2021: The year in review

Remembering

BY CARLTON REESE

Personal ruminations on the good and the bad of yet another year.

Nary 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 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

World Equestrian Center

Brittany Bowe

Kevin Sheilly as Indiana Jones, alongside the Chamber of the Year award at the CEP Luncheon

Horse Fever 2021

and Economic Partnership earning Chamber of the Year by the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives. The award speaks not only to the dedication and passion of those who work at and support the CEP, but also to the growth and potential that exists in this county. Every month it seems there is something new to be excited about and one look at the downtown area is testimony to this. Restaurants, bars, shops and hotels all springing up where not long ago existed unwanted real estate with dilapidated structures. The vibrancy is more than cosmetic – it is a true destination equally attractive to businessmen, artists, families, and evening revelers.

The year 2021 has been about multiple sources of pride and among them perhaps the greatest is the World Equestrian Center, truly an international destination to enhance Ocala’s “place on the map.” Walking the grounds of WEC, one forgets he is in Ocala for a moment, if only because such a facility has never existed here before. Soon, walking the grounds of WEC one will know that such a place could only be in Ocala.

At every corner there is reason for pride in our community, as small as it is but leaving a rather large footprint. It’s not just the buildings, the businesses or the art, but the people themselves that give Ocala its unique character – people generous in spirit, charity, creativity and talent.

Our latest source of pride comes in the form of a few female athletes excelling in the most unlikely of places: a winter sport. Most recently, Ocala’s Erin Jackson captured the gold medal in the 500-meter race at the ISU Speedskating World Cup in Poland.

To win the event, Jackson beat 2018 Olympic gold medalist Nao Kodaira with a personal-best time of 37.08 seconds. She is also the first black American woman to win a World Cup race in speedskating and is now among the favorites to vie for a gold medal in the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing.

Jackson is a relative newcomer on the speedskating scene, but Ocala’s Brittany Bowe is the veteran. The 33-year-old Bowe won the gold medal in the women’s 1000-meter race and followed that up with a silver in the 1500m in Poland to solidify her standing as among the favorites in Beijing.

In the 2015 World Single Distance Championships, Bowe won two gold medals and a silver and is the current world record holder in the 1000m with a time of 1:11.61.

When Jackson’s and Bowe’s names are announced in Beijing, the world will hear they are both from Ocala. Ten years ago, everyone watching would have asked, “Where’s Ocala?”

Not today.