New Year Wishes

This year has been trying, to say the least. I'm sure most of us look forward to the new year, 2021, with high hopes of better times. There were a few good things that came from all the ills of 2020. These can be counted by the individual. Some of us suffered from illness, stress, and frustration with issues beyond our control. Others stayed status quo, observers intent on seeing what came to pass. Some used the time to be more productive while in quarantine or isolation they set forth on a quest to produce something of value and interest to themselves and others. 

 What you did in 2020 is your business. What was right for one is not always right for all. We are engaged in a political firestorm, no matter which side you choose, some will disagree and some will agree, there's even some who's apathy toward the occurrences in the world will cause other concern. 

I do not judge. I do not force my beliefs or opinions on others. On occasion, I may express my views, but do not expect others to see the world the same way I do. For whatever you may think, I'm glad we live in a society that allows us to have the freedom to do all that we do.

As writers we can express ourselves in many forms. I choose to use the printed word, or electronic print media, to express myself. I do it through fiction. But, it is not fictional as I wish all of you, HAPPY NEW YEAR!  

I'm attaching an email, some of you may have received from Bruce Haedrich. I hope you enjoy.

 

Happy New Year everyone!

As the year closes I'd like to thank you all for the messages, notes, articles, musings, and thoughts you sent my way in 2020. All of it lightened up my email box and I learned a lot. This is such a wonderful way to stay in touch despite being physically separated.

Although we've been through quite a bit this year, from a historical perspective, it is not nearly as grave as many of us have lived through already. Think of the destruction wrought by two World Wars separated by a cataclysmic drought and world Depression. I'm reading the book, Republic of Wrath, by James Morone which tells the often violent history of the U.S. from Washington to Trump. Our politics has always been rough and today's divides are nothing new. We've had politicized Supreme Courts, murdered politicians, graft, ballot stuffing, and race-based anarchy from before the Civil War.

Unfortunately, much of what is going on was predicted in my novel The Fifth Generation War. I am working on the third book of the trilogy. Since my characters are in control of events I'm wondering how it all turns out myself.

In 1859, one year before America's Civil War began, Charles Dickens published A Tale of Two Cities. In it is one of the most famous opening lines in literature, it goes:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Despite our caustic politics, COVID pandemic, the virtual world of lies and deceit, and the difficulty of separating fact from fiction, in many ways we are also living in the best of times. For my second book of essays, flash fiction, and short stories I wrote the following poem. It captures my thoughts about everyday life.

In the meantime, Happy New Year to you all! See you next year! Bruce

            Wondering

 

         Bruce Haedrich

 

Every morning when I awake

I’m hit out of the blue,

With lucky stars all around me

In every shade and hue

 

For instance the first thing I do

Is take a little pill

It keeps leukemia at bay

Now those cells cannot kill

 

Fifteen short years ago people

Did not have that option

But now a small pill can save lives

And I’m a lucky one

 

I have breakfast of toast and eggs

Or sometimes cheese and fruit

My choices are unlimited

This you cannot refute

 

It is because supermarkets

Would make King Midas blush

A cornucopia of goods

Each day is there for us

 

Next I am off to pickleball

A fast-paced racket sport

I’m thankful I can play a game

And run around a court

 

During my shower I wonder

If people ever think

Where does this clear water come from?

It’s good enough to drink.

 

The truth is two billion people

Have no running water

So I don’t take it for granted

I’m thankful, as it were.

 

Then I sit at my desk to write

Stories of saints and crooks

I love it here among my friends

Who roam around these books

 

My wife wants to go out to eat

And so I go with her

We end up at Captain Eddie’s

Where I order flounder

 

And as we wait I wonder how

This fish has come to me

Is there an unending supply,

Of flounder in the sea?

 

After our lunch then we go to 

One of those big box stores

Again I’m flabbergasted by

The goods within those doors

 

Now most of it is Chinese made

And bought with a credit

If we’re not paid to make this stuff

How can we afford it?

 

But one thing’s so vast that I can’t

Comprehend it at all

Is our place in the universe,

And that the earth’s so small

 

Our sun and our fellow planets

Are hurdling through space

And yet they all, plus all those moons

Stay in their proper place

 

Without this fine arrangement we

Would not be here at all

We would not have the warming sun

Or life-giving rainfall

 

We’d not have any complex cells

Which all living things must

Have in abundance or we would

Never been more than dust

 

This all comes to us by design

From when all-time began

So yes, there is a deity

Who has a master plan.