Martin Collins didn’t expect to die. He was seventy-five. He was healthy and active. He still played golf once a week. He was on his knees weeding the flower bed in the back of his house with his wife of 50 years, Holly. The sun was shining. It was a warm spring day with the promise of summer in the air. He was thinking life was good. He and Holly had been content in their retirement. They still loved each other more then ever after 50 years which not many couples can claim. So the sudden sharp pain in the middle of his back came as surprise.

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Harry felt like he was surrounded by old women. His daughters forced him to give up his house and move into an independent living community where there were very few men. The one-bedroom apartment felt small. Of course, when he couldn’t live by himself anymore, he could move into assisted living, and finally into the nursing home, right across the parking lot, where he could get all the help he needed to finally die. He had just turned seventy-seven. He still played golf once a week and worked out on the treadmill every day. Life had changed dramatically two years ago when his wife died. They had been married for 54 years. One morning she didn’t wake up. He missed her terribly. While the suddenness of her death was like a punch in the face, he was grateful she didn’t suffer. His two daughters, his sons-in-law, granddaughters, and friends all rallied around him, but life would never be the same.

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The last week has been a time of looking back at the year that just passed. To many it wasn’t a pretty picture. We must now confront the year ahead. In its first week, we will face the one year anniversary of one of the darkest days in our history. It has been seared in our memory and the scars may never heal. The Congressional January 6th Committee is planning public hearings that may include subpoenas for members of Congress, former Vice President Pence and Donald Trump. Members of Trump’s inner circle, like former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former advisor Steve Brannon, have defied subpoenas and have been charged with contempt and could possibly face time in federal prison.

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Joe Bruno and his wife Maria were just moving into the quiet neighborhood in Santa Fe. A few days earlier, Matt Dawkins their next-door neighbor, noticed a couple of workers renovating and expanding a backyard shed. Matt thought Joe and his wife looked to be in their seventies and probably moved to New Mexico to enjoy the great weather and scenery in their retirement years. Matt and his wife Jane had waved to the couple as the movers were carrying furniture into the house on a sunny Saturday. They planned to go over and welcome them to the neighborhood once the movers were gone. Matt and Jane moved to Santa Fe from Brooklyn, New York when Matt got an offer from a law firm. He and Jane, a teacher, thought it would be an adventure and a way to sample a different lifestyle. Their kids eight-year-old Patrick, and their daughter, five-year-old Taylor were disappointed the former owners moved. They had two kids about Patrick’s and Taylor’s ages who they played with all the time.

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The recent school shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan has once again shown how terrifyingly normal this madness has become. A troubled kid with access to a gun goes on a rampage. Four students are killed. Eight others, including a teacher, are wounded. Like almost every school in America, there had been “active shooter” drills. School administrators and teachers are trained how to look for warnings signs. Students are told if they see or hear something troubling, tell someone. Fifteen year old Ethan Crumbley has been charged as an adult for killing the four students and wounding the others. His parents are charged with involuntary manslaughter for failing to prevent their son from bringing the gun to school. This awful day didn’t have to happen if a school counselor had done their job.

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Harvey Clark, one of the great reporters in Philadelphia television history, died last week from liver cancer. He was seventy-six. Harvey will forever be known for his coverage of the MOVE disaster in 1985 when the city bombed a residential neighborhood and killed six adults and five children who police were trying to evict. MOVE is a back to nature group who wore dread locks, ate raw vegetable, and rebelled against authority. They are black. Harvey said when it was over the city would have never dropped that bomb on that house if they were white. Harvey knew what it meant to be burned out of your house because you are black.

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If you want to see our real place in the world, it may make you feel insignificant. It’s all around us, but never more than in our American treasure, our national parks. We recently got back from spending a few days visiting Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. The majesty of nature is overwhelming. It’s as if you traveling back thousands of years when the earth was first forming. You’re struck by the enormity of the rocks and cliffs that envelop you, and the colors. The greens, browns, grays, and most of all the reds. The reds range from a deep rust to coral. The texture of the stone has gradations from smooth to ridges that look like they were created by a baker putting the finishing touches on the icing of a wedding cake.

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We all remember where we were on 9/11. We didn’t know where we were going. What would happen next? How it would change us forever. In these days leading up to the twentieth anniversary, we are seeing all those indelible images again and hearing the stories of heroism, grief, determination, and anger. Some have compared the 9/11 attacks to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was an attack by a foreign country on a naval base thousands of miles away that most Americans had never heard of before that terrible morning. It brought the country together. We knew who the enemy was. There was no debate about how we needed to respond. After four years, the enemy was defeated. We won and the world changed forever. There was that same rallying spirit right after 9/11. We were going to hunt down the people who did this and make them pay. This was worse than Pearl Harbor. This unknown enemy struck in the heart of our country killing innocent civilians as they showed up for work. That morning would change how we saw each other.

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One of the primary responsibilities of journalists is to ask questions to get information to inform the public on a particular subject. This applies whether you’re asking the local school president about the school budget or elected officials about government policy including national security. The American military evacuation of Afghanistan has raised many obvious questions about the planning and consequences of the Biden administration’s decision to end the twenty year war. While most people agree with the decision to get out, the execution of the withdrawal has been badly bungled for all the world to see. There are many questions about the plan, the intelligence, the warnings, the preparedness of the Afghan military and the government itself. When things aren’t going well, people try to avoid answering hard questions.

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The debate over the Covid 19 vaccines as been going on since the vaccines became available earlier this year. It has ramped up since the virus mutated into the Delta variant which is much more contagious and can even be caught and spread by vaccinated people. The rare vaccinated person who tests positive does not get seriously ill, but they can spread the virus to the unvaccinated person who can get very ill and die. Every medical expert has told us from the beginning that getting the vaccine would stop the spread of the virus and allow us to get our lives back. But a significant percentage of the population has refused to get vaccinated, and now holds the rest of us hostage. To quote Michael Corleone, “Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in.” It’s time to take back the country from the idiots and the people who are feeding them self serving misinformation.

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