A wonderful time of the year

Yes it is Christmas Day as I write. Cold and blustery with concerning roads as my daughter and husband drive back home to Omaha. We track their progress and wish them well. Update: They made it just fine but reported that the roads were really terrible. Undoubtedly thousands of families throughout our country are experiencing the same concerns.

So much fun, pure joy, watching our five great-grandsons opening their presents. Excitement, tearing of paper, a happy thank you and “what’s next”. A concerned mom, grandmother and great-grandmother worrying about when to serve the grand breakfast they have prepared. That is the way that it has been at our house since time immemorial and may it ever be. It is a wonderful time of the year.

In the quiet hours back home since the departure of family your old columnist has been contemplating the future. Both Grannie and I are noticing that our bodies are functioning less well than in the past. At our house we don’t use the term “old”; it is just that we are becoming “more mature”! Nevertheless having too many birthdays is hard on the old body. Evidently the brain suffers also as it is getting harder all the time to recall names of friends and places. My maternal grandmother died in a mental institution. My father died of Alzheimer’s disease and yet I don’t think that it is your old writer’s turn to go that way. Like a nurse told my neighbor when he expressed the same concern she said “You’ll be the last to know!” No matter both of us being of strong Christian faith know that our sins are forgiven by our Lord and savior Jesus Christ and are promised everlasting life when it is time to go. We are prepared but neither of us is in any hurry.

Now the immediate challenge is to take off the pounds that I’ve accumulated over this wonderful holiday eating candy and all the special treats that are made for Christmas. Discipline. Luckily the awesome nurses that run our Cardiac Rehab unit at Community Hospital will encourage and challenge me to do it as part of their program.

In our case where we have lived all over this great United States of America it has been wonderful to hear via, cards and letters, from friends, far and wide. Many write of maladies they are experiencing but mostly of their happy families.

Teaching people to fly is happiness for me to see them flying modern fighters, tankers and several airline pilots. A large number just fly for fun and even a couple are also teaching others to fly. Flight instruction has been a satisfying career as have all my other ventures in aviation. I’ve been blessed to follow that path in life.

Of concern is the fractious state of politics in our beloved country. The open southern border is allowing illegal unvetted immigrants into our midst and I fear that a few will be up to no good. The cost to feed and house them, even temporarily, is a burden that we all have to share. Unchecked stealing is not good for our communities. The unjustified dream of preventing global warming countered by ridiculously expensive alternative solar and wind power, electric powered vehicles, all to cut down on the use of fossil fuels like gasoline is wrecking our economy. Some politicians do not understand that their profligate spending is causing inflation which is an unjustified burden at the grocery store and about every other place that we have to spend money to live comfortably. The list goes on but we the people still have the ability to change our ills by voting wisely.

Have a happy new year!

That is the way I saw it.

Dick Trail