Orcasional Musings | Say, Sheriff, who was that masked man?

||| ORCASIONAL MUSINGS BY STEVE HENIGSON |||

We just got back from our weekly shopping trip to Island Market. It’s really the truth: You see everybody you know at the market. But nowadays, with all of us covered up against the dreaded COVID-19, you don’t always know which of them you’re seeing.

Personal identification has become a very serious, socially relevant parlor game. Occasionally we find ourselves mistakenly discussing the intimate details of our lives with masked people whom we barely know. And, just as often, we end up snubbing some people we shouldn’t, concealed into the same anonymity as everyone else, but about whom we have really serious feelings.

It’s those damned masks. It’s entirely possible that our masks do very little to keep people from dying from the “Wu Flu,” but it is nevertheless undeniably true that they’re disguising me while hiding you. The Russian word for disguise in general is “maskerovka” (маскировка). The “mask” component is right there in the word. Yes, it’s a disguise intended to fool a virus, and it might be working, since it’s doing such a good job on all of us people.

A while back, we passed by a lady in the market, and she said something pleasant and complimentary, so we began a conversation with her. It was immediately obvious that she was a particularly nice person, and we said so, and wondered who she was. At that moment, she briefly lifted her mask and revealed herself to be our next-door neighbor. Who knew?

The truly funny thing about COVID-19 masks, however, is that they cover the wrong part of the face. Shouldn’t a mask, a disguise, cover either everything, or maybe only the all-too-expressive eyes? You can be interestingly flirty while wearing a domino mask over your eyes, but if your mouth is well covered, even by a romantic wild-western bandanna, you can’t possibly whisper sweet cajolery convincingly to anybody.

Well, I have a solution of sorts: If I must wear a mask, I’m going to start riding a big white horse, and handing out silver bullets. You’ll hear me, off in the near distance, crying out, “Hi-ho, Silver!” And since there’s a Mr. Silver who lives just around the corner, you’ll probably be able to hear him answering back, “Hi-ho, Henigson!”*

*That is a paraphrase of a gag from The Fred Allen Show, broadcast on the radio in 1946. It was delivered by Tansy Nussbaum, a denizen of the show’s “Allen’s Alley” segment. For the entire script, go HERE.