Happy New Year!

I’ve been trying to zero in on what I should blog about after my absence. My holiday break? All the fun and exciting things we did at OTN this past semester and what we have planned for the spring? Andy Rautins knee?

I don’t think so.

I think I’d rather tell you how I feel today.

Mostly I’m anxious. I’m anxious about this economy. Coming to work everyday with NPR is like listening to a doctor when he comes into the examining room with the test results. Will it be bad news or good news?

The Dow goes up. It goes down. More people are laid off from a company and there’s another stimulus package being planned. It seems like when we get a really lousy piece of news; another follows it.

And I’m anxious for you, the students. How many of you are being impacted by this? I’m guessing that your family is feeling this in some way too which has to trickle down to you. If you’re about to graduate this May, you must be worried that getting that first job will be twice as hard as it was last year. And with those loans to pay off, I imagine you have concerns.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about my father and his generation lately. Pop was born in 1916 and grew up during the Great Depression. When he was 25 the United States entered World War II. Compared to him and his generation, we’ve had kind of an easy time of things. But I’ve been trying to imagine what he was thinking with all the upheaval his generation was going through? They certainly didn’t ask for those troubles but they were handed to them nonetheless. Did it make them feel as powerless as it makes me feel today?

I played by the rules here, lived within my means, saved some money, worked hard at my job and tried to live a decent life. And it has all been upended by greed. And I never saw it coming. I guess I feel something else today, a little anger. I’m a little p@#$ed that there are people who knew that what they were doing was wrong but kept on doing it for their own rewards, not caring how it would impact the rest of us.

But then I think of my father. I never asked him how he felt about being handed such a lousy hand of cards in his early life. But based on his life, I’m guessing he did what we’re all trying to do, just trying to live a good, decent and fulfilling life.

I’m really glad Andy Rautins knee is okay, maybe that’s a sign of things to come.