Here’s how SLO County residents will remember 2020 as a new year approaches
What was your holiday season like this year?
When you add holiday shopping, decorating and planning to the challenges of working remotely, distanced learning and tripping over each other in COVID-19 quarantine, it was enough to make a hermit out of just about anybody.
And then there’s New Year’s Eve, and whatever it will dish out before we finally turn the last calendar page on this strange year and start on 2021.
I suspect that most of us are more than ready to move on.
Some of us have been ready since April.
Anybody interested in a controlled-burn bonfire of 2020 calendars? What about a socially-distanced shredder fest?
Or, as a meme that former Cambrian columnist Consuelo Macedo shared recently, “If 2020 was a math problem … if you’re walking on the ice cream at 5 ounces per toaster, and your bicycle loses a sock, how much gravy will you need to repaint your hamster?”
Feeling a bit crotchety, I turned to my crew of online buddies to ask them what they’d be doing on New Year’s Eve 2020 and how they’ll approach the start of 2021.
I was surprised by the results. I expected a lot more moaning, groaning, kvetching and political fuming.
While some people said they’d be truly glad to have this year in the rear-view mirror and why, the vast majority of my more than 50 respondents were surprisingly upbeat about their 2020 experiences and hopes for 2021.
Some former Cambrians weighed in. Charmaine Coimbra, now a New Mexico resident, said she’ll greet the new year with “applause.” Julie Woods of Loma Linda said she’ll do it “with a bear hug.”
Carrie Ann Yaple of Paso Robles, another former Cambrian, seemed to speak for lots of people when she wrote that she’ll “reflect on what 2020 has taught us … to appreciate, honor and respect the relationship with my spouse … to not waste a single moment with my children. They grow so quickly and I’m so grateful to have spent this year making memories with them. … This year taught us what really matters: Make a special meal, open a nice bottle of champagne, toast to those who did not survive this year and toast to the 80 million people who showed up for change.”
Adriane Bailey said, “I will mark this year as more growth than I thought possible. I am stronger than I thought and able to do things I never dreamt possible.”
Sandi Gross-Pound of Atascadero said, “While this year has been challenging, to say the least, it has also proved to be a very positive influence. It has forced us all to reflect and enjoy each other, relish all the little things that we may have been too busy to pay attention to before. … Thank you, 2020. But hey, 2021, here’s to less lessons to be learned and more exciting adventures to be had!”
San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Bruce Gibson and two of his Second District predecessors chimed in:
- Gibson’s New Year’s Eve will find him going “outside as the New Year rings in to remember the good friends I’ve lost in 2020 and make a wish on my lucky stars that 2021 will be better.”
- Bud Laurent said he’ll greet 2021 “with profound gratitude, assuming all those whom I love are healthy and happy.”
- And Shirley Bianchi said, “As usual, we will probably miss the ball coming down on New Year’s Eve, but will awaken to a new year with a feeling of hopeful possible solutions for all of the problems our country has to solve.” She’ll also have “a feeling of gratitude for our local daughters, who have temper tantrums when they even think we are planning on leaving the canyon without one of them escorting us and fending off anyone who comes close to us without a mask!”
Others were more matter-of-fact, saying they’d be asleep on New Year’s Eve.
Mike Lyons, who chairs the North Coast Advisory Council, said, “My knee-jerk answer would be, move on, don’t look back, and forget the whole disaster. But that would be ignoring the several good things about 2020, including getting to know my spouse more selflessly, managing to shelter from COVID pretty darn well, putting ‘entertainment’ in perspective … and, BTW, learning the value of cleaning my own house, knowing it is c.l.e.a.n. by my own elbows.”
My former Tribune colleague Robert “Buck” Dyer said he’d approach the new year “with 2020 hindsight, because hindsight IS 2020.” To which I responded that “2020 is also perfect vision,” which, in many ways, hasn’t seemed to apply to this year at all.
Jim Lykins of Oregon plans to “hide for at least two weeks after New Year’s!”
Magician Rick Bruce said, with tongue firmly in cheek as usual, that he’ll “be trying to figure out when the murder hornets will be back and whether the pandemic will be followed by the robot revolution or the zombie apocalypse. Forewarned is forearmed!”
Toni (Booth) Barnett of San Miguel, The Cambrian’s editor from 1986 to 1988, said, “The words ‘hopeful’ and ‘optimistic’ are back in my vocabulary after a long absence.”
And Claudia (Snow) Elliott of Oregon, Cambrian editor from 1981 to 1985, asked for my thoughts about 2020. “You’re sure it’s going to end?”
As for my view of the approaching new year? Thank God we’re turning 21!!
This story was originally published December 28, 2020 at 5:05 AM.
