Better things are coming!

If all goes as planned – and it better, as I still have car payments to make – we’re going to get out of 2020 and on to better things with 2021.

We’ve been promised, and they better be right.

We all learned a lot surviving this past year, and some of those lessons were extremely valuable.

We need to treasure what we hold dear. We lost a lot of family members and friends this last year, whether pandemic- related or not. We saw the best of humankind, and unfortunately we saw a lot of the worst.

We spent a lot of time together as a family this year – at least four of us did when colleges sent a couple daughters home. For a couple of empty nesters, that’s been exciting, probably not so much for the 21 and 22 year old, but it’s provided entertainment for mom and dad.

And in the great circle of life, we said goodbye to my father in April and greeted our first grandchild in December. It was indeed a year to remember, not only for what it took away from us but for what it provided.

It will be interesting to see how the post-COVID world develops in 2021, and it better develop. It’s fitting that – hopefully – this vaccine will do its work over the winter months. In spring, we’ll emerge from the frost healthy and happy. Some of us will, at least. There are those of us with somewhat thicker skulls who believe the cure to what ills us to be another conspiracy. One of their allies who believed that telecommunications advances were controlling his mind exploded a bomb in Nashville on Christmas Day.

There are going to be a lot of changes “on the other side” of this thing. I would guess a lot of office buildings are going to turn into apartments, as people get used to working from home and companies like their bottom like without high-priced rentals. Attendance at major events likely won’t come back for years to come. I’ll say sports looks pretty good on my TV, and the beverages are a lot cheaper at home. My wife did not take kindly to being referred to as “Beer Girl” though.

A lot of credit needs to go to our local schools for getting our kids through this and doing their best to keep them up to speed. Kids need to be in the classroom, and I don’t think any of us can fathom the miracles educators worked to make that happen.

When we get to the other side, let’s make sure we remember still the small businesses that make our communities great. Some won’t be able to hang on until 2021. Let’s treasure our downtowns. Make sure that when you can move about the community freely, you do so right on Main Street.

As they say, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and we’re going to move toward it. Let’s put 2020 in the rear view and move forward to bigger and better things.

Happy New Year!