- 2023: Ride my see-saw (12/30/23)2
- Five years on: When does it all become ‘enough?’ (6/23/23)3
- 2022: Things fall apart, but they can be rebuilt (12/29/22)1
- Getting at it fundamental to what we do (9/23/22)1
- Getting the hang of a Model T (9/8/22)
- Price: Community buy-in critical for volunteer firefighters (8/30/22)
- If I can be a little more like Ernie Pyle (8/16/22)2
All can't be quiet on New Year's Day
As I sit here drinking my coffee, I'm anxiously awaiting trying to figure out my schedule for the next week or so.
I'm also still in a kind of recovery mode from the holidays. My scale at home says that I have gained at least eight more pounds than I weighed at the beginning of December (either I have built muscle from the new exercises I've been doing at night, or I have fallen into the snacking trap).
At a New Year's Eve party at a family friend's house, I had my share of alcohol, though not near enough to cause any issues (maybe because I ate eight pounds of snacks...). I finally opened my Jim Beam Repeal Batch Monday evening, and I have to say that it is very good.
On this gloomy morning only two days into 2019, it really does feel like nothing changed for me. The Star Ambulance just went by the office as usual. The scanner continues to chatter in unison with the "dum-de-dum-we-weh" of the label maker. My coffee is getting more and more lukewarm and gritty, making me want another cup.
That is all just the reality of what I'm seeing, hearing and feeling. It's neither completely subjective nor objective.
Now my coffee is gone. That didn't take long.
Going away from this feeling of normalcy, there isn't much else to talk about. We've sort of been on a lull since the weekend before Christmas, and we're ready to get back to covering our meetings and so forth.
On the national stage, Capitol Hill is readying for a new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives in the midst of a continuing partial shutdown. For some, this change lights up a few pairs of eyes given the division we see there. It should be a welcomed transition, because it might test both Democrats' and Republicans' capacity for agreement or, at the very least, compromise.
For Bono of U2 at the beginning of 1982, New Year's Day was symbolized by Lech Walesa, a leader of the Solidarity Movement in Poland, standing in the snow during a labor strike. He then wrote a song for the band about hope and coming together:
For me, all was quiet yesterday on New Year's Day. But the plot of 2019 will unfold with the unexpected, because history is made every day.
It's time to get back to work writing it.
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