By Vicki Scott
My husband Alan and I were recently watching Am-erican Pickers. Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz buy the darndest things for a lot of money – signs, motorcycle parts, oil cans, old leather jackets and all kinds of junk were purchased, with excitement, by these guys. I wondered if one day – maybe 10 or 20 years from now – masks from our current pandemic would make their wish list.
When the pandemic began, masks were added to my list of fashion accessories. At first, I thought we would only be practicing these safety measures for a short time, so I declined in ordering from the variety of mask ideas online. I saw one advertisement with the muzzle of a pet that I almost ordered in March. Now that I am ready to order it, I cannot find that advertisement. It was so cute, but I guess it was not meant to be mine.
Our Mayor of Glencoe, Charles Gilchrist, brought masks for us to use at George Wallace Senior Center. I wore one first and later saw someone at Dollar General wearing a bandana as a mask. I thought it looked cool, and I remembered that we received some free bandanas at an Alabama fundraiser event. When we returned home, I found and retrieved these cool bandanas that I thought would make me look cool. I tucked a coffee filter between the folds for extra filter action.
While delivering food the next day, one of my seniors felt sorry for me and bought me some official N-95 masks to use. I did the walk of shame back to the center with my cool bandana mask and changed to a better and more official germ-fighting mask. I felt blessed, as I always do.
Our seniors are the best and most generous. Later that day, another one of our seniors had made several masks with different designs and gave them to us to use. She gave me one with a red bandana design, which made my day. The city fire chief, our Avon lady, one of our co-workers and East Alabama all gave us some more masks. We have been blessed with masks!
On Mondays, I match my shirt with a pink camouflage mask from our co-worker Deidre Howard. We typically wear pink shirts representing breast cancer awareness.
On Tuesdays, I wear my bright orange mask from our Avon lady Rose Jenkins. Our shirts are navy blue in representing our uniformed officers, but my bright orange color might add another representation.
On Wednesdays, I wear the red bandana design that Peggy Kilgo made. Wednesday’s shirts are golden colored in representing the golden yellow jackets.
On Thursdays, I wear different colors matching purple shirts. Purple represents Alzheimer’s Awareness.
On Fridays, I wear a flag- colored mask to match our red patriotic shirts with our veterans in mind.
Mike and Frank love to hear the stories behind the items they pick and sometimes pay more just for the story. We have the stories and we have the masks, so all we need is for this pandemic to be history.
Thanks for all the precious people who sent us masks. We are so blessed and will be forever grateful for you. Because of people like you, this too shall pass. We love y’all and miss you so much! Stay safe!
