiation to the humanities.

Whenever I tried to evaluate the memory, to hold it up to the light, I saw only the light. I could no more describe the meaning of the human exchange that took place in that back-door kitchen 72 years ago than I could pluck a snowflake undamaged from a spider’s web and turn it over for examination. All I could do was point back my mind:

I was 4 years old. From play I usually went home for lunch, but this day I found myself standing inside the screen door of their kitchen as my playmate ran to the big woman sitting wide-legged on a chair by the cook-stove. My playmate’s mother held her arms out and he ran into them, almost disappearing as they closed around him. His mother shook him and hugged him and kissed him. And then she released him and held her arms out again, and I too got a turn in her arms.

I did not remember walking to her, only wanting to, and she was then gathering me into her posture, surrounding me with the warm embrace of what seemed like her entire being. Her warm fingers held me by my shoulders and she brought her face down to mine and touched our noses. She kissed me on the forehead three times, quickly, one-two-three, and released me.

We ate lunch, the three of us, with big tablespoons. It was good food, moist and heavy and rich. And we grinned about the time we were having. Then, suddenly, my biological father was standing in the kitchen, a giant man, cursing and gesturing, his face distorted. “You can play with them,” he said, “but you’re not going to eat with them.” My father jerked my arm then, and I was in the air.

I never saw her again. But the memory of her stayed with me over the years, impossible to forget, always resurfacing, always rising to the top. I did not know what I felt at the time of the experience, only later, many years too late to find that warm woman and hug her back.

Racism makes me ill.

Joe Priddy,

Scandia