Here we go again!
She did what?? No! I think it is a hoax. I mean Willie Nelson has been dead so many times I don’t believe these solemn announcements that pop up on social media sites.
I Googled it and there it was in black print on a white background — The funny lady and American icon had died. Just like that, Betty White had checked out.
I must admit that I was shocked. I knew she was 99 and would turn 100 this month on the 17th. A big special was being planned to celebrate her first 100 years. Now, at least as I write this, no one knows what’s going to happen about the television show.
It seems like I always was aware of Betty White, but I remember her most as Sue Ann Nivens on Mary
Tyler Moore and Rose on The Golden Girls. Both the characters she played were hysterically funny with Sue Ann Nivens always after one man or another and Rose constantly talking about ridiculous situations in her hometown of St. Olaf, Minnesota.
I adored Betty White. She was goofy, funny, and had the best timing of any comedian I have followed for as long as I can remember. She could twitch her eye, move her lips a certain way, have a certain expression and the words that followed could leave you breathless with laughter.
Dang, I thought she’d live forever. I so hoped she’d be around for her 100th , but it wasn’t to be. I figured she was as surprised as all the rest of us when she died. Then I had this picture in my mind. Out of the mist wherever she was, she saw Allen Luden, the love of her life and so many of the animals she had helped throughout her life and she was just fine. I bet she laughed.
2022 has started. And while 2021 ended with the death of the aforementioned icon, it seems like there were so many tragedies throughout the year. The news was full of a mass shooting at least once a week. Little kids accidentally were killing their brothers or sisters or themselves when parents or whomever they lived with were careless with securing guns from children.
The news was just so disconcerting. I thought humanity was going to hades in a hand basket, full of hateful and uncaring people. In my mind, I thought of the people who didn’t get their vaccinations against Covid-19 because it infringed on their right as living, breathing “Typhoid Marys.”
For those of you who are unfamiliar with her history, she was an Irish immigrant who is believed to have infected people and families where she worked as a cook with Typhoid fever. She would flee each time she was found out and would go to other areas infecting people who did not know her history. Nowadays, people refuse to be vaccinated and pass along Covid-19 to others kind of like Typhoid Mary did to unsuspecting people.
We’re heading into our third year of this tiresome pandemic. I am truly hoping that this will be the year that we can actually relax, go out to eat, go to a sporting event and get to see grandchildren in all their various events. I’ve missed too many times they’ve performed, played ball, sang, or danced.
Besides, it’s a brand spanking, new year. The slate is clean. On New Year’s Day, the temperature rose to 80! I turned on the air conditioning. Our neighbor mowed his lawn — in January!! The air was so warm, it felt like late spring. I didn’t mind it, but we wound up being on a tornado watch. I wasn’t surprised with the day being so warm. The good thing is that we didn’t even have storms. If there was thunder and lightning, Bill and I slept right through it.
I prepared our traditional New Year’s Day dinner with collards, mac and cheese, pork chops and gravy black-eyed peas and cornbread. For dessert, I fixed a homemade cherry pie, Bill’s favorite. This would be considered the piece de resistance, but I’m not sure if this phrase fits the cherry pie. I liked the collards!
So here we go again. It’s 2022!! Can you believe it?? I am an optimist. I’m hoping for a grand and glorious year. I’m looking forward to Georgia beating Alabama for the national championship. I’m looking forward to baseball. I’m looking forward to swimming with family.
I’m just looking forward to a year with the pandemic defeated and gone. It could happen. Please, do the right thing. Get that vaccine.
And Betty. You almost made it to 100. Most people never do. I’m going to celebrate your birthday anyway.