Regarding Sen. Lora Reinbold’s recent complaint about being asked to wear a mask on an Alaska Airlines flight, I would like to say this. I am an Anchorage resident in my late seventies who barely leaves my home these days. I am the mother and mother-in-law of two Anchorage School District teachers, one of whom was recently spared from having to return to the classroom with her first graders.
I am the mother of a commercial airline pilot and the mother-in-law of a flight attendant, both of whom report to work all over this country every day and come in regular (miserable) contact with passengers like Sen. Reinbold. I am the mother-in-law of an emergency room nurse who is currently and heroically working as a travel nurse in California and whose services are being begged for all over this country. I am the mother-in-law of a local commercial diver who is working overtime, including almost weekly airline travel, for his fellow company employees who are being quarantined for having been exposed to COVID-19. I am the mother of a woman who has taken to heart the challenges of continuing her children’s education at home and has turned the family routine upside down to make it work.
And this is what I want to say: If anyone wants to cast blame for schools and restaurants and gyms and salons and any other services and businesses being closed, and in many very sad instances, failing altogether, don’t blame the school superintendents or the mayors or the governors. Blame the Sen. Reinbolds of our communities. I stopped my gym membership, I will not go to a restaurant or order take-out, and I will be continuing to do almost all of my shopping, from basic necessities to holiday gifts, online —not because of political edicts, but because of the Sen. Reinbolds of our communities.
Until people give up their sense of entitlement to function in our midst as though the pandemic is a nuisance to their personal style, our community lifestyles and our economy are going to suffer. Thank you, Alaska Airlines, and thank you to every local business who doggedly enforces the mask requirement.
Jeanne Ashcraft
Anchorage
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