Well, 2025 jumped up and smacked us all in the eye. We had barely rung in the new and eaten our black-eyed peas before we had to straighten up and fly right to the store to stock up on winter provisions. Not worried, I knew that a snow day or two would make time to put away Christmas.
Personally, I didn’t have many festive decorations to store, but a “day or two” stretched into half a week and I was ready to call it a year. Out in my hidden forest, as my spouse called our place in the Cross Timbers, I was iced into my garage. Couldn’t see the snowy road leading to the highway. I stayed warm and had food -- but no newspaper!
That’s just about the worst scenario for a writer and a reader to face. Luckily, the grid held, the lights stayed on and I could pursue my comeback as a local opinion columnist. Sort of like the 47th president who was re-inaugurated a few days ago. I paused my journalistic efforts as he left office in 2020, emerged from a medical diagnosis, and darned if we’re back in sync again! Besides ideas, the big difference is that my hair is naturally “greige” and his is going to fall out at the roots if he doesn’t stop bleaching it.
Voters everywhere should remember the adage, “watch out what you pray for. You just might get it.”
Regardless how you voted, it is what it is, and politics will be driving the country for at least another two years, so let’s all get over it and back to work. It takes everyone to make America a better place to live in, Dems and GOP and independents alike. Even people who don’t check candidates’ credentials before heading to the polls! The November races were so evenly split that no one should gloat about a 0.015% win! Even better if people in power (the PIP) would stop suing anyone who disagrees! There are two sides to every question, but attacking an opponent is really bad form. They should JUST. STOP. IT!
On the other side of the coin, Jan. 29th brings another beginning. Let’s see what the Chinese Lunar Year of the Snake offers and what the annual sheet of the commemorative stamps looks like. Beautiful and colorful and a fun way to put the coming year in focus -- if the USPS decides to print them again, that is.
Last year was overall so awful, at least for me, that my sheet of Dragon stamps was almost intact by December, so I used them up on the Christmas cards I sent. I wanted the Year of the Dragon GONE!
These are just a few quirks I may share along the way, hoping to make newspaper readers out of all of your friends and family whose only news feed is from social media. Shame! I want all kids to excel in school so they’ll be able to vote down the voucher craze the PIP plans to cram down our throats, and you, too, if you’ve already sipped that cup of Kool-aid dry.
Feel free to talk back if you disagree or have other thoughts. Not fisticuffs, just friendly conversation, ten words or less. This may be “My Two Cents” but I’ll give a penny for your thoughts along the way. But you have to read the newspaper to see what I’m thinking! Until next time—stay warm!
Shelly has worn more hats in the communications field than Carter has pills but forgot to retire when she closed her promotions business. She earned a BA in Journalism at NTSU (before it became UNT) and has never lost her love of words.