Neither is the public-health Taliban making us all wear face diapers everywhere. At least not as sweepingly as the Gorkas of the world would have us believe. Perhaps nobody keeps better up-to-date track of state-by-state mask requirements than the AARP. While things can vary by locality, according to them, only six states still require people to wear masks in indoor public places any longer. Three more additional states have indoor mask mandates that apply only to the unvaccinated. (Though good luck enforcing it.) Only one state (Washington) requires masks outside, but then, only at outside events attended by 500 or more people. Which still leaves four-fifths of the country. Thirty states that had far-reaching mask mandates early on in the pandemic have lifted them, and eleven states never had any at all.

In the People’s Republic of Maryland, where I live, the state doesn’t require masks in public indoor places (though a couple counties do – not mine). So what is my relationship to the mask, you might ask? Love-hate, and kind of helter-skelter. I’m double-vaccinated, and never wear one outside or at family gatherings. Neither do I feed myself through a straw at restaurants. Unsure when my immunity will wane, and having not yet gotten the booster, I do still wear one where I’m coming into close proximity with lots of strangers indoors (especially unmasked ones who are afraid of the Fauci Ouchie), such as in grocery stores or at Toby Keith concerts. (JK on that last one – I’d rather spend the night in a COVID ward, maskless, than go to a Toby Keith concert.)

I have chosen to look on the sunny side of mask-wearing, a necessary evil I’m hoping runs its course. For one, the particular masks I sport (pictured at the top of this piece) is a three-ply black job with an American flag on it. I like to think it makes me look mysterious, but patriotic, like Lee Greenwood robbing a bank. (My Stars’n’Stripes mask was made in Vietnam, but since we spent a lot of time bombing them, I’m not gonna beat myself up over it.)