Nancy Ellen Walker Mask Mamas 1 Mask Mamas Coronavirus: the most feared word in the world today. Death monger. Heart exploder. Lung destroyer. Clot thrower. Grandma slayer. Kid killer. From complete obscurity to #1 news topic in only a matter of weeks. Daily we are barraged by dystopian views of astronaut-garbed healthcare workers working feverishly in hospitals and intensive care units around the globe. Everyday folks don medical— grade N95 facemasks, if they have them, and social distance from one another when in public, or isolate at home to ward off infection or prevent its lightning spread. Everyone washes hands, singing “Happy Birthday” two times through to ensure at least 20 seconds of scrubbing, enough to ensure effective germicide. Disinfectant cleaning supplies fly off store shelves. Hoarders, prescient enough to act before most others grasp what is happening, fill their basements with the new gold standard: toilet paper. The world as we knew it has gone topsy—turvy. Like other older people with rational minds, my husband and I hunker down at home, waving to passersby through the window — no closer. We learn to buy groceries online and pick them up curbside, absent human contact. We discover that things we need actually are only wants; we find we can forgo many items. We read good books; we bring the gardens to life; we plant new vegetable patches; we play music; and, too often, we watch the news. Even as Luddites, we learn to use group chats on Zoom and WhatsApp and Facebook and FaceTime. In these ways, we adapt to the “new normal.” But we never adapt to the growing death toll: nearly 100,000 in the US alone in only the first quarter of the virus’s spread. And, too, we are antsy. How can we be mere bystanders to a pandemic that is wreaking havoc all around us? It is ripping through communities with wild abandon — Jesse James on a killing spree with nary a US marshal in sight. Can we just sit idly by, watching the devastation all around us? No. There must be something we can do, not only to keep busy and ward off creeping depression, but to Make A Difference. But what? In short order, we decide that making facemasks is our calling. If we can do nothing else, at least we can produce homemade masks that might provide an ounce of