2020 Hindsight: At Last, 2021
“The vaccine is coming. The vaccine is coming!” Such comes the battle cry of 2021, so take that coronavirus.
We finally put 2020, the weirdest year on record, in the rearview mirror, even with New Year’s Eve celebrations as muted as every other holiday in the year of COVID-19.
Once the Electoral College finishes its work, the longest of election years will be over, leaving half the population so disgruntled, the New Year won’t start with anything like festivity.
However, predictions are in order, resolutions on the mind, but also questions.
This time last year, the astrologers were predicting nothing about a pandemic and chaos, so don’t look to your horoscope for anything hopeful or helpful.
Will the gyms be packed with new dieters? Probably not.
Do people even want to diet given a year of what feels like constant deprivation? Not so much.
I predict that Zoom as the default mechanism for connecting might begin to dissipate as people either bust out of their lockdowns or gingerly come out, peer around, and step back out into the world.
I want to see my friends and hug people, for as Barbra Streisand belted out in the musical Funny Girl, “People, people who need people, are the luckiest people in the world!”
I predict a presidential inauguration will occur without a revolution, although it might be virtual.
I predict the wedding industry will rebound as all those “I Do Redo’s” take place.
I predict people will relish going to work, and kids will be thrilled to go to school after having it locked down.
I predict people will dust off their passports and start traveling again sometime later this year.
I predict traffic. I predict taxes will rise (always a safe bet). I predict churches and sports stadiums will once again get packed.
Yet many questions remain.
Will tech oligarchs continue to control the message in America?
Will an entire school-age population ever catch up?
Will people get over hoarding toilet paper?
Will Interstate 35 from Dallas to Austin ever be repaired, especially in Waco?
My New Year’s resolutions are to housebreak my puppy, get a massage, then throw a party.
I want to see my friends and hug people, for as Barbra Streisand belted out in the musical Funny Girl, “People, people who need people, are the luckiest people in the world!”
Amen to that.
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