This is my last column of 2020 and like most things in 2020, I’m ready to be done with it. (the year, not the column, I mean).
On the macro level, 2020 will be remembered most of all as the year of the great pandemic and a presidential election.
But on the micro level, 2020 will be recalled as the year we couldn’t get finished with much of anything, which is true almost everywhere you look.
We’ll start with the coronavirus, which started in February. We certainly aren’t finished with that, not even after more than 332,000 American died. Health officials believe the toll of the virus may get worse as the new year begins, even as we embark on a massive vaccination program. Models predicted another 200,000 American deaths by February.
So, no, we’re not finished with COVID, not by a long shot.
On a related note, health officials started telling us in March to wear masks, stay six feet away from others and not congregate in large groups and are still telling us that now, another piece of unfinished 2020 business.
Then, there is the matter of the Presidential election, which was held Nov. 4. Almost two months later, President Trump, who lost by seven million votes nationally and by 74 Electoral College votes, still refuses to concede. Trump supporters have launched an endless array of lawsuits contesting the election. When one suit gets laughed out of court, three more silly suits seem to take its place.
The main argument is the Atlanta Falcons’ argument. In the 2017 Super Bowl, Atlanta led by 19 points at halftime, but New England scored 19 points in the second half to tie the game, then won in overtime.
That’s pretty much the same argument Trump uses now. Trump held a lead early, but the lead evaporated as mail-in ballots were counted.
Trump folks said that’s mighty suspicious.
That’s it. That’s the whole argument. Seriously. I’ll go on record as saying the election outcome is about as suspicious and unfair as New England scoring all those second-half points.
Trump will be gone soon, of course. It’s inevitable.
I think I’ll miss his quiet dignity most of all.
The 2020 election will be finished business in 2021.
We should not be surprised at this point.
We’ve seen the trend here at home too.
We couldn’t even get a lawn ornament removed from the Lowndes County courthouse before year’s end, even though supervisors took up the matter in July.
Folks have been trying to get rid of county supervisor Harry Sanders since June. But by year’s end, Stonewall Harry is still sitting in the boardroom. The monument may be bigger, but Harry has proven to be a much heavier lift. So, as we enter 2021, we still have two relics of the Confederacy firmly ensconced at the courthouse.
My suggestion is to cut our losses and put Harry in the spot vacated by the monument.
The lone outlier, as best I can recall, is that somehow we managed to get rid of the state flag, which bore the image of the Confederate flag in its canton. Our new flag replaced the Rebel flag with the image of a Magnolia flower, which figures to be a big blow to KKK iconography.
It only took 115 years and two months in the summer of 2021 to do that, lest we get too proud of the achievement.
I’m sure there are some other things that started in 2020 and actually finished in 2020, but I’m hard-pressed to recall them.
On a personal level, I went into the year with the goal of losing 20 pounds.
I didn’t quite finish that, either, although I am within 25 pounds of that goal.
Maybe that’s the good thing about 2021: We have a helluva lot to look forward to.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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