Remembering BY CARLTON REESE
Personal ruminations on the good and the bad of yet another year.
N
ary a tear fell during the eulogy of 2020, its passing more of a celebration worthy of a tyrant’s death than a mournful wake at the loss of a loved one. The demise of 2020 gave way to the promise of 2021, surely an empty vessel to be filled with everyone’s new favorite word, “normalcy.” In Florida, the cry for a return to even a semblance of previous norms was heard while in many parts of this nation, the shackling for a “greater good” maintained its grip on the citizenry. Here, we managed to enter restaurants without the face garb of bandits and surgeons, gathered in show halls and sent our kids to school in the same manner we had before March 19, 2020. In sleepy Central Florida, we were mostly spared from the bloodletting that took place elsewhere around the nation and world. In 2021, we will remember the hope
42
| DEC 2021 | OCALAMAGAZINE.COM
of vaccines engineered to offer us our freedom only to be mired in obfuscation, opaque data points, misinformation and ultimately medical mandates and shaming not seen since the practice of Josef Mengele. In 2021, we witnessed over a million unvetted migrants cross an undefended border and hundreds of cargo ships stranded outside ports of call. In the White House, we traded an abrasive orange for a soft cantaloupe then realized soon afterward there will be no healing of America’s damaged soul, only more bitterness among ideologues who would rather spar than converse. In 2021, soaring prices at the grocery store and gas pump created misery for the middle and peasant classes, this in exchange for some supposed positive change in the weather. Not to fret, however, as our trusted oligarchs and bureaucrats are working tirelessly to solve this problem.
I come, though, not to bury 2021 but to praise it. We may have thought it verboten to ever again attend a sporting event at full capacity, but in 2021 so many risked their very lives by crowding into large stadiums to attend games and concerts. The imminent disaster left only the sound of crickets from the doomsayers. This year we saw the return of Horse Fever, a fusion of the local horse culture with the burgeoning art movement that continues to spring a wealth of pride from our citizens. This marked the fourth edition of Horse Fever and we hope there will be more – new art dotting the local landscape will never grow tiresome, and what we have here is one of the great community art collections for the public to enjoy. And speaking of pride, we all took pleasure in the Ocala/Marion County Chamber
