2 minute read
The Editor’s Note
ey, by the time you read this it will be 2021! Not that
Hthe early stages of the new year will necessarily be exponentially more palatable than 2020, but doesn’t every Jan. 1 signal the hope that this will be your time, my time, our time?
I don’t know what’s to come, but I know that I’m less concerned about what 2021 will bring for me as I just prefer that we can all get back to living a somewhat routine existence again. I’m not naive enough to expect world peace, a government that will work together and that those who follow different political ideologies will get along with each other.
No, I’m still expecting hatred, racial injustice and violence to dominate the headlines and flood social media. But maybe, just maybe, the COVID-19 vaccine will eventually help us return to some form of normalcy and save lives. Nothing is guaranteed, but it’s what we all need more than anything – for our health, for our livelihoods, for our relationships and for our sanity.
I can’t fathom scenarios continuing like I experienced on the two fishing trips I took during my November visit to the Bay Area. In our December issue, I wrote about an outing to Shadow Cliffs Regional Recreation Area, which only allowed walk-in visits. It was an almost empty, apocalyptical setting.
Contrast that with my story in this issue (page 21), when my sister and I fished at a far more crowded Los Vaqueros Reservoir, where we were stressed about getting too close to the dozens of anglers lining the fishing pier and sections of the lake’s shoreline. I found a spot that at least felt socially distanced enough from everyone else, but as another surge of the virus skyrocketed cases and prompted more stay-at-home restrictions in California, when will it all end?
And that’s the question that we’ll be asking as 2021 teases us, tempts us and taunts us until there’s a sense of normalcy again. It has to get better, right? We all need a little hope in our lives. That’s what new years are supposed to be all about. -Chris Cocoles
