2018.
What can I say about you?
What GOOD can I say about you?
2017 was a year of deaths.
Big loud famous deaths, with quiet more personal ones tucked in here and there.
I miss my friend.
People were still dying in 2018.
The personal touch deaths did outweigh the famous ones.
Horrible, horrible deaths of Those Who Should Have Stayed.
They could have been the Shining Examples in a rotting world.
In fact, some WERE that Shining Example.
Why were they taken?
Just why?
Then there were older people dying, some foreseen, some not.
Rex's brothers have all crossed from this life to that, and leave behind families and friends and love.
Love remains.
Love always remains.
After a while it can even be a comfort instead of a black hole of emptiness.
Things die, too.
Appliances.
Cars.
Lifestyles.
All these losses happened in 2018. To me, to my loved ones, to others, to strangers.
They happened, as they always have and always will.
Together we get through it. Not always well, not always happily, but somehow. Bubble gum and chicken wire. Rubber bands and paper clips. A MacGyvered life.
All that noted, the most lasting impression I have of 2018 is that it has been the year of BAD CANDY.
Who knew there was such a thing?
And yet, from the time of crisis at the Necco plant, the year 2018 has been about BAD CANDY.
Much of the media, covering said Necco factory, proclaimed it to be a not-a-story, because people didn't care. Neccos are a BAD CANDY, generally unpopular with the public.
They did NOT explain why they were so assiduously covering this non-story
The year continued with "worst candy" lists.
Worst Valentines -- conversation hearts. The staple; the standard, after chocolate. (Everything comes after chocolate, right?)
Worst Easter -- Peeps. Another standard. I will say, though, that in trying to stay viable throughput the year, the Peeps people flooded the market and destroyed the exclusiveness of their little pink and purple chicks.
Summer came and they had to make do with produce and meat recalls, and fall back on Necco stories.
Worst Halloween -- candy corn.
Then there was a whole list of Christmas candies. A Top Ten Bad Candies for Christmas.
Eight of those were standard standbys for the season.
Who knew there were so many bad candies?
Who had even heard of such a thing?
Now, there are some candies that I have wondered how they are even considered candies. Licorice. Horehound.
But to peoples eating bland boring (winter) diets, I can see that the bite -- the burst of flavor and the tang -- would make thise things treats, if not what we consider candy.
So
Goodbye 2018.
Take with you the idea of Bad Candy.
There is no such thing.
What can I say about you?
What GOOD can I say about you?
2017 was a year of deaths.
Big loud famous deaths, with quiet more personal ones tucked in here and there.
I miss my friend.
People were still dying in 2018.
The personal touch deaths did outweigh the famous ones.
Horrible, horrible deaths of Those Who Should Have Stayed.
They could have been the Shining Examples in a rotting world.
In fact, some WERE that Shining Example.
Why were they taken?
Just why?
Then there were older people dying, some foreseen, some not.
Rex's brothers have all crossed from this life to that, and leave behind families and friends and love.
Love remains.
Love always remains.
After a while it can even be a comfort instead of a black hole of emptiness.
Things die, too.
Appliances.
Cars.
Lifestyles.
All these losses happened in 2018. To me, to my loved ones, to others, to strangers.
They happened, as they always have and always will.
Together we get through it. Not always well, not always happily, but somehow. Bubble gum and chicken wire. Rubber bands and paper clips. A MacGyvered life.
All that noted, the most lasting impression I have of 2018 is that it has been the year of BAD CANDY.
Who knew there was such a thing?
And yet, from the time of crisis at the Necco plant, the year 2018 has been about BAD CANDY.
Much of the media, covering said Necco factory, proclaimed it to be a not-a-story, because people didn't care. Neccos are a BAD CANDY, generally unpopular with the public.
They did NOT explain why they were so assiduously covering this non-story
The year continued with "worst candy" lists.
Worst Valentines -- conversation hearts. The staple; the standard, after chocolate. (Everything comes after chocolate, right?)
Worst Easter -- Peeps. Another standard. I will say, though, that in trying to stay viable throughput the year, the Peeps people flooded the market and destroyed the exclusiveness of their little pink and purple chicks.
Summer came and they had to make do with produce and meat recalls, and fall back on Necco stories.
Worst Halloween -- candy corn.
Then there was a whole list of Christmas candies. A Top Ten Bad Candies for Christmas.
Eight of those were standard standbys for the season.
Who knew there were so many bad candies?
Who had even heard of such a thing?
Now, there are some candies that I have wondered how they are even considered candies. Licorice. Horehound.
But to peoples eating bland boring (winter) diets, I can see that the bite -- the burst of flavor and the tang -- would make thise things treats, if not what we consider candy.
So
Goodbye 2018.
Take with you the idea of Bad Candy.
There is no such thing.
