So long - and good riddance - to 2021 | Mann Overboard

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Some year, huh, 2021? A million laughs.

NYTimes: “Americans are sick and tired of being sick and tired.” 

It was, to paraphrase Queen Liz, an annus horribilius pandemicus. 

Hey, but we did learn how to wear a mask without fogging our glasses. Well, some of us. Too bad so many didn’t learn to wear a mask, period. 

This year’s events sounded a lot like a Festivus list of the airing of grievances. 

We started 2021 with White Power clowns trying to take the Capitol. The Viking millinery was a nice touch. Now it looks like this attempted coup might have been an inside job. 

Things got better (for me, anyway) on my birthday soon after: Vax day! Had to sweat that one out. Quite a relief.

PT restaurants began to reopen to in-person dining. Thanks, Inslee. A semblance of normalcy. Here’s a tip: Double your tip. 

We’d just started to enjoy the outdoors when a Barstow-like heat bomb descended on us in late June. Great. Like many of you, I hate heat. Not the best way to kill three days, driving around with the AC on high. 

The Mountain View pool finally reopened. Yesss! Then it closed again and again for mechanical problems. And stayed closed for weeks. The YMCA and the city saved our bacon by negotiating a pool handover. 

In other matters aquatic, the Seahawks went into the tank. But fear not, Twelves, they’ll be back, like a bent coin in a vending machine. 

The President faced an uphill battle all year, not just from the tiresome, clueless public-health-menace anti-vaxxers, but also from a ferret-faced West Virginia coal guy. 

The Mariners, while respectable, finally caved. 

The tireless, tiresome Big Lie supporters at least had the decency to make it easy to laugh at them with stunts like their Arizona and Wisconsin “audits.” Really … Cyber Ninjas?

Canada finally opened its border, which meant we could finally see our grandkids and son in Vancouver after a two-year delay. (But it cost us a lot for PCR tests and we had to jump through many Canadian government hoops to do it.)

You also probably had health issues in this worrisome year. For example, I’m writing this in a wheelchair — thanks, ECHHO — which I hadn’t had to use since I had polio in 1952. Bright spot: Wheelchairs are much improved. But I still miss doddering around with cane and able. Many of us can relate to Hamlet’s reference to the thousand natural shocks flesh is heir to.

If Jefferson County hadn’t had such a high vaccination rate, imagine the fun we would have missed out on. (And, as of this writing, we have one of the lowest infection rates in the country.) Our heroic health officer, Dr. Allison Berry, was able to withstand the clueless, ill-informed anti-vax mob. 

The year almost closed well with the emergence of Peter Jackson’s epic Beatles documentary, “Get Back.” If anything is upbeat and soul-soothing, it’s those talented, madcap Liverpool lads. I’m lucky to have had the chance to meet two of them in my rock-critic past. 

We’re lucky to have friends and family whose support and love have helped us navigate this god-awful year. 

I hadn’t heard the word Omicron since I had to memorize the Greek alphabet for my college frat. 

And once again, it’s a sense of humor that’s gotten many of us through another subprime year. Those who know life’s a tragedy, someone once said, think it’s a joke. I fervently believe that. 

One major improvement this year: At least Defendant One has been banished to Florida. 

— Finally, to end 2021 on an incongruously light note, Stephen Colbert, who hasn’t allowed Commandante Bonespurs’ name on the air for months, reprised some his audience’s better coinages for Donald of Orange: Oaf of Office; Hair Force One; Vanity Manatee; The Slob Father; Walker, Taxes Evader; Mar-A-Lardo; Dolt 45; and Scrooge McSchmuck. 

(Hobbling PT humorist Bill Mann hopes he’s not as lame as many of his jokes. He wishes all you great readers an upgraded Happy New Year. And a safe one.
I be Newsmann9@ gmail.com.)