Trusting

  Less than one week until Christmas day 2021. Hard to believe at times. It seems since the onset of this Covid thing the days, months and now years have all run together. Difficult to remember when you didn't have to question whether a mask was required. It's an everyday thing now, nothing out of the ordinary. It's also a sad commentary on life in America if you ask my opinion. So many willing to just comply with whatever the "science" indicates and not question it. Indeed, even some of our religious leaders are extolling, believe in the power of God but wear your mask, stay socially distant, and don't take any chances. For me it is akin to the whole making "belief" and the practicing of "faith" just a bit more convenient, a bit more acceptable to government. You can believe all you want, just don't trust it! Trust the science.

 This is one of those years that it doesn't seem like Christmas to me. I can't explain what that really means, it's just a feeling. It isn't a lack of decorations, a lack of family, or a lack of spirit. It is just a lack of feeling. I'll be just as happy when the season passes and the new year begins. New Years and the attendant celebrations have had little meaning to me in the last fifteen or twenty years. At least I still look forward to a new year with optimism. I know some that dread the passing of time. I'm thinking 2022 just might be my year. Our lives are what our minds create. The power of positive thinking! Or so I've read. A winning lottery ticket would be a bit more positive. I have to remind myself to buy one of those, can't win if you don't play. Of course I realize I am six times more likely to be struck by lightning, but I would have to be outside, so if I stay indoors my odds are better, right? Yeah, I'm going with that. 

 Today is Wreaths Across America and I will be participating. I have done so for a number of years now. It's how tradition starts. When I first read about it I thought it a wonderful idea. Unfortunately, the cemetery where my Dad is buried isn't sponsored. I rely on others to place a wreath on his marker. I have chosen Lt. Col Comegys, Union Soldier, to honor with a wreath, along with Thomas Albino, father to my daughter in law. These are the two I ensure get those wreaths each year. The Col passed in 1897, after getting a haircut, according to the local newspaper. I honor his service to the country. Tom, a man I knew but a short time, passed in 2013. Doesn't seem like eight years. I know a few other veterans in the Greensboro cemetery and one in particular that was added this year. That's the thing with getting older and staying in a certain area. The cemetery becomes a place to visit old friends. I'm beginning to understand why you see those "old" people there. 

 So honors will be rendered today at noon. A few words at the flagpole, some years a bag piper will play Amazing Grace. Then the group goes to the cemetery to lay the wreaths. I'm told this year two Boy Scout troops will be joining us and that is good thing. For the new year I'm hoping we can put the past, in the past. You cannot rewrite the past, you can't undo what has been done. What you can do is learn from that past, celebrate the progress made, and strive to be better. Quit picking at old wounds! Have faith, believe, do not be afraid of tomorrow. Tomorrow will arrive, on schedule, as it always has.