Ned Luce

Here we are at the end of an incredible year.

At the beginning of this year our optimistic attitudes, yours and mine, led us to think we had a chance for a breakout year. 

Instead, we have had many vaccinations, but not enough. We go to restaurants and movies masked and armed with proof of being vaxed. We drown out the “Big Lie” and evade the “anti vaxers” who try to convince us there is any logic behind “being “vaxed” means losing your freedom.”

In addition, I still can’t understand most, (or maybe all) of the video games my grandsons got for Christmas! 

We went to Seattle for Christmas and spent two days with our daughter and her family. 

The time was loaded with traditional trappings such as Christmas Eve crab, (from “Key City Fish” in Port Townsend), to our son-in-law’s “Monkey Bread” on Christmas morning to a Christmas Eve drive through Olympic Manor in Seattle. Olympic Manor is well known for the holiday lights on almost all the houses in the development. Somebody in the car said something about the scene looking like “Christmas had thrown up all over the yards and houses.” You get the picture. 

We drove home Saturday evening whilst last weekend’s snow storm was just starting up. 

Have you seen the lights in Kingston and/or Port Gamble? Sunday provided an opportunity for all the neighbors and us to go for a walk in the winter with snow, not rain. It was nice to see people out and about on cross country skis up and down the street. The adventure meter ticked up significantly when the all-terrain-vehicle started doing laps around Pioneer Drive whilst pulling a couple of daredevils on sleds. I heard no sirens so I conclude they survived. 

At this writing it appears we will have some version of cold weather all this week. Thank goodness for old ski clothes. 

No newspapers on Monday a.m. and the delivery folks drive cars. This kind of weather didn’t stop me on my bike. I also walked five miles to school uphill, both ways.

The Seahawks can’t seem to win a game for love or money. Just when you settle down with a feeling that they are going to win a game, you shouldn’t fall asleep because they can find a way to disappoint you. 

The game on TV at the same time as the Seahawks/Bears was the Chiefs and the Steelers and it was far more relaxing as the Chiefs handled the boys from Pittsburgh. I built a fire and took a nap while watching(?) both games.

BJ was the recipient of one of those 1,000-piece puzzles for Christmas. As a result, she will actually be busy now meeting the challenge of the puzzle at the same time she is catching up on the latest romance of a Hallmark or Lifetime movie. An advantage for me is that if she is working on the puzzle she has the ability to ignore the shows I may like. 

So, let’s make a real effort to make 2022 better than either of the past two years. 

In my case I would like to see fewer doctors this coming year. It’s not that they are unhelpful or annoying, I just think I have better things to do, like wash my car. 

I am optimistic we will all see the pandemic ease its influence on our lives. I think I am getting used to the mask dance but I would prefer it to be over and have more confidence that health care for all of us is not stifled by the COVID. 

I am optimistic that the political arguments have reached such a volcanic level we might see them move to a more rational, tolerant and intelligent level. As Will Rogers noted some time ago, “This would be a great time in the world for some man to come along that knew something.”

If you are reading this column you probably experienced the hairy year of 2021. I look forward to sharing 2022 with you, unless the doctors get the best of me! 

Love a curmudgeon and have a Happy New Year! 

(Ned Luce is a retired IBM executive and Port Ludlow resident with a resolution to break down and watch one of those holiday Hallmark romance movies BJ is always watching, like the one where the fetching young woman returns to her small hometown from her unsatisfying job in the big city only to cross paths with an old flame and things start to heat up but there’s this big misunderstanding and they argue but a kindly old shopkeeper has some advice and, well, something like that. Email Ned at ned@ptleader.com.)