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| Lancaster, Pennsylvania - The Red Rose City |
It was an ordinary day. Reading the morning newspaper! So, what else is new! I have read the morning newspaper just about every day in the past 53 years of my life...my married life. It keeps me informed of my surroundings as well as the world in general. I look at the front page, then begin to leaf through the paper to the obituary page to see whom I might have known that I never will be able to talk with again. The editorial page follows and my daily routine ends with the sports pages. Yesterday's paper told about yesterday being the 366th and final day of 2020. Thank Goodness! Part of the newspaper told about the 10 most important stories that appeared in the newspaper last year. Tomorrow I will give you a brief synopsis of those 10 stories, but today I will tell you my thoughts, as well as the thoughts of many of my friends and many of the citizens of the city of Lancaster where I have lived my entire life. At midnight last evening, Carol and I celebrated the end of 2020 and the start of 2021. There is absolutely no way this year can be any worst than this past year, and that is talking about a life time of over three-quarters of a century for me. Just taking down the wall calendar in my office and replacing it with a new one was a momentous occasion. Some years I tend to get misty-eyed as I switch the calendar from one year to the next, but not last night. There was no fondness in my heart for the year of death, disease, social upheaval and economic distress. So many people I know lost a loved one while others were finding it hard to make ends meet. I was so glad to watch and hear the countdown on TV last evening that I got a little choked up. We ushered out a year of turmoil and welcomed in a year of hope that all that we have witnessed this past year will be soon gone and forgotten. I will never forget 2020 for it has been perhaps the worst year of my lifetime. I have hopes that 2021 will be a year of happiness and promise for myself, my family, my friends and all who read the stories that I write. I have been waiting for the entrance of 2021 for what seems like a lifetime. Though I hope for a year much better than the past year, I don't want to forget the fact that I did survive the past year and pray for those that weren't as lucky as me. Maybe soon we will be able to visit with friends and family and not have to worry about becoming ill or knowing what may happen to us. We still need to be vigilant in all we do and all we come in contact with to start the new year, but I hope that the vaccine will help in reducing the amount of sickness and death that occurred in 2020. I can still see the face of one of my former students; registered nurse Renee Logan Heller, looking back at me from the newspaper after having to spend day after day watching the virus take the lives of her patients at the local hospital. How awful that must be! I must admit I really missed not being able to travel to exotic locations with my wife during the past year as well a missed a week with my family at the seashore, but I am still here to perhaps travel in 2021. Some whom I knew will never get to do that every again. Time will go on and with a few extra prayers and my handy facemask, perhaps 2021 will be better to all of us. We can only hope and pray!! I hope you have a safe and prosperous New Year! You, as well as myself and my family, certainly do deserve it! It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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