As we approach the end of the first week of the last year of
the second decade of the century (hey, I know I could have just said “2020” but
then that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun), I know there are some among the readers out
there who have wondered if perhaps the old gg will turn over a new leaf and display
at least a slight amount of optimism and cheer in this the new year. I’ve asked that same question of myself. The answer is an emphatic no.
It’s not that the gg wants
to be a grouch. It’s not that I wouldn’t
welcome a chance to be more sanguine – it’s just that there are simply too many annoyances out there for that to
happen. I’d hoped that might change, but
hope turned to nope on the very first day after New Year’s. It began when the
gg and Mrs. gg came home with groceries
and discovered that the potato chips in the lower one half of the potato chip bag
were all crushed. Again. This was nothing new, but in the past this
transgression was not severe enough to raise a hair on the back of my neck. But
now it stood nakedly as a harbinger of things to come. Right there, down the drain went any hopes
for a good beginning to the new year. But
had the previous New Year’s day have
turned out differently, this latest potato chip crush caper might still have
gone without mention. New Year’s day,
which the gg spent binge watching
college football games, should have been an omen. During one of the games, a defensive back was
disqualified from the game for targeting, meaning he thrust his helmet
intentionally into the head of an opposition player. There was no disputing that it was, indeed,
targeting. When this occurs, the
procedure is that the referee announces that the player has been suspended. In a straightforward world, what one would
anticipate next is that the player walks off the field toward the sideline,
sullen and with head bowed, and is then escorted from the field to the locker room by a team representative to
a chorus of boos. Targeting is a serious
offense. It could seriously harm its
victim, causing a concussion and possibly even leading to life-long
trauma. One would therefore think the
perpetrator of targeting would be subjected to condemnation and scorn by
virtually everyone in the stadium.
Wrong. What I witnessed was the
player’s team mates and even coaches rushing to greet and shake the player’s
hand once he came off the field, as though they appreciated what he had
done. And then there was the crowd
reaction. Most –I won’t say all—of the
crowd clapped and applauded as the guilty player walked off the field waiving to them It was though he was a gladiator who had done
something heroic and worthy for his team, or his tribe.
What is going on here, I asked myself? As usual, I didn’t have the answer. But then I realized that what had transpired
on that football field was nothing but a mirror of what seems to be happening all around us in our broken
society. Everything is topsy-turvy. What was once wrong is now okay. What was once okay no longer is. Virtually nothing is verboten anymore. Right
is whatever our tribe wants it to be and says it to be. Wrong is wrong only in the eye of the
beholder. Truth is relative. We see only
what we want to see.
Yes, the gg had hoped 2020 would not start out this
way. I should have known better. As long as potato chip makers continue to
sell bags of potato chips with one-half of the contents crushed, as long as self-serve
service stations fail to provide the simple service of delivering a gas receipt
at the pump, so long as . . . (see my Top 10 List from 2019), and so long as good people fail to condemn
wrong when it stares them directly in the face, the Grouchy Geezer will have
plenty to write about in 2020. Can we
make it through the 2020s with less than 20-20 vision? Stay tuned.
