By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

As long as we’re still politicizing the issue of mask-wearing and keeping our distance from each other, I feel the need to offer a good word about what I am seeing in my neighborhood.

Look, I live in a conservative, Republican-leaning county in North Texas. They make jokes about our part of the nation, about how Texans don’t like being dictated to by the federal government.

OK, as long as we’re clear about that, I want to say that I continue to be pleasantly surprised/impressed that so many folks I see in the city of Princeton where I live still wearing their masks, still observing social distancing, still doing the things that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells us to do to avoid getting sickened — or killed — by the COVID-19 virus.

Yep, I see it when I venture out among the masses. At the grocery store. At the convenience store. When I fill my truck with fuel. When I stop for an occasional egg roll at the truck stop west of us on the highway toward McKinney.

I find myself wondering what in the world happened to that myth that Texans bristle at government mandates. Perhaps it’s because it is a myth. That it doesn’t really exist. That we’re just as concerned as other Americans that the danger of the virus is real and that we need to do what we can to protect ourselves.

Imagine that, eh?