What did it take for us, a rag tag group of random citizens brought together by necessity, to learn this first and most important lesson? They came for our kids.

One sunny day a year ago, we decided we were tired of two months of cautioned taped playgrounds and confused toddlers. We’d already learned that coronavirus doesn’t last long on surfaces, let alone ones in the fresh air and sunshine, and we knew that children are the least at risk from the virus. So we decided to meet up one morning in late May, move some caution tape and let our children play. Together. The horror.

Our first stop was Menlo playground in Perkasie. It was a peaceful morning of new friends, laughter and relief. But wouldn’t you know, at the tail end of our innocent little playdate, a local bureaucrat hit the proverbial panic button, and decided she should double down…

The borough manager, Andrea Coaxum, sent a township worker out (unmasked and ungloved) to cover the play structures with orange snow fencing as the kids still played. We were told the next step would be to “uninstall the playground” if we didn’t stay away. She also posted a string of lies on the borough Facebook page, accusing us of vandalism and suggesting we broke into the playground (which is actually completely open on 2 sides ).

What did we do next? We banded together, and for the first time we said NO. We said MAKE ME. Within a few days we had assembled about 100 wonderful people, and we came back to that very playground, much stronger. The women put up signs and were cursed at by an angry neighbor. The men removed every zip tie, bundled up the orange snow fencing neatly, and left it on a nearby picnic table with a note our resident attorney wrote. We watched over the kids as they played, but this time no enforcement came.

This group had existed for a few weeks prior to that day, but it was in those first acts of disobedience that ReOpen Bucks was really born. The message became — reopen our world, or WE WILL. Let our children enjoy normal, or WE WILL. It was born out of glaring necessity.

Since then, we have never stopped being willing to stand up when and where we’re needed. We’ve steadily grown in numbers, in strength, and it surprises me most of all to say that we have grown in influence, too. Bureaucrats quietly watch us and worry about what we’ll do next. Secret tipsters let us know that we continue to make a difference behind the scenes. Hi bureaucrats. Hi tipsters.

Within two days of our first playground emancipation, Bucks emergency services released a bulletin directing all playgrounds to open. Perkasie breathed a sigh of relief and folded immediately, as did many other municipalities, but not all. The rest of them, well, let’s say we spent the next several weeks helping them along in the reopening process. And the mission spread to Montco. And New Jersey. And in time playground closures became a thing of the past.

Next we focused on helping the defiantly reopening businesses, bringing them together, getting the straight facts about what they’d face if they dipped their toes into defiant waters, sending them support. The ReOpen Schools movement was born that summer, and in the same spirit, moms and dads have stood in front of the system that wants us to surrender our children into the abyss of fear and control and said NO. MAKE ME. Bucks County Sports Association became a bold refuge for normalcy in sports when everyone else cancelled seasons or masked up the kids.

Why am I reflecting on all of this now? Not to pat ourselves on the back, but to remind you (and me) that living as free people, that standing strong in the face of threats and intimidation and saying NO. MAKE ME. — that is our identity. That is our strength. That, I hope, is our legacy.

We do not ask for permission. We do not look to spineless politicians to save us. We celebrate political wins as they happen, like this Tuesday’s Constitutional amendments, but we know that the real wins come in the dirt.

They come when you get on your hands and knees and dig out a fence post in front of an embarrassed police officer who was sent to bully your kids off a playground with his loud speaker. They come when you open the back door to your gym or your salon and let the first few nervous clients through. They come when you expose the collusion between unions and school administrators, no matter the cost. They come when you decide to recreate the normal that our world has been so sorely lacking. They come when you show your face in public, even when no one else will. They come when you refuse to let someone in a white coat poke you with something you don’t need or want. They come when you say NO. MAKE ME.

We do not allow ourselves to be governed in our daily lives by bureaucracy, signage, mandates, or bullies. We do not compromise when it comes to restoring normalcy, especially for our children. And we never will.

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You present the “pretty” yellow ones to your mother, and you hunt for the precious feathery ones that have gone to seed, because blowing them into the wind is still magical, at least to you.

