Good Bye 2020
What happened this past year? More than I can describe in a reasonable long post.
The year began with the Trump impeachment trial, which he shook off with the help of a Republican majority in the Senate. His followers loved it.
Then there was the COVID-19 pandemic. Weren’t we lucky? There have been generations of humans who never get to experience a pandemic. Unfortunately, our nation, the richest and technically capable nation on the earth, suffered more cases and deaths, per capita that any other advanced country. This wasn’t a lack of capability; it was the result of inept leadership at the national level. We could write this off because of our form of government, a democracy where everyone has an opinion. This makes coordinated national effort difficult. I happen to have lived during WWII, when the nation did pull together as one. During the Cold War there was a bipartisan effort for twenty years, with both Republican and Democratic administrations having the same goals and winning that conflict. Another example was the moon landing, conceived and achieved in ten years as planned with bipartisanship cooperation.
George Floyd’s death resulting from police action caused a summer of protests. For reasons not fully clear, the protests escalated and become national and racially neutral. The protesters were a mix of every ethnicity and with many marchers in smaller cities being predominantly white. There were counter marchers, which in many cases resulted in conflict and became riots. Intended peaceful marches turned to looting and became riots. The effort was politicized and made the nations divisions even deeper. It will take bipartisan efforts to bring the country together on this issue.
While all this was going on the Covid-19 cases ebbed and flowed in the United States. It was never brought under control. There was the initial peak during the early spread of the virus, a slowdown, then a late summer peak, another slowdown soon followed by a fall peak that exceeded any of the previous highs.
Number of patients hospitalized 2020
I had relaxed my isolation during the late summer, with outdoor Sunday dinners with my youngest son’s family and having friends and relatives visit my condo where we would have patio lunches occasionally. This stopped in November in account of the weather and rising cases of the virus in Minnesota. I have since been isolating with only food and prescription runs. I had been getting my hair cut during the summer but discontinued that in early November. My plan to avoid haircuts until vaccinated may be in question because of the slow rollout of vaccinations. Sometimes being bald has advantages.
Of course, there were the elections. All summer Trump had been suggesting there would be cheating, fraud, scams because of early absentee voting and other reasons. He could only lose because of fraud and cheating by the Democrats. Otherwise there would be no other way he could lose.
Trump did lose but there has been no evidence that the loss was due to cheating or fraud of any kind that would have influenced the outcome. Since Biden has been declared the winner, Trump has gone apoplectic and has gone to the courts sixty times, claiming fraud, irregularities, losing every case at every level in the justice system but one, a minor case about toll watchers. The only significant verified attempted fraud. cheating that has turned up is a phone call Trump made to a Georgia official where he suggested, begged, exhorted the official to come up with enough votes to change the outcome of the Georgia general election.
I have been around for a while and have not seen anything like what has occurred in this last election. It has been equivalent to a fantasy story or movie.
Another occurrence during 2020 was my ninety third birthday, something that should not have happened. I say this because no uncles on my paternal or maternal side, and there were a bunch of them, that had reached ninety. It is not in my DNA. A problem with growing old is that the body doesn’t work as well as it once did and it’s a one-way street. I didn’t take any prescription medication until I was eighty-six and now I take a handful.
2021 HERE WE COME, READY OR NOT
Alfred Wellnitz Books 
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