Remember when you were young and you couldn’t wait until you got your driver’s license or turn 21 so you could be an adult and call the shots in your life? Did you ever have a power-crazy boss who didn’t really have a grasp on things so instead of bowing to their ridiculous, excessive demands, you didn’t listen and actually acted worse because they told you to do the wrong thing?

When we become adults, we take on the responsibility of being right or wrong in our actions. Some people don’t handle power very well, and when they get the limelight, they don’t want to let it go. Remember the story about the boy who cried wolf? After awhile, people stopped listening to the boy. We were told many things - don’t wear masks, wear masks, don’t go anywhere. Do you feel like a child again?

Many of us are adults and reasonable people, and we don’t appreciate being told what to do when much of it doesn’t make sense; we eventually will stop listening to the boy who cried “Wolf.” That is what happens when reason goes out the window and overblown power flies in, trying to control every aspect of our lives. I’m not dismissing this pandemic; it is serious and makes people very sick, mostly the elderly, so I think the elderly should be very cautious. I fit into that category and I plan to be very careful for quite some time to come. That doesn’t mean the entire country should shut down indefinitely. Every time you get into a car, you run the risk of having an accident and perhaps getting killed. Should that stop you from driving?

Someone recently said the government is NOT our mother. They aren’t and they should give us some credit for behaving like adults and stop trying to control every aspect of our lives. This isn’t the America I grew up in; I hope it is still America enough so that I won’t pay for writing this. It is just too hard to see what is going on and to remain silent. There’s one thing that I haven’t heard during these past few months - pray to God. That’s who I put my faith in.

Frances L. Stahl

Tamaqua