Barking and howling into Christmas

It’s a week before Christmas, which means it is time for that Annual Holiday Letter and a good shot of freezing rain. Last Christmas Dolores and I both came down with Covid. Bah humbug!

Dolores is much better. She is everywhere all at once. God bless her. God bless son Tom, too, who has taken over the daily news grind as our managing editor. He does a tremendous job trying to make sure we cover all the bases.

A gentleman caller accompanied Clare home from Chicago for a visit, which seems newsworthy. Joe is doing as well as he ever has, fiddling away in New Orleans. Kieran and Holly are cheering the Cyclones from their nest in North Liberty.

I’m becoming an old crank. I used to be a young crank. I put on several decades the evening of Nov. 5 when we elected Donald Trump, convicted felon. Sleep has been fitful, anxiety plentiful.

Just yesterday morning I barked and howled at Tom over something small. In the afternoon, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack called to complain about my column complaining about him, and I came unglued. He was trying to explain big investments made in climate-smart agriculture (Correction: Although USDA earlier reported Tyson would receive a grant, it did not sign a contract, Vilsack said). Millions were showered on Iowa, he noted. I was thinking of the movie line: “Don’t pee on my boots and tell me it’s raining.”

I wish I could learn when to shut up.

Peace. That is supposed to be the theme. An infant born in a barn would be a light against the prevailing darkness. Peace is made through reconciliation. You can’t go there by being an old crank, frustrated and alienated.

At the same time, it is difficult to watch us forsake the gift of living in the land of the free and the horn of bounty in Iowa. We are chasing off Creation down the river and into the wind. We are drinking the well dry for the sake of a cheap holiday ham. We are denying our neighbors the freedoms we think we enjoy.

It might just be the medical treatment making me cranky. I was diagnosed with cancer in March and, even though it will be cured, it acquainted me with mortality as only March in Iowa can. If the cancer doesn’t get you a heart attack or something else will. It is sobering but liberating when you realize you’re going for broke. We all are, which is easy for us mere mortals to forget.

We could do so much better. That’s what I keep thinking. This was the year we aimed low and achieved it. You just can’t be satisfied with that. Try to be loving, I tell my own knucklehead. Try. That involves listening. I can do better.

Is that the light? Yeah, the sun is briefly peeking out. The freezing rain can come later. It’s been that sort of year.