Not quite another sleepy year in the good old USA, was it?
From the billionaire who couldn’t admit his election loss sending a mob to the Capitol to other billionaires reaching outer space, we’ve got whiplash from the extremes in the news. The first is existentially threatening, the second is arguably ridiculous.
We’ve made it through a year without Alex Trebek hosting “Jeopardy!” and that turned out to be a much more complicated operation than expected. It was nice to see in plain view how much America loves the show.
This was the year in which we inaugurated the first female vice president in Kamala Harris and during this year she took on presidential authority while President Biden had a colonoscopy. The fact that this went along as planned and was kind of a “How about that?” item on the news that weekend is an important step forward.
COVID is continuing its march and is proving to be a dire threat to those unvaccinated. This has become so obvious that even that unnamed billionaire has changed his tune on the topic of advocating for people to be vaccinated, recently telling the audience at one of his events that he’s been vaxxed and boosted and they should be too.
These vaccines are among the greatest achievements of human history, said 45, and his followers should be proud of that, not condemning it. He was booed of course and has subsequently been blasted by the fringiest of the fringe – Alex Jones, who called the former president “evil.”
Churchill talked about dictators who sought power by “riding a tiger they dare not dismount.” Seeking the support of extremists may help drive fear that will get you into power, but eventually (as Churchill referenced) tigers get hungry.
Kennedy was more succinct. “When you ride the tiger, you wind up inside.” The man from Mar-A-Lago is about to find out just how little his presidency was about him.
The Arbery and Floyd cases brought us a glimpse of a more just future with well-run prosecutions and solid guilty verdicts. It was two steps forward and one step back with the what-the-hell-was-THAT Rittenhouse trial that displayed a clinic on how a judge who is bad at his job makes an awful situation worse.
As with every year, we lost lots of famous people and some of them much too soon. It’s a fool’s errand to make a list of those whom one deems the most important, but the most personally impactful to each of us is any family member who was lost in 2021.
While I’m sad that Colin Powell will no longer be a voice of reason and good counsel to American presidents, it’s the sound of my dad’s voice on Christmas that I was missing this year and will continue to miss going forward.
Losing a family member – especially a close one – isn’t a discrete event. We continue to experience that loss on some level every day. It’s woven into the fabric of who we are as we continue in life. My grandfather passed away in the early 1990’s but his influence on my life and work is ever-present and so I’m reminded of that loss. I aspire to be a grandparent at the gold standard level that he was. Unrealistic, perhaps, but I’m mindful of it and that really helps.
He wasn’t distracted with his cell phone or the Cartoon network. He read Kipling to me and we played Parcheesi constantly. He never threw a game and I seldom won. Seldom – not never.
So my work for 2022 is cut out for me and I’m looking forward to it. I really need to up my game in Chutes & Ladders. My win/loss record against my 4-year-old grandson is terrible. I think that spinner might be loaded.
Have a happy and safe New Year’s weekend, y’all.
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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