From Mona’s desk: Ready for boring

Have you heard this one?

“One day the wind stopped blowing in Nebraska. And we all fell down.”

That day could have been Saturday! Luckily, instead of falling down, I was sitting in my living room, enjoying the absence of the roar of winds with gusts near 60 mph.

I spent more time driving in those high winds than walking in them. Friday morning I drove the Chief’s pickup with high topper to Kearney to pick up the X-tra. You may not see the X-tra in your mail until Monday, but for it to get there on time, we transmit files to Kearney Thursday afternoon. The X-tra is printed and ready for pickup Friday morning so we can get it to local post offices that afternoon.

We do the same thing with the Chief. The publication day may be Thursday but it starts with sending files to Kearney on Tuesday so we can get the physical paper in the mail Wednesday.

In this “instant-info, everything-now” world, sometimes it’s a surprise to remember that things still have to be physically transported by truck, train, plane and ship. It can take hours, sometimes days, for physical items to get from point

A to point B. Guess it’s just going to be that way until the transporter of Star Trek becomes reality and we can instantly beam anything and anybody anywhere! (Rest assured that while I’ll take the COVID-19 vaccine when it’s available to me, I will not be the first in line for the transporter! Someone else can be the guinea pig for molecule scrambling!)

I’m writing this Tuesday, the day before the presidential inauguration. I don’t think I’m alone in holding my breath a bit waiting, hoping, praying that everything will...did...go smoothly. Headlines on Monday said that, despite warnings, many state capitols saw only small protests and quiet streets over the weekend. That’s good news.

I hope after the inauguration, the new administration settles down to tackling, without a lot of fanfare, the very real challenges that affect all of us. It will be OK to hear from them routinely and when things stabilize, it will be OK to hear from them only once in a while. Remember that old saying, “No news is good news.”

Like the quiet after the wind event, quiet and calm after the inauguration will be very welcome.

I don’t know about you but I’m excited to think that we may get a boring ol’ White House after a while. I hope so. I’m praying for not only a kinder and gentler nation, thank you Pres. George H. W. Bush, but a quieter and more boring one, too.