Happy New Year everyone. The Mayan calendar has been discarded, the Times Square ball has been dropped, the bells have been rung, the horns blown, the funny hats put away, the champagne and wine consumed, the bowl games played, and now it’s time for a new beginning.
What changes will we see and experience during this coming year? What new adventures await us? We’ll soon know. As you know, we do a lot of looking back as we visit across the fence. It’s important that we live in the present, but it’s good to look back once in a while, to better appreciate where we’ve been and what we have now.
As I write this we are getting closer to the fiscal cliff. By the time you read this we’ll both know if we went over the cliff, or if a compromise was reached. I don’t have much faith in our politicians anymore and will be surprised if a compromise is reached. Both parties are so polarized that compromise has become a foreign word to them. Since the Mayan calendar didn’t bring about the end of the world, I‘ve been hoping it would signal the time for a new beginning. It could start with our political leaders looking out for the interests of all the people, but our country now has the best politicians money can buy, as evidenced by the millions spent on political campaigns. I guess we have to expect they will do whatever the people want who fill their campaign chests and keep them in office. They certainly won’t be listening to me.
Another subject that has me concerned is the number of people shot to death each year in this country. We’ve become a nation that seems to thrive on violence and killing. It’s predicted that shooting deaths will reach 33,000 and outnumber auto deaths within two years. Over half of those deaths are the result of suicides. Many of the other deaths are the result of drug and alcohol related shootings. I’m not advocating that we take people’s guns away. I own guns too. The bad guys will always find a way to get guns even if there are more restrictions. They’re not going to walk into a store and undergo a background check like you and I do if we want to buy a gun.
It will take people a lot smarter than me to come up with answers to the many problems that need to be solved. We need to start addressing the causes. Why do people commit mass killings? How can we keep young people from killing each other on the streets of our cities every day? If they couldn’t use guns, they would still try killing each other with knives, clubs, or throwing stones. That’s the way it’s been for centuries. We need to address the causes for such violence and our fascination with killing everything. Until that’s solved, I don’t see much hope for a safer, more peaceful world.
These are not the type of topics usually discussed in this column and not what you expect or want to read here, but I had to bring those two issues up that have dominated the news lately. I don’t live in a fantasy world or in the past. I will continue to talk about what it was like to live when we were younger, but we must also live in today’s world and deal with today’s issues.
Many of you have told me that you like to read Across the Fence because it’s usually a positive, feel-good message when there’s so much negative news in the world. That won’t change. It’s time for a new beginning, and we need to remember the values we grew up with and make sure we don’t lose sight of them as we continue our journey through life. I know that most people who were raised in a rural environment had a work ethic instilled in them at an early age. That work ethic stayed with them in whatever they did. There was also a spirit of cooperation and helping your neighbor. People knew their neighbors and cared about them. When a neighbor ran into difficulties or heath problems, everyone pitched in and helped. During the Great Depression, my grandmothers always had food for the less fortunate who didn’t have a garden or an animal to butcher. They looked for nothing in return. My Sherpe grandparents lost their farm in the depression and didn’t have anything either, but that didn’t stop Grandma Inga from helping others.
We need to have some of my Grandma Inga’s caring spirit today. Would she have killed someone to take something they had that she wanted? No. She would have gone without and still tried to help others if they needed something. Would she have sat by and watched our country go over a fiscal cliff if she had any way to stop it? I don’t think so. She was very stubborn, after all she was an Ostrem/Sherpe with Norwegian blood, but she would have found a way to compromise and help, not hurt people.
As we search for a new beginning this year, lets remember the spirit of people like my Grandma Inga and Grandma Julia. The world will be a better place if we remember and follow their example.
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