To mask or not to mask?

This is our ode to the bandanna.

A friend to cowpokes and firefighters, it will come in especially handy as we make the transition to whether to mask up or not.

Unlike that unitasker, the paper mask, the bandanna can be washed again and again, reducing the number of discarded masks in grocery store parking lots.

And wearing a bandanna around your neck in old Nevada isn’t much of a statement, and handy should someone find themselves in need of a face covering.

Our Nevada forebears would say “Smile when you say that,” and now you can tell for those who’ve been fully vaccinated.

But who’s vaccinated, you ask?

For that matter, who’s allowed to ask who’s vaccinated?

When the contagion first arrived in Carson Valley, we were clear that we’re not the coronavirus cops.

We’d like to add that we’re also not the Mask Mounties.

What someone has chosen to do about vaccinations is very much up to them. We would hope that if they chose to skip the shot, they also continue to wear a mask, but we’re not asking for proof and we have our doubts that any business would be comfortable doing that.

We’ve heard the term “honor system” a couple of times in the week since the Centers for Disease Control announced that fully vaccinated people may doff their masks.

And that’s very much where we’re all at right now. But like so much over the past 15 months, everything stays the same until it changes.

We’ve been to county buildings this week that have taken down their mask required signs. As private companies adapt to the new normal, whatever that is, we’ll see fewer and fewer of those signs on store windows.

And that will be the sign that we’ve truly gone back to our pre-coronavirus lives. In the meantime, we’ll be sporting a bandanna, just in case we see the need to put it on, whether due to smoke, dust or viruses.