You make your way to the nearby playground, where you spot some “friends.” When you’re 4 and your world has never been anything but normal, you see, everyone you meet is a friend. One of these new friends is a mother in a mask, whose daughter — around your age — is wearing one too. You are too enthralled by your puffy white treasures to mind. You innocently march up to the mother, offer her a handful of your dandelions, and ask, “would you like to help me blow these seeds?”

And perhaps they were magical after all, because both mother and daughter shed their masks to blow dandelions with you. They smile. You smile. The girl goes to find some more dandelions to blow with her mother, and they both breathe freely for the rest of their time at the playground. You run back to your own speechless mother and explain matter-of-factly, “those friends liked blowing dandelion seeds, too.”

When you’re 4, and your world has never been anything but normal, everyone you meet presents another opportunity to spread smiles like dandelion seeds, and that is the true magic of childhood innocence.

Mothers and fathers, let’s keep their worlds normal for as long as we can.

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The ReOpen Bucks Creed

• Treat others with kindness and respect, unless you are given a reason to do otherwise.
• Treat yourself with respect, in recognition of your innate human dignity.
• Trust your body’s natural resilience.
• Reject pseudoscience.
• Refuse to be ruled by bullies, naysayers, or fear mongerers.
• Speak the truth, even when it is difficult. Especially then.
• Protect the young and the elderly from those who wish to take advantage of their vulnerability.
• Never accept the new normal. It is, by definition, abnormal.
• Never be afraid to name and shame the institutions and people who knowingly harm others for their own benefit.
• Remain true to your beliefs, even when doing so is met with criticism and derision.
• Be unashamed, unafraid, and unapologetic.
• Above all, be strong.

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I care. And yes, they are bothering me.

As a mom to small children, my daily life is often go-go-go, without much time to stop and think and observe along the way. Today though, I found myself with a few unoccupied moments as I sat in the car with our smallest toddler while my husband and the other 2 kids ran into the grocery store for a couple of things. Every person I saw wore their mask all the way from their car into the store, and vice versa. That’s never become normal to me; it’s always felt strange and uncomfortable to see people like that, looking afraid (whether they are or not), agitated and unapproachable. Looking vaguely threatening, unidentifiable, and alien.

I know I’m not the only one who is bothered by this. And yet, I kept noticing, from one person to the next, the exact same sequence of events— car door opens, masked person emerges, masked person disappears into the store, and another one appears in his place. Like some sort of automated script, or a piece of dystopian choreography they all seem to have memorized. Little differentiates one person from another, all of them conforming flawlessly to the current social convention. It made me feel sad. It made me feel angry. I was, in a word, bothered. Actually, I am always bothered when I see another person in a mask, and more bothered the more of them I see.

And then, my family emerges. My daughters holding hands, chatting, and smiling when they see me looking their way. NORMAL. And the contrast between us and “them” is so stark to me in that moment that my heart swells with pride and my desire to protect my children from the darkness of the world has never been stronger.

I hate the masks, because of the fear and the weakness and the compliance they symbolize. But it’s the mask-wearers I have come to resent. Because it’s not just their choice, it’s the normalization of an objectively bad behavior that has surrounded my beautiful family for a YEAR now.

It’s wrong to comply with mandates that don’t make sense. It’s dishonorable to cling to false senses of security. It’s cowardly. I don’t want my children observing people in that state, and unless I shutter them away completely, that choice has been taken away from me. I don’t want their sense of what is normal to include others looking like that. I want them to know smiles, greetings, friendliness. I want them to develop the crucial ability to distinguish safe people from risky ones, and trustworthy behavior from suspect. Instead they are becoming familiar with averted eyes, heads down, the occasional person who physically steps back from them for no logical reason, or worse.

No matter how much it is mocked, derided and loathed, how my family is living is normal. It is not Neanderthal. It is not extreme fringe. It is not reckless. It’s as normal as it was a year ago, and for us, it will never cease being normal. I refuse to ever become unwilling to label widespread abnormal behavior as bothersome to me.

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