Things Are Looking Up Just as I was sitting down to write this column at about 5:45 on Sunday evening, the power went out all along the south side of Lake Gregory, which means it also went off at my house. In a matter of seconds, all four of us—my wife, our two small children and I were carrying flashlights and all met at the top floor of the house. Within a few minutes, all of the major rooms of the house that we would be using for the next few hours while the power was out were brightly illuminated, and we went through our normal routines. The fire was stoked in the fireplace in the living room on top, and the fire was going in the in the gas stove on the middle floor, so it was nice and warm in the house. I made the tacos that I had been planning to make, we ate and then we cleaned up. The kids and wife took their showers and life proceeded as normal. A year ago, we would have been fumbling and bumping around in the dark for at least 10 minutes just to find and get that first flashlight going. Then we would have been wondering how we were going to get all of the rest of that stuff done. What a difference a year makes. You can have this year—I’ll give it to you. One of these days, when I’m on my deathbed or my life is flashing before my eyes, 2003 probably isn’t going to get much play on the fond memories side. Or is it? Let’s see, this year I lost several of my giant trees to a tiny bug, I lost 60 percent of my business mostly because of mergers, I spent most of the year dreading that my neighborhood would suffer a major fire, and boy did that dread ever come to pass in a big way, and then for most of the last month of the year I suffered from the worst flu I’ve ever had in my life. I have never called 9-1-1 in my life until about a year ago. During the past year I have had to call 9-1-1 three times—once when my wife nearly went into anaphylactic shock from a hornet sting and had to be rushed to the hospital, then shortly after the Old Fire when I called to report another fire, and just a few days ago when a car caught fire in front of my next door neighbor’s house and the engine compartment became fully engulfed. So I’m really looking forward this time to what the New Year has in store. But before I continue trashing 2003 all the way into the ground, let me make lemonade out of some lemons. In May, I responded to an ad from the Courier seeking a freelance associate editor—seems like years ago, rather than eight months. I’m an old newspaper guy, so I knew the gig wasn’t going to make me rich or anything, but what really attracted me was that they wanted me to do a column as often as I could, weekly if I could manage, that captured the flavor of the place. I ended up doing it every week because I soon found that you just can’t run out of flavors in this place. It’s like Baskin-Robbins on steroids. By virtue of doing these columns and all of these stories I’ve written for the past eight months, I have met more excellent people than I have ever met during any single year in my life. And they sure picked a good year for me to start doing this. We really have a lot to be thankful for this year—our town is largely here thanks to some valiant firefighting and a miraculous turn in the weather. Some of my friends tell me the weather turned because there were so many people down the hill and around the world praying for us. They may have something there—because I have to agree that it was some kind of miracle. However, the biggest things we have to be thankful for this year though are one another. After everything that has happened this year, there are a lot of people in this town who were once strangers to one another who aren’t strangers anymore. Last week I was in the post office putting mail in the outgoing slot. I looked across the way and saw two women lock gazes in instant recognition, then hold their arms out wide. They moved toward each other and one of them exclaimed: “Our evacuation neighbor! How have you been?” They hugged, choked up a little, and then started talking about what had transpired with them since the evacuation. For more than a week these two ladies had been “neighbors.” Hey, I warned you earlier this year that I’m really nosey, so if you do this stuff in public, I’m going to talk about it. No offense—I adore my neighbors—they’re a great bunch, but these two had been closer than I ever want to be with any of my neighbors—just a few cots over in an evacuation center for more than a week. I went from the post office to the Oak Trunk for about 20 minutes then came back to the post office and these two women were still engaged in animated conversation. I imagine they’ll probably be getting together over the holidays. Things are looking up. For one thing, the economy is showing signs of roaring back to life, meaning that next year, my clients will stop being gobbled up by big corporations and more people will have the need for the kinds of things I do. Also, we seem to have gotten a little attention finally from the state and federal government around here for some reason, and we’re not going to loosen our grip on their notoriously short attention spans while we have them. And we’re going to be ready if there is a next time. And it’s also the little things. Coming up the 18 from down below this weekend I saw sprigs of grass and bushes coming up out of the ground, and it made me feel just great. But the biggie for me is what I’m seeing about Christmas night. It’s Monday morning, and this might change, but the National Weather Service is talking about the possibility of snow on Christmas night. That would cap the year off perfectly, wouldn’t it? You’ll know by the time you read this. Happy Holidays to all of you. |
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