Thankful for some things in 2020
I am thankful for 2020. Seriously. That said, I reserve the right to change my mind if I don’t live to see the end of the year.
Before we go any further, though, I demand a recount. How can one year, which still has a month to go, last 873 days? Numbers have become so unreliable, and collecting them accurately is now impossible, that’s something 2020 has taught us. We need a new system.
For the next presidential vote, I suggest we do it with a nationwide Zoom call, 150 million of us in little boxes, a show of hands.
But back to 2020, an underrated year. As my mother always says, “Son (she forgets my name), when life gives you a lemon, just be happy that your auto mechanic will get a vacation on Maui. He’s a nice man.”
But seriously. It has been a rough year. Ten years from now, none of us is going to look back and say, “Wasn’t 2020 a hoot?”
It has not been a hoot. It has been educational. It has given us perspective.
Even years from now, when you go to, say, a Giants game, you will take a bite of garlic fries and a sip of your $150 beer and remind yourself that it is so much cooler to watch a ballgame at a ballgame. Even you’re watching from home, no phony crowd noise, no cardboard fans.
The cardboard fans were a cute idea at first, but it’s starting to get creepy, especially when you see a TV shot from behind
the “fans” — the blank cardboard slabs looking like tombstones.
This time next year, you’ll be sitting at a Warriors game and some lug will drip mustard on your brandnew Curry jersey and you’ll say, “That’s OK, pal. At least we’re here, together, right?”
This year really has taught us that an 82game NBA season, a 162game baseball season, those givens are not given, they are gifts. The thrill of victory has been replaced by the thrill of finding out your team’s offensive linemen passed their coronavirus tests and can suit up.
This year has allowed many of us to grow. The socialjustice protests and movements have opened a lot of eyes and minds. I like to think many people are like New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees, who really listened, had a change of heart and emerged with a bigger one.
Many of our athletic heroes have become real heroes. There’s Marshawn Lynch handing out thousands of turkeys to folks in need. There’s Phil Mickelson, seemingly the embodiment of white privilege, donating $500,000 to Jackson State University, a historically Black school, and saying, “As a white male, I’ll never be able to understand the challenges that Black America goes through, but I want to be part of the solution.”
Heroes. The year gave us a return to the spotlight for Harry Edwards, one of the great socialjustice movers/shakers. The year gave us a new perspective on Colin Kaepernick, although it didn’t get him a job.
Hard times breed heroes. Cal defensive back Elijah Hicks, in the spare time that he doesn’t have, created a foundation for lowincome students.
The events of the year got sports involved in making America better. Athletes and teams participated in getoutthevote drives, with the realization that if you believe we need change and improvement, you’re going to have to do some of the heavy lifting.
On a personal note, the year has worked out OK in some ways. Like many, I picked up a musical instrument. I learned that selfdiscipline and diligent practice, can, over the course of an 873day year, bear fruit. Modesty aside, my wife tells me I am the Miles Davis of the vuvuzela.
I recently learned a new word. Our presidentelect uses oldfashioned words like “malarkey,” so I looked up some others, in hopes of becoming retrohip.
The coolest word I discovered was “pangwangle.” It means to go about your business cheerfully in spite of minor misfortunes. Although a massive plague and national upheaval are hardly minor misfortunes, you get the idea. We do what we can, and we make the best of those lemons.
My holiday wish, then, is that we all become pangwanglers.
Have a great Thanksgiving, thanks for reading, and now I must run. This Christmas tree isn’t going to Purell itself.