Ned Luce

The holidays are almost over and with some luck your Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa and other celebrations set you up to have a great new year. In the words of Barbara Walters or Elizabeth Vargas, “Welcome to 20/20.” Yep, the next twelve months will be full of “news” items, not necessarily “newsworthy items.”

There were a couple of nice things triggering good feelings about the season last week. There was the submarine heading into the Hood Canal a couple of days before Christmas. I hope it was full of sailors, (“submariners”?), coming home for the holidays. We went to the Holiday Hi-Jinx show at the American Legion in Port Townsend benefitting the Jefferson County Winter Shelter. Paul Rogers and his band of talented but rowdy musicians delivered an amazing array of Christmas music you never heard before since it seems as most of it was written by/for the group. Local luminary Carla Main joined the group to provide an extraordinary singing performance.

BJ and I headed to Seattle for a couple of days of food, drink and presents with our children, their spouses and the four grandsons. The ferries, roads, and Central Market were all as crowded as you can imagine. Surprisingly, when my son-in-law took me and his son to see the latest episode of “Star Wars” the day after Christmas the theater was only a quarter full. BJ and I recalled that we took our son and daughter to the first  “Star Wars” movie 40 years ago. Our recollection is that we saw it at a drive-in in San Rafael, CA and the kids slept through it. We headed home late Thursday afternoon anticipating a light dinner at “Scratch” in Port Gamble but alas, they closed early. As a result we changed the objective to enjoying some Mexican fare at “Molcajete” in Port Ludlow. As I have said before, I am no culinary connoisseur but it is really nice to have those friendly folks providing a welcome restaurant option here in town.

Those interested in sports are overloaded this week with the genuine personality of Marshawn Lynch rejoining the Seahawks for the San Francisco 49ers game and maybe more game(s) in the playoffs. I am cheering for a Super Bowl featuring the Seahawks and the Kansas City Chiefs. There will be a party. Marshawn is joined by the unusual circumstance of six college basketball teams being ranked number one before the first of the year, one of them being Spokane’s Gonzaga. Add to these items the fact that the Alabama Crimson Tide football team did NOT make the college playoffs of four teams.

Here comes the obligatory “Happy New Year!” Frankly I am looking forward to 2020 since 2019 went by so fast I didn’t get a chance to lose weight. I was going to quit all my bad habits last year but then I remembered that nobody likes a quitter.

Love a curmudgeon and have a great 2020!

(Ned Luce is a retired IBM executive who has written his uplifting column about life in Port Ludlow and Jefferson County for 10 years.)