A Word In Edgewise: A Big Job for A Little Guy

Baby wearing a Happy New Year hat.
Photo courtesy of BigStock/Hannamariah

I wouldn’t want to be Little Cherub ’24 about, as I write this, to toddle onstage and push bearded Old ’23 off into the wings of history. I also hope doddering ’23 had the foresight to prepare a snug retirement oasis–no phone, no Internet–into which he can withdraw;  preferably in a tidier galaxy, far away.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many other places and times I’d rather not be; Europe around 1347-ish, an Oklahoma farm in the 1930s, or trying to afford a home right here, right now in the USA.

Still, it seems we–the collective We of Humanity, or more realistically, those calling the shots that affect the bulk of the “little people”–aided by the communications networks that have turned our Earth into a tight little island, having finally tossed more balls into the air than can possibly be juggled.

Here we have a pivotal Presidential election looming. Without delving into politics, I predict it will be… well, I plan to vote early, by mail, and not venturing abroad this coming Guy Fawkes Day.

There’s scant optimism around the rest of the globe. Wars, famine, and, whether naming by a particular term or not, Earth is heating up, manifesting that change through floods, droughts, even unusual cold. Changes that destabilize crop production, the viability of farm livestock and their reproduction, falling dominoes that variously affect the ability to grow, farm, and supply many of the foodstuffs on which we’ve long depended. For one example, out of thousands of existing banana or plantain breeds, we import and consume only the Cavendish; should the TR4 fungus infect that monoculture, that staple is gone for good.

Even where to lay one’s head is a continuing problem for many. There are working people in America making decent salaries forced to sleep in their cars. It’s too long a litany to sing here, this concatenation of small and not-so-small events now merging as they never could in a less tightly-bound world. Today, an infected air traveler can continent-hop in a matter of hours, the unwitting vector of pestilence.

This lengthy preamble started out as a piece to ponder personal Aims and Resolutions for the New Year, but led me to the thought that life is rushing by with even less certainty that it ever afforded. Not that anything in life has ever been certain, of course, but these days, a dinner engagement can be postponed when a friend tests positive for COVID-19, or what looked to be a heavy rain is a flood, or your car has been stolen from the garage.

I think of prematurely aged ’23 beckoning to little ’24, who, like the rest of us must assume his mantle and soldier on. How far ahead can he see? Or is the future as fraught with mystery for him as it was for ‘23 and for the rest of us?

I’m planning to keep my Resolutions modest. Read as much as I can; really, really, really exercise more (I promise); and even write something–maybe the remaining pages of that manuscript languishing in the bowels of my computer.

And let’s hope the new little guy will sow peace and reason, provide food and shelter after he takes his first, halting steps into 2024. Here’s looking at you, Kid! 

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