Gotta Hold On

GOTTA HOLD ON

2020 has been one helluva year. Easily the darkest one in MY 54 years. Over  380 thousand people worldwide have died from this global Covid-19 pandemic, over 107 thousand in the U.S. alone. Millions of people in the U.S. are out of work and many will not EVER be able to go back to their jobs. Thousands of small businesses might not ever recover, and major businesses have filed for bankruptcy (chapter 11), but even those might not come back. Lines of cars stretch for miles as people wait to get food from Food Banks, many of whom never thought they’d have to stretch to this option. Wearing a mask and ‘social distancing’ in public is the ‘New Normal’ now. Less than 3 months ago if you walked into a bank wearing something covering your face, people would have thought you were robbing the place. Now it’s preferred, if not required, in some restaurants and other places. I’ve seen hospitals asking for refrigerated trucks (and getting them) to put their dead in because they didn’t have any more room in their own temporary morgues, and mass graves dug for bodies of people who didn’t claim them or didn’t have any relatives.

And then we have a Minneapolis police officer who kneels on the neck of black man for almost 9 minutes, killing George Floyd in the process as 3 other MPD looked away and directed traffic. Only one of them finally questioned Derek Chauvin to take his knee off of him after checking his pulse, but Chauvin said no. Tonight is the 8th night in a row of both peaceful and violent protests across the country and across the world. Protestors are demanding justice in front of the White House, and this so-called ‘president’ and his family had to take refuge in a bunker below the WH for an hour, even with the Secret Service protecting him at the gates outside. 2 nights later president Donald J. Trump stands at the Rose Garden podium and says he “will deploy the U.S. Military and quickly solve the problem for them (U.S. state governors)” to end “riots and lawlessness and stop unlawful acts of looting and vandalism if they don’t do it.” “We have one beautiful law…”  He then goes on to say that he’s “an ally of all peaceful protestors”, while at the same time he’s having the peaceful protestors outside be forcefully and violently removed (flash bangs, people were hit with batons) so this so-called ‘president’ could walk across the street (Lafayette Park) for a photo op at historic St. John’s Church showing him holding a Bible UPSIDE DOWN. Minutes later, in a CNN interview, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C. said “I am outraged” at Trump’s photo op at the church. Some top military generals are also angry, as well as some congressmen from BOTH sides. The last time I saw something like this was the Rodney King riots in L.A.

And then I wake up this morning to see two Buffalo police officers in riot gear push a 75 year old man down to the pavement. There were several other officers around, but none of them offered to help the man up and instead just kept moving forward. The man was bleeding and injured, and eventually taken to the hospital where last I heard he was in stable condition. But here’s the real kicker: the officers LIED and said the man tripped! It was on video, for God’s sake! Both officers are now suspended and under investigation.

And this is just one day after a huge memorial for George Floyd?

What the HELL is happening to this country?

Like everyone else, I have my own opinion. But regardless of your political affiliation, you’d have to be blind not to see that things are going downhill fast for the United States.

All right. I’ll stop now. I know this is a sad and negative article, or whatever it is, and I hate to be a ‘Debbie Downer’, but I wanted to get this off my chest. I have four grandchildren, the youngest only 2 and a half, and I’m seriously scared/worried what this country and/or this world is going to be like when they get to be my age.

But I’ll try to end this on a high note. It’s like I told my daughter the other day: I know things are dark right now, but there IS a light at the end of this tunnel, even as dim as it might seem. And when we finally get there, I think it’s going to be a lot brighter at that end than it was when we entered this damn tunnel!

Like it says in the song One Day by Matisyahu, we just “gotta hold on.”

With special thanks to John Lennon for his melodious magnum opus, Imagine