An Interesting 2021 Already

Well 2021 is shaping up to be an interesting year just two weeks in.

For two months all eyes, and I mean all eyes national and international, were upon our precious state borders to see how this political dual senate runoff would pan out on January 5. Would the “red” incumbents prevail or would the “blue” challengers complete the flip.

Well the contests did not disappoint us with providing entertainment throughout the 60 days that it raged on. The ads, so glad they are now gone, continued to get grimier and grimier the closer it got to election day which was suspenseful itself with the back and forth lead changes throughout the night.

Robyn and Jacob are always interested in why I am so interested in politics whether it’s local, national or international. It started as a kid watching my sister Karen watch Dan Rather and Ted Koppel each night on the Nightly News. I thought she was weird, my sister that is, but I learned a lot about the world, culture, and politics during those years and it influenced me to want to learn more about politics and culture.

After an internship in the State of Florida Governors Office, I realized it was more about the latter than the former. As a student and adult I quickly learned that if you want to know about any particular culture then you must understand the politics embedded in that culture. So that is how I explained my interests to the kids.

Last year during initial pandemic asynchronous learning, my son began studying state and national government. So after learning some facts about the State Capitol, the state Supreme Court and Senate and House Chambers, I decided to have a weekend field trip down Capitol Avenue with a stop at Krispy Kreme on the way.

He knew the Capitol building clearly, we drove by it everytime we would visit Turner Field, the Aquarium, Phillips Arena, or any of the various downtown Atlanta events we frequented. However I don’t think he ever really “took it in” despite seeing it often and he had no clue where the judicial building was because I never circled around the Capitol en route to wherever we were headed. So our field trip was quite enlightening for him.

So we endure two months to get beyond January 5 and hopefully less coronavirus and more vaccine availability when the events of January 6 happen at the nation’s Capitol. On an afternoon when I would have normally been at home in front of the tube, I was at the dentist with my son watching Shrek. With my phone in my handbag, I kept hearing notification dings like messages being left and there were. Kathy had texted “are you watching this?” My sister texted, “this is a mess” and a few others sent memes. So I abandoned my texts and went to the internet to watch what was unfolding.

It was mesmerizing to watch—sad but mesmerizing. It was an action thriller with no acting that put many lives in danger and lost five in the process. I ended up watching the footage well into the night at some points with the kids. Jacob asked, “is this normal?” To which I said “supposedly not in America but that it did happen before in 1812.” He paused for a minute and said, “why do the bad things seem to happen every hundred years. The last pandemic was a hundred years ago and now this riot.”

I didn’t have time to respond when my daughter piped out that “maybe it was not for us to know or to question because God handles everything.” I would just like to add that she got a new King James version bible for Christmas, at her request, and has been reading it regularly while also encouraging her mom to read with her.

After her remark I changed the channel and the conversation. As a parent, there are some things you just won’t have the words to explain completely to your young children like a Breonna Taylor, Armaud Arbery, or riot situation in addition to the aftermath that follows.

I tell them that in life they should always be aware, be informed, and be mindful of their surroundings—as we all should be